Bears and Roosters clash!

by David Pruess, manager

The most exciting clash of the Central Division's regular season is probably tomorrow's match between the Germany Bears and the France Roosters. The two teams are currently tied for first in the standings:

And I have placed the Bears higher in my power rankings last week (5th v 7th in the league). However, this week both teams are missing their top stars: Anton Korobov for the Bears and MVL for the Roosters. Which team does this hurt more? Surprisingly to some, I think it's the Bears. Although I consider them to have slightly stronger possible lineups than the Roosters right now, here's how I rate the two lineups that will play tomorrow:

I'm not going to explain where PAPR comes from right now, but suffice it to say it stands for "Pruess Accurate PCL Rating," and it is... accurate. A 9 point advantage in average rating suggests an expected score of 8.16-7.84 in favor of France, i.e. that they should win by 1 game out of every 44 if this match were played hundreds of times. Certainly not enough to pick a favorite, especially with some question marks on the match. Tomczak who has only played one match in 2020 is not easy to evaluate. His PAPR is not very accurate yet; but thanks to comments, I have updated it to include his 2019 season, so I expect him to do well. The biggest ? is Maxime Lagarde who has recently increased his FIDE and FIDE rapid ratings to great heights, and whose PAPR reflects that, despite his PCL results not being exciting yet this season. If he has another mediocre day, that will be enough for the Bears to take it. But for now, I'm going to predict a tie Rooster 8- Bears 8

What would this match have looked like had Korobov and MVL been able to play?

As you can see, Germany is favored by a bit in that case. So I would have predicted a German win 8.5-7.5, especially as the French have not yet performed as well as their FIDE ratings imply, so I'd have to give the nod to current PCL performance.

And if you didn't yet know that Korobov is the best player in the 2020 PCL so far, then the thought that adding him and MVL would strongly help Germany should help alert you to that!

Happy viewing tomorrow! I'll be rooting for Meier and Gozzoli, and a close match.

Who are you rooting for? Who do you predict to win?