Season 12 live blogging, Thursday Apr 26th

Division 3 is running, Ethereal and Xiphos are joined by 6 more engines, all trying to promote to the next division and to avoid relegation. The second double round has just ended - in the new games schedule reverse games are played consecutively. We join game 17 ChessBrain vs Pedone, the engines currently in the lead with two wins and two draws each.

move 10 - the engines are playing a Queen's Indian Petrosian line, move order was a bit unusual but it transposed back on move 8, and then diverged from opening databases.

move 13 - Pedone pushed the c pawn and forced white to move a bishop. ChessBrain's eval was climbing for a bit but dropped back. Pedone is harassing the white LSB, while both its own bishops are quite restricted.

move 16 - Pedone expected to exchange bishops, ChessBrain chose to move its bishop away and threaten the black king. ChessBrain's eval is rising again, Pedone's going to 0.

move 18 - Pedone's queen side rook looks miserable, blocked by its own pieces. The king side looks ready for a white attack. However, even ChessBrain thinks Pedone is still solid enough. Now Pedone's eval is slightly negative? Its PV shows many exchanges and a pawn advantage.

move 21 - Evals back to positive. ChessBrain's PV shows a different story, a pawn advantage for white. The queen side looks blocked now, expect action on the king side. Pedone freed its queen side rook and both evals close to 0.

move 25 - engines are pushing pawns on both sides, the position is opening up. ChessBrain's eval is higher again, it's fluctuating a lot. Pedone is seeing many exchanges, will ChessBrain simplify this time? It appeared to sacrifice a knight but Pedone left it alone - probably too dangerous.

move 30 - ChessBrain has a bishop pair, probably contributing to the eval. Now Pedone has a pawn advantage on the queen side, the king side attack is not picking up and the white king is also exposed. Will ChessBrain's eval hold over 0.5?

move 35 - more simplifications, now queens are off and rooks may be next. Time is running short and the engines will start to blitz moves.

move 41 - ChessBrain gave a rook for a bishop and pawn, hoping its bishop pair is strong enough in a RBB vs RRN position. Pedone gave another pawn, evals dropping. Pedone is planning to get rid of a white bishop, and here is the simplification. The B vs R endgame is going to be a draw unless an engine blunders.

That's it for me for this session. The draw rule is in effect, probably a draw soon.