diff --git a/examples/pipeline/wiki_entity_linking/train_descriptions.py b/examples/pipeline/wiki_entity_linking/train_descriptions.py
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..63149b5f7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/examples/pipeline/wiki_entity_linking/train_descriptions.py
@@ -0,0 +1,113 @@
+from random import shuffle
+
+from examples.pipeline.wiki_entity_linking import kb_creator
+
+import numpy as np
+
+from spacy._ml import zero_init, create_default_optimizer
+from spacy.cli.pretrain import get_cossim_loss
+
+from thinc.v2v import Model
+from thinc.api import chain
+from thinc.neural._classes.affine import Affine
+
+
+class EntityEncoder:
+
+    INPUT_DIM = 300  # dimension of pre-trained vectors
+    DESC_WIDTH = 64
+
+    DROP = 0
+    EPOCHS = 5
+    STOP_THRESHOLD = 0.05
+
+    BATCH_SIZE = 1000
+
+    def __init__(self, kb, nlp):
+        self.nlp = nlp
+        self.kb = kb
+
+    def run(self, entity_descr_output):
+        id_to_descr = kb_creator._get_id_to_description(entity_descr_output)
+
+        processed, loss = self._train_model(entity_descr_output, id_to_descr)
+        print("Trained on", processed, "entities across", self.EPOCHS, "epochs")
+        print("Final loss:", loss)
+        print()
+
+        # TODO: apply and write to file afterwards !
+        # self._apply_encoder(id_to_descr)
+
+    def _train_model(self, entity_descr_output, id_to_descr):
+        # TODO: when loss gets too low, a 'mean of empty slice' warning is thrown by numpy
+
+        self._build_network(self.INPUT_DIM, self.DESC_WIDTH)
+
+        processed = 0
+        loss = 1
+
+        for i in range(self.EPOCHS):
+            entity_keys = list(id_to_descr.keys())
+            shuffle(entity_keys)
+
+            batch_nr = 0
+            start = 0
+            stop = min(self.BATCH_SIZE, len(entity_keys))
+
+            while loss > self.STOP_THRESHOLD and start < len(entity_keys):
+                batch = []
+                for e in entity_keys[start:stop]:
+                    descr = id_to_descr[e]
+                    doc = self.nlp(descr)
+                    doc_vector = self._get_doc_embedding(doc)
+                    batch.append(doc_vector)
+
+                loss = self.update(batch)
+                print(i, batch_nr, loss)
+                processed += len(batch)
+
+                batch_nr += 1
+                start = start + self.BATCH_SIZE
+                stop = min(stop + self.BATCH_SIZE, len(entity_keys))
+
+        return processed, loss
+
+    def _apply_encoder(self, id_to_descr):
+        for id, descr in id_to_descr.items():
+            doc = self.nlp(descr)
+            doc_vector = self._get_doc_embedding(doc)
+            encoding = self.encoder(np.asarray([doc_vector]))
+
+    @staticmethod
+    def _get_doc_embedding(doc):
+        indices = np.zeros((len(doc),), dtype="i")
+        for i, word in enumerate(doc):
+            if word.orth in doc.vocab.vectors.key2row:
+                indices[i] = doc.vocab.vectors.key2row[word.orth]
+            else:
+                indices[i] = 0
+        word_vectors = doc.vocab.vectors.data[indices]
+        doc_vector = np.mean(word_vectors, axis=0)  # TODO: min? max?
+        return doc_vector
+
+    def _build_network(self, orig_width, hidden_with):
+        with Model.define_operators({">>": chain}):
+            self.encoder = (
+                Affine(hidden_with, orig_width)
+            )
+            self.model = self.encoder >> zero_init(Affine(orig_width, hidden_with, drop_factor=0.0))
+
+        self.sgd = create_default_optimizer(self.model.ops)
+
+    def update(self, vectors):
+        predictions, bp_model = self.model.begin_update(np.asarray(vectors), drop=self.DROP)
+
+        loss, d_scores = self.get_loss(scores=predictions, golds=np.asarray(vectors))
+        bp_model(d_scores, sgd=self.sgd)
+
+        return loss / len(vectors)
+
+    @staticmethod
+    def get_loss(golds, scores):
+        loss, gradients = get_cossim_loss(scores, golds)
+        return loss, gradients
diff --git a/examples/pipeline/wiki_entity_linking/train_el.py b/examples/pipeline/wiki_entity_linking/train_el.py
index b9a0dc843..143e38d99 100644
--- a/examples/pipeline/wiki_entity_linking/train_el.py
+++ b/examples/pipeline/wiki_entity_linking/train_el.py
@@ -31,7 +31,7 @@ class EL_Model:
     PRINT_BATCH_LOSS = False
     EPS = 0.0000000005
 
-    BATCH_SIZE = 5
+    BATCH_SIZE = 100
 
     DOC_CUTOFF = 300    # number of characters from the doc context
     INPUT_DIM = 300     # dimension of pre-trained vectors
@@ -41,9 +41,9 @@ class EL_Model:
     ARTICLE_WIDTH = 128
     SENT_WIDTH = 64
 
-    DROP = 0.1
-    LEARN_RATE = 0.001
-    EPOCHS = 5
+    DROP = 0.4
+    LEARN_RATE = 0.005
+    EPOCHS = 10
     L2 = 1e-6
 
     name = "entity_linker"
@@ -62,12 +62,14 @@ class EL_Model:
     def train_model(self, training_dir, entity_descr_output, trainlimit=None, devlimit=None, to_print=True):
         np.seterr(divide="raise", over="warn", under="ignore", invalid="raise")
 
+        id_to_descr = kb_creator._get_id_to_description(entity_descr_output)
+
         train_ent, train_gold, train_desc, train_art, train_art_texts, train_sent, train_sent_texts = \
-            self._get_training_data(training_dir, entity_descr_output, False, trainlimit, to_print=False)
+            self._get_training_data(training_dir, id_to_descr, False, trainlimit, to_print=False)
         train_clusters = list(train_ent.keys())
 
         dev_ent, dev_gold, dev_desc, dev_art, dev_art_texts, dev_sent, dev_sent_texts = \
-            self._get_training_data(training_dir, entity_descr_output, True, devlimit, to_print=False)
+            self._get_training_data(training_dir, id_to_descr, True, devlimit, to_print=False)
         dev_clusters = list(dev_ent.keys())
 
         dev_pos_count = len([g for g in dev_gold.values() if g])
@@ -386,9 +388,7 @@ class EL_Model:
         bp_doc(doc_gradients, sgd=self.sgd_article)
         bp_sent(sent_gradients, sgd=self.sgd_sent)
 
-    def _get_training_data(self, training_dir, entity_descr_output, dev, limit, to_print):
-        id_to_descr = kb_creator._get_id_to_description(entity_descr_output)
-
+    def _get_training_data(self, training_dir, id_to_descr, dev, limit, to_print):
         correct_entries, incorrect_entries = training_set_creator.read_training_entities(training_output=training_dir,
                                                                                          collect_correct=True,
                                                                                          collect_incorrect=True)
diff --git a/examples/pipeline/wiki_entity_linking/wiki_nel_pipeline.py b/examples/pipeline/wiki_entity_linking/wiki_nel_pipeline.py
index 40d737a6f..1f4b4b67e 100644
--- a/examples/pipeline/wiki_entity_linking/wiki_nel_pipeline.py
+++ b/examples/pipeline/wiki_entity_linking/wiki_nel_pipeline.py
@@ -2,6 +2,7 @@
 from __future__ import unicode_literals
 
 from examples.pipeline.wiki_entity_linking import wikipedia_processor as wp, kb_creator, training_set_creator, run_el
+from examples.pipeline.wiki_entity_linking.train_descriptions import EntityEncoder
 from examples.pipeline.wiki_entity_linking.train_el import EL_Model
 
 import spacy
@@ -38,11 +39,14 @@ if __name__ == "__main__":
     to_read_kb = True
     to_test_kb = False
 
+    # run entity description pre-training
+    run_desc_training = True
+
     # create training dataset
     create_wp_training = False
 
-    # run training
-    run_training = True
+    # run EL training
+    run_el_training = False
 
     # apply named entity linking to the dev dataset
     apply_to_dev = False
@@ -101,17 +105,25 @@ if __name__ == "__main__":
             run_el.run_el_toy_example(kb=my_kb, nlp=my_nlp)
             print()
 
+    # STEP 4b : read KB back in from file, create entity descriptions
+    # TODO: write back to file
+    if run_desc_training:
+        print("STEP 4b: training entity descriptions", datetime.datetime.now())
+        my_nlp = spacy.load('en_core_web_md')
+        EntityEncoder(my_kb, my_nlp).run(entity_descr_output=ENTITY_DESCR)
+        print()
+
     # STEP 5: create a training dataset from WP
     if create_wp_training:
         print("STEP 5: create training dataset", datetime.datetime.now())
         training_set_creator.create_training(kb=my_kb, entity_def_input=ENTITY_DEFS, training_output=TRAINING_DIR)
 
     # STEP 6: apply the EL algorithm on the training dataset
-    if run_training:
+    if run_el_training:
         print("STEP 6: training", datetime.datetime.now())
         my_nlp = spacy.load('en_core_web_md')
         trainer = EL_Model(kb=my_kb, nlp=my_nlp)
-        trainer.train_model(training_dir=TRAINING_DIR, entity_descr_output=ENTITY_DESCR, trainlimit=50, devlimit=20)
+        trainer.train_model(training_dir=TRAINING_DIR, entity_descr_output=ENTITY_DESCR, trainlimit=10000, devlimit=500)
         print()
 
     # STEP 7: apply the EL algorithm on the dev dataset
diff --git a/spacy/pipeline/pipes.pyx b/spacy/pipeline/pipes.pyx
index c8afd431e..d0c83b56e 100644
--- a/spacy/pipeline/pipes.pyx
+++ b/spacy/pipeline/pipes.pyx
@@ -1177,6 +1177,8 @@ class EntityLinker(Pipe):
 
     def predict(self, docs):
         self.require_model()
+        final_entities = list()
+        final_kb_ids = list()
         for i, article_doc in enumerate(docs):
             doc_encoding = self.article_encoder([article_doc])
             for ent in article_doc.ents:
@@ -1188,23 +1190,27 @@ class EntityLinker(Pipe):
 
                 candidates = self.kb.get_candidates(ent.text)
                 if candidates:
-                    highest_sim = -5
-                    best_i = -1
                     with self.use_avg_params:
+                        scores = list()
                         for c in candidates:
+                            prior_prob = c.prior_prob
                             kb_id = c.entity_
                             description = self.id_to_descr.get(kb_id)
                             entity_encodings = self.entity_encoder([description])  # TODO: static entity vectors ?
                             sim = cosine(entity_encodings, mention_enc_t)
-                            if sim >= highest_sim:
-                                best_i = i
-                                highest_sim = sim
+                            score = prior_prob + sim - (prior_prob*sim)  # TODO: weights ?
+                            scores.append(score)
 
-                    # TODO best_candidate = max(candidates, key=lambda c: c.prior_prob)
+                        best_index = scores.index(max(scores))
+                        best_candidate = candidates[best_index]
+                        final_entities.append(ent)
+                        final_kb_ids.append(best_candidate)
+
+        return final_entities, final_kb_ids
 
     def set_annotations(self, docs, entities, kb_ids=None):
-        for token, kb_id in zip(entities, kb_ids):
-            token.ent_kb_id_ = kb_id
+        for entity, kb_id in zip(entities, kb_ids):
+            entity.ent_kb_id_ = kb_id
 
 class Sentencizer(object):
     """Segment the Doc into sentences using a rule-based strategy.