Montreal team in the "Pro Chess League" will have Fabiano Caruana on board 1!

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  • Montreal team in the "Pro Chess League" will have Fabiano Caruana on board 1!

    The Montreal "Chessbrahs" are the latest team to enter the Pro Chess League - a successor to the US Chess League - teams based in various US cities competing over the Internet. The new league will be international.

    Besides Caruana, Montreal will have players such as GM Eric Hansen, IM Aman Hambleton, FM Lefong Hua, and Elias Oussedik. The names of Dutch GM's Robin van Kampen and Jorden van Forest are also mentioned. One of the four players in each match can be a "foreigner". Over 30 teams have signed up - including a Norwegian team with Magnus Carlson on board 1.

    Weekly matches are scheduled to start in January. All/most games will be broadcast live on chess.com.

    https://www.chess.com/news/carlsen-c...ss-league-9733

    General info:

    http://uschessleague.com/
    Last edited by Hugh Brodie; Thursday, 10th November, 2016, 11:26 PM.

  • #2
    Re: Montreal team in the "Pro Chess League" will have Fabiano Caruana on board 1!

    The match format:

    Each match will consist of four players on your team facing off against four players on the opposing team.

    The time control will be 15-minutes with a 2-second increment.

    It will be an all-play-all format: All four players on your team will face all four players on the other team.
    A full match should take between 120 and 150 minutes to complete.

    The matches begin on Wednesday Jan 11, and continue on every Wednesday until the end of March. Throughout the season, teams near the bottom of the standings will face each other in elimination matches.

    Your players can play from their computers at home! They can also all play together from a central location.

    If you are located in a large city with many players to choose from, it’s possible for your city to have more than one team.

    We will do everything possible to make sure the majority of your matches are in a similar time zone as your team. However on the rare weeks in which many matches take place out of the same time zone, the games are likely to be scheduled on Saturday instead of Wednesday.

    We will have anti-cheating detection methods, and in some cases require extra security for players.

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    • #3
      Re: Montreal team in the "Pro Chess League" will have Fabiano Caruana on board 1!

      Toronto will also be fielding a team, the Toronto Dragons. Our team is mainly Canadian players, GM Bator Sambuev, IM Nikolay Noritsyn, GM Thomas Roussel-Roozmon, GM Razvan Preotu, IM Raja Panjwani, FM Shiyam Thavandiran, IM Kaiqi Yang, IM Arthur Calugar and IM Michael Song, but Romania's GM Gergely-Andras-Gyula Szabo will also be joining us, as he has acted as trainer for many of Canada's juniors.

      As Hugh notes, chess.com tv will be covering the games live, Wednesday evenings from 7 p.m.

      You can read more about the Toronto team on the Fan Club page on Facebook:

      https://www.facebook.com/todragonschess/

      In addition to Carlsen and Caruana, American GM Hikaru Nakamura has also joined the League, and will be playing for a team called the Miami Champions. The full details on all the other teams have not been announced yet, but Greg Shahade is putting up profiles on the chess.com front page or in a chess.com "club" called Pro Chess League.

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      • #4
        Re: Montreal team in the "Pro Chess League" will have Fabiano Caruana on board 1!

        I'm looking forward to this. I'm sure people will complain that purity is lost at faster time controls but, on the other hand, if it gets more people excited about chess, that can only be a good thing. I have a Guyanese coworker who is cricket mad but generally turns his nose up at anything shorter than a five day test, which is cool. The test matches still happen. In this modern age, though, it's one day and Twenty20 that really put the fans in the stands. Maybe this is what chess needs.

        Plus, all that Can-con has me geeking out. :-)

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        • #5
          Re: Montreal team in the "Pro Chess League" will have Fabiano Caruana on board 1!

          Re: the Toronto team - according to the rules, Bator and Thomas would be considered "free agents" (i.e. outside a 2-hour driving radius of the host city) and thus only one of them could play in any given round.

          https://www.chess.com/article/view/h...ue#localvsfree

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          • #6
            Re: Montreal team in the "Pro Chess League" will have Fabiano Caruana on board 1!

            Even when the League was just for the U.S., there were a few Canadians playing. Anton Kovalyov played for the Rio Grande Ospreys in 2014 and 2015. Pascal Charbonneau won game of the year prizes playing for Baltimore in 2005 and New York in 2006.

            http://uschessleague.com/games2005/c...nneauannot.htm

            http://uschessleague.com/games2006/b...rbonneau06.htm

            Raja Panjwani played second board for New York one year, and Yuanling Yuan played for Connecticut in 2012. It'll be good though having at least two Canadian teams in the League next year.

            On the live stream on chess.com, they plan to have GM Simon Williams and GM Robert Hess commenting on the games, and interviews with one or two of the players, so that should be interesting to watch. GM Williams is quite a colourful character, and GM Hess has been producing some instructive annotations on the Carlsen-Karjakin match.

            The tournament itself has no entry fee, and it will give our players a chance to gain some international experience, facing off against some of the world's top GMs. We might even score the odd upset, calling attention to how strong Canadian chess has become.

            The Canadian teams are going to be quite competitive I think partly because of a rule limiting the four boards which play to an average rating of 2500. That means on the teams with Carlsen or Nakamura, they will have to field a lower rated player on fourth boards to keep from going over the limit. Quite a few teams will have a shot at advancing to the playoffs, and even the final won't be a foregone conclusion. It should be quite exciting to watch!
            Last edited by Glenn Giffen; Friday, 25th November, 2016, 08:54 AM.

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            • #7
              Re: Montreal team in the "Pro Chess League" will have Fabiano Caruana on board 1!

              Pascal Charbonneau has played in the League every year since 2007.

              http://uschessleague.com/player.php?...al-charbonneau

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              • #8
                Re: Montreal team in the "Pro Chess League" will have Fabiano Caruana on board 1!

                Hi Hugh,

                Happy to add that Montreal residents GM Lesiege and FM Kleinman will also be on the squad. Looking forward to an exciting season while I am also considering options to make it viewer friendly in-person.


                Eric

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                • #9
                  Re: Montreal team in the "Pro Chess League" will have Fabiano Caruana on board 1!

                  Sounds great, Eric. I watched your Twitch.tv show with Alexandra Botez the other day. Good stuff.

                  Toronto has been placed in the North American Eastern Division. We are all looking forward to our match with Montreal.
                  Last edited by Glenn Giffen; Monday, 5th December, 2016, 10:40 AM.

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                  • #10
                    Re: Montreal team in the "Pro Chess League" will have Fabiano Caruana on board 1!

                    I've posted the Toronto Dragons preliminary schedule and a list of all the teams in the Blue Division (Americas East) to our fan club on Facebook. Toronto and Montreal will meet each other in round 2 on Wednesday, January 18 at 7:20 p.m. Montreal is to face Magnus Carlsen's Norway Gnomes in round 5, Saturday February 11 at 10:40 a.m., and then Hikaru Nakamura's Miami Champions in round 6 on Wednesday February 15 at 7:20 p.m.

                    https://www.facebook.com/todragonschess/
                    Last edited by Glenn Giffen; Sunday, 11th December, 2016, 03:31 PM.

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                    • #11
                      Re: Montreal team in the "Pro Chess League" will have Fabiano Caruana on board 1!

                      Pascal Charbonneau is heading the Montclair Sopranos, and Anton Kovalyov may be playing for the Rio Grande Ospreys again this year. Those two teams are scheduled to meet in round 4.

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                      • #12
                        Re: Montreal team in the "Pro Chess League" will have Fabiano Caruana on board 1!

                        Greg Shahade has released a list of the players on each team. In the Orange (Europe Africa Asia East) Division, Magnus Carlsen is leading the Norway Gnomes. In the Green (Europe Africa West) Division, Maxim Vachier-Lagrave and Etienne Bacrot are playing for the Marseille Migraines, Loek Van Wely is leading the Amsterdam Mosquitos, and Luke McShane is leading the London Lions. In the Blue (Americas East) Division, Fabiano is playing for Montreal, and Hikaru Nakamura is playing for the Miami Champions. Out west in the Red (Americas West) Division, Wesley So is leading the Saint Louis Arch Bishops, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov is in the San Jose Hackers and Ray Robson is in the Webster Windmills.

                        Most of the top Canadian players are playing in the Blue (Americas East) Division as has been mentioned - Montreal, Toronto and Pascal for Montclair. Anton Kovalyov has been confirmed for the Rio Grande Ospreys in the Red (Americas West) Division.
                        Last edited by Glenn Giffen; Monday, 19th December, 2016, 04:06 PM.

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                        • #13
                          Re: Montreal team in the "Pro Chess League" will have Fabiano Caruana on board 1!

                          I've posted the player rosters for all the teams in the Blue (Americas East) Division to our group on Facebook. Also the London Towers team roster as we face them in round 5.

                          https://www.facebook.com/todragonschess/

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                          • #14
                            Re: Montreal team in the "Pro Chess League" will have Fabiano Caruana on board 1!

                            1) Where can I find a complete schedule of all matches by all teams?
                            2) When a match is scheduled, are all players from the same team physically in one place? If so - where in Montreal and Toronto? Or do they each play from a computer no matter where in the world a team member happens to be? If that's the case - what kind of anti-cheating procedures are in place?
                            3) Will the games be available to follow online?

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Re: Montreal team in the "Pro Chess League" will have Fabiano Caruana on board 1!

                              Originally posted by Hugh Brodie View Post
                              1) Where can I find a complete schedule of all matches by all teams?
                              I don't think the official schedule has been released yet. Montreal is currently slated to play the New York Knights in R1, the Toronto Dragons in R2, Buenos Aires Krakens in R3, Carolina Cobras in R4, Norway Gnomes in R5, and Miami Champions in R6. Their R7 opponents will be announced later.

                              Originally posted by Hugh Brodie View Post
                              2) When a match is scheduled, are all players from the same team physically in one place? If so - where in Montreal and Toronto? Or do they each play from a computer no matter where in the world a team member happens to be? If that's the case - what kind of anti-cheating procedures are in place?
                              In the U.S. Chess League, matches were played in a physical club in the city. Next year, they are allowing players to play from their homes. Chess.com has an anti-cheating detection team which will be monitoring all the games. If they are sure a player is cheating, that player will be ejected from the tournament, and their opponents will be awarded the points for the games that player played. If someone's play seems suspicious or they are playing at a much higher level than you would expect, an arbiter will be called in to watch them play, or they will have to set up a camera to show themselves playing. In chess.com's Titled Tuesdays tournaments, a couple of titled players were disqualified for cheating. This rule with the arbiter might be new though.

                              Originally posted by Hugh Brodie View Post
                              3) Will the games be available to follow online?
                              You will be able to follow each game as it is being played on chess.com's live server. GMs Simon Williams and Robert Hess will be doing colour commentary on chess.com's Twitch.tv channel. Above, Eric was also hinting that he might show his own games on his Twitch.tv channel.

                              After the games finish, you should be able to find them by going to each player's public profile page on chess.com.
                              Last edited by Glenn Giffen; Wednesday, 21st December, 2016, 06:31 PM.

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