Season 11 live blogging, Friday 2nd March

Finally I have some time to look at a game live, lately I have been barely able to keep up with the game reports.

This is the round 34 Ginkgo - Fizbo game. Ginkgo has no real chance of avoiding relegation, even though there are still many games to play in the division. This is however a chance to get a win, none for Ginkgo so far. Fizbo is still hanging on, hoping to catch up with Andscacs in 6th place. In RR5 Andscacs gained 0.5 points on Fizbo, Fizbo needs wins but playing black it will be a challenge.

move 11: Ginkgo was given an advantage out of the opening, so far Fizbo is not worried, it will probably castle its king soon.

move 13: The black knight on b4 looks annoying, black also has some control on the long diagonal facing the white king and Ginkgo blocks that first, and then a3 to drive the knight away.

move 15: It seems Ginkgo wants to exchange LSBs, the black bishop on b7 is a danger for the white king. However, pushing e5 creates weak squares in the center. Fizbo looks comfortable though Ginkgo has a space advantage.

move 16: Evals are going slowly down towards 0, if we see exchanges in the PVs the game may become a fast draw. Fizbo wants to get rid of the e5 pawn to free its knight. It appears it wants to go d6, in the previous PV it thought about f6.

move 19: As expected Fizbo moved d6 to remove the e5 pawn. The c and d files are open with black major pieces on them. Fizbo's PV shows all bishops exchanged, the game is heading towards a boring draw. We need some kind of blunder to make it more interesting.

move 21: Ginkgo exchanged the LSBs first, Fizbo's eval is negative for the first time, now the black queen is on the long diagonal.

move 24: Fizbo is looking better now that the center is cleared and with its bishop and queen aiming at the white king. Ginkgo is exchanging rooks, Fizbo likes it and its eval is a little more negative.

move 26: the white d pawn is isolated and the f pawn is also weak. The engines are fighting for control over the e5 square, a potential for more exchanges.

I had to go for an hour, came back to move 60, looking at what I missed...
Fizbo's evals continued to be negative, even getting close to 1. Ginkgo exchanged everything and by move 50 only queens remained. On move 63 Fizbo realized it had nothing and the game will either be adjudicated or end by repetition.

move 72: queen exchange, the engines are prolonging the inevitable draw.

The draw is not good for either engine, Ginkgo still without a win, Fizbo is 2 points behind Andscacs.