Season 12 superfinal, games 55-58

After 58 games Stockfish leads 13-7 with 38 draws. The draw rate continues to be low, now at 65.5%. Three of the 29 openings so far resulted in a biased result of one win per engine. Jeroen's opening choices seem to be more extreme this superfinal.

Stockfish started game 28.1 a pawn up and with an eval close to 1.5. Komodo's king was exposed and uncastled, it walked to the queen side for safety. Evals gradually increased as the engines exchanged pieces, by move 26 the game reached a QRN vs QRN position.

After exchanging pawns the a file opened. Komodo tried to block the two open files with its pieces, while its queen covered 4 black pawns, all unsupported. The black pieces were overworked and it was just a matter of time for Stockfish to find a way in.

Stockfish managed to double its queen and rook on the f file, and then win a pawn and exchange the rooks. The king side pawns could start to march and the game was adjudicated.

In game 28.2 Stockfish kept its king in the center. Komodo gave 4 pawns, opening up its queen side completely, while Stockfish gave a rook for a knight.

The black king was open to diagonal attacks. Evals slowly increased as Stockfish exchanged pieces to relieve the pressure on its king. The game reached a RRN vs RBN position on move 35.

Stockfish's only asset was a queen side passer. After exchanging a pair of rooks Komodo slowly move its pieces until it could attack the pawn with two pieces. On move 55 is finally captured the pawn.

Komodo was in a winning position. After a while it captured a pawn on the king side and then the game was adjudicated. Another biased opening, this is the 3rd one so far. As in the previous cases the engines took different paths to win.

The engines castled in opposite directions in game 29.1. Stockfish pushed pawns on the king side and opened the h file. In a series of exchanges Komodo gave a knight for 2 pawns. Evals were over 3 and increasing at this point.

Stockfish attacked the king side with its major pieces, Komodo only defense was to exchange pieces resulting in a Q vs R ending.

The two extra black pawns were insignificant, an easy win for Stockfish.

In the reverse game 29.2 Komodo did not attack on the king side. The main focus was the center of the board, the engines exchanged pieces and by move 31 only RB vs RB remained. Evals continued to decrease towards 0, Komodo had a queen side passer but after exchaging rooks it could not push it forward. The game ended in a draw.