Season 11 live blogging, Saturday 20th January

Today I'm watching the round 27 game Laser - Texel. Laser is in second place, 1 point ahead of Texel with two rounds left. Texel has to win to have a chance of promotion. In the reverse game in round 20 Laser barely managed to draw, and there have been no black wins for this opening so far. Texel needs a miracle.

move 4: following the reverse game, small eval advantage for Laser.

move 6: Texel diverges with c6, looks like a rare move.

move 8: white is ahead in development, evals without change. Laser's a3 seems a little slow. Is it preparing b4, blocking something?

move 9: now Laser goes h3, I don't get it. Texel's eval drops, it doesn't get it either.

move 11: Laser has more space, Texel's pieces can hardly move.

move 14: almost all pieces are still on the board. Texel is seeing exchanges in the near future according to the PVs, Laser not so much.

move 17: Laser moved its LSB from the a2-g8 diagonal to the f1-a6 one, is that better? Meanwhile Texel's eval dropped to 0, and still no exchanges. Laser offered the b2 pawn, Texel isn't biting.

move 21: The b pawn is still hanging and Texel continued to not take it. Still no exchanges, Laser pushed g4, weakening its king slightly.

move 25: Laser pushed the f and g pawns exposing its king, though there does not seem to be a threat from Texel. Evals not moving.

move 28: Laser's eval jumps above 0.5, it has a central passer in the PV. Texel remains calm at 0.3.

move 31: Laser's eval still climbing, now above 0.7, Texel still calm. The black queen looks misplaced, like a huge pawn.

move 32: Texel's eval jumped above 0.9! I'm not sure what's changed, Laser was expecting this move.

move 37: Finally a few exchanges, opening up the center. Laser is a pawn up but both evals are coming down and the PVs show more exchanges coming. Texel may survive this game but this is still a good result for Laser.

move 41: a pair of rooks is gone, Texel is defending, can Laser find an effective attack?

move 46: Texel got the pawn back but the evals are over 1 now. Moves are played faster at this stage of the game.

move 54: after a series of exchanges we are down to RBN vs RBN. The PVs look drawish.

move 61: Laser is again a pawn up, but evals are dropping fast. Only RN vs RB now, looks more and more like a draw.

move 76: position is a 6-man tablebase draw, and we just have to wait for TCEC adjudication. Laser seemed to be ahead in the game and Texel defended well. Only one round left and Laser is still 1 point ahead of Texel, Laser will probably promote to division 1.