The current draw rate is 23/56 (41.1%). This is lower than the division 3 draw rate, and the reason is that the two engines at the bottom of the table are losing most of their games. Restricting to the top 6 engines the draw rate is 16/30 (53.3%)
Jonny is leading the table, confirming its result in season 10 stage 1 which was closer to the engines in division 1 than those in division 2. Laser in 2nd place is a bit of a surprise since it started in division 3 and has a good chance of getting promoted again. Laser's results are also surprising when compared to Fritz, the engine that won division 3. Texel in 3rd is also still in the promotion race only 0.5 points behind Laser.
The candidates for relegation to division 3 are Wasp and Bobcat. They are literally out of their league, scoring 1.5 and 2 points in 12 games against the other engines.
In the second game of the division Fritz crashed against Jonny, not a good start for the division or for Fritz. There was no time trouble and the position was balanced with a small eval advantage for Jonny. This was the only crash in division 2 so far, hopefully the second half will be crash-free.
A few interesting games
Texel - Jonny: Texel was ahead on eval after the opening, in a position with no knights and with all pawns still on the board. After several exchanges Jonny equalized and moved in front, with a connected pair of passers in the center. Texel had two passers as well but they were harder to support. Eventually Texel had to give a rook for a bishop to stop the black pawns, leading to a won RB vs BB ending.
Arasan - Fritz: For 30 moves the evals were close to 0 with almost no exchanges. Fritz opened a hole in the enter allowing Arasan to take the initiative. Arasan put pressure on the king side and Fritz gave a rook for a knight to try to get free. This led to a RR vs RN ending and a win for Arasan.
Fritz - Texel: Fritz had an eval advantage that increased after the opening and reached 1.3 when Fritz traded its queen for two rooks. Texel's eval was more conservative, and after the trade dropped to 0. Texel's queen was very active while Fritz' pieces were passive, Texel's eval turned negative after it captured a pawn and was over 1.5 after exchanging bishops in a QN vs RRB position. Fritz was outplayed in the endgame, after losing two more pawns the position was winning for Texel.
Arasan - Texel: The position was closed with most pawns on the board, evals favoring Texel. At move 31 both engines thought they were doing well, but Texel allowed its bishop to get trapped on the queen side and this turned out to be key. When the king side opened several moves later it was Arasan that had a strong king side attack with evals approaching 2. Pressing on the king side let Arasan clear the black pawns on the queen side. Just before adjudication Arasan finally captured the trapped bishop.
No comments:
Post a Comment