Thursday, November 23, 2017

Season 10 live blogging, Thursday Nov 23

Today I'm looking at game 18 of the superfinal between Komodo and Houdini. Komodo is struggling in this match so far, Houdini is 4-0 which to me is a surprise. Not only the result but the way that Houdini finds winning lines and Komodo doesn't in the same openings.

Game 17 just finished and there appears to be a small advantage for black in the opening. As white Komodo managed to get a draw without too much trouble. Can Komodo find a better line as black?

move 11: Komodo diverges with a5, evals are negative but lower than in game 17. Better?

move 12: Houdini is pushing pawns on the king side and Komodo on the queen side. Evals still negative but really low.

move 13: Komodo's eval is at 0! It took the pawn on g4, opening a file on the king side could be a problem here. Komodo sees a repetition draw in the distance in its PV, I never trust these predictions.

move 14: Houdini follows Komodo's PV and takes the h pawn, its eval goes the other way so not a blunder by Komodo yet.

move 15: Houdini moves Ng3 and not Nf4 as was expected, and it is still not happy with -0.27. Komodo replies with b4 on the queen side, with eval -0.34, seeing an R vs BN imbalance.

move 17: Imbalance achieved, now what? Both engines hiding their PVs. Earlier Komodo predicted exchanges in the middle, Houdini is thinking about it.

move 19: Houdini thought Komodo's Nh6 wasn't good, but Komodo responded with eval -0.61. Houdini's PV looked like a transposition of Komodo's but then Komodo changed its mind. Some action ahead? A long think by Houdini.

move 21: Houdini continued with its plan, its eval stays low. And then Komodo's eval goes down too, trying to open up the queen side with another pawn sac?

move 22: Houdini didn't take the pawn and will hide its king behind it. Evals are back up for both engines, can't tell what is going on.

move 23: Houdini's eval jumped to positive, really strange. Komodo is thinking, if it also doesn't believe its own eval then I guess it won't win here. OK, Komodo changed its move and eval down but still negative, it still has some hope.

move 25: Komodo is trying to activate its pieces, still holding on to a small eval. It's hard to believe we're going to see fireworks in this game.

move 26: again a long think by Houdini, eval jumping to positive again. Komodo still not impressed, moves the queen, still needs to activate more pieces.

move 27: positive or negative, who has the edge? The engines keep playing moves not expected by their opponent. Which of them sees more clearly?

move 31: Houdini refusing to exchange queens, its eval up to 0.28.

move 36: Komodo's eval is now also positive, both engines agree that Houdini is better now. Can Houdini pull another rabbit from its hat?

move 40: engines' PV agree on a long series of moves that simplify the position a little. Evals stay positive but not increasing just yet.

move 47: Houdini left the PV at move 46, preferring to grab a piece. The imbalance is now R vs B and Komodo 2 pawns up. More simplifications ahead.

move 54: we're down to QR vs QB, and Houdini's eval is negative again, very close to 0. This will be a draw, unless we have a crash...

move 58: draw adjudication. The evals gave us something to look at in the game, on the board the game wasn't all that interesting.

No comments:

Post a Comment