Season 12 live blogging, Saturday Apr 28th

Division 3 is getting close to the halfway point. Nemorino just completed two straight wins against Senpai, and this means that Wasp and Senpai are the candidates for relegation with Nemorino 2 points away. So far ChessBrain and Xiphos are leading, if Ethereal has a good result in its next two games against Pedone it may join the leaders. Pedone is also on crash alert, having crashed once in the division.

 

First game Pedone is in white.

move 10 - The engines started with a classical line of the Caro-Kann. So far Ethereal hasn't castled, with the h file open it may go the other way. Evals are close to 0, looks like Pedone has no opening advantage.

move 15 - Ethereal castled king side, and Pedone moved a rook to the h file, threatening the black king. Pedone's eval is rising, it may be planning a king side attack.

move 21 - now the white queen is on the h file and the black king is on the run. Evals over 1, Ethereal is in trouble.

move 25 - Pedone is a pawn down and Ethereal is countering on the queen side. The black king is safe in the center for now, evals are decreasing.

move 28 - Pedone can take on d4 but prefers to wait and not exchange pieces yet.

move 30 - BOOM, eval jump. Did Ethereal miss something? Pedone is driving the black queen away, the PVs show a material advantage for white.

move 33 - evals over 7, Ethereal gave a rook for a bishop, probably the black king is not safe. The game is going to end soon if Pedone doesn't crash.

move 36 - game over, Pedone is in third place, with the same score as Ethereal.

The rematch will start immediately.

move 5 - this is a different Caro-Kann, Tartakower variation. 

move 8 - still following theory, Pedone is taking its time and each move I wonder if it crashed.

move 12 - Pedone left theory on move 9, Ethereal's king moved without castling, but evals favor white. Ethereal is pushing the h pawn with an eval jump, king side attack? Is the white king safe enough for this? Pedone is not impressed.

move 15 - the black king looks in danger but the white DSB is trapped and evals dropped to 0. The white king side is still not developed, the rook is also trapped, evals get slightly negative.

move 18 - the black bishops are very active, Ethereal with a very long think and a strange a3 move. Negative evals are climbing, now over 1 for Pedone.

move 23 - Pedone appears to be on its way to a double win over Ethereal. The white DSB fights out of the trap, Pedone winning a knight for pawns.

move 28 - double BOOM, Pedone's eval jumped over 7 in two moves. Ethereal is overlooking something important.

move 30 - again king safety issues for Ethereal. it lost control of the e2 square and the king is under attack. Game is going to end in a few moves, even faster than the previous game.

move 32 - game over, quite incredible. When it is not crashing Pedone is playing very well. The race for promotion is still wide open.