Season 24 live blogging: Jan 30, 2023

I'm following game 145 in the Swiss/qualification event between Revenge and Koivisto. Both engines played in league 1 in season 23, Koivisto had a bug and it underperformed then, hopefully it is better now. Up till now Koivisto and Revenge have a 0 score in the event. Koivisto has a game pair win against Winter and a game pair loss to RubiChess. Revenge beat StockNemo and lost to Stoofvlees.

The game opened with a 10-ply book, a very rare variant of the Scotch game. Both evals started over 1. After the first white move the game transposed to a slightly less rare variant. 

move 9: Revenge is not providing a PV, we only see what Koivisto is thinking. The engines castled in opposite directions. Koivisto had a 3-minute think on move 9.

move 14: Revenge pushed g4 on move 10 and gave a PV, a 7-ply PV agreement followed. Revenge is a pawn up and the queens are off the board. So far evals are stable or drifting down, not a good sign for Revenge.

move 17: The d file is open for exchanging rooks. Revenge is a pawn up but its pawn structure is worse with a doubled pawn and its bishop doesn't have a good square to go to. According to PVs Koivisto would like to exchange pawns and pieces, Revenge is trying avoid this.

move 21: Koivisto is pushing pawns on the queen side, Revenge is pushing pawns on the king side. Revenge moved its king forward in the center, it seems safe there and it adds a defender to the pawns and bishop. Koivisto captured a pawn and material is equal.

move 25: Revenge pushed a pawn to h6, Koivisto locked pawns on the king side. Koivisto exchanged pawns on the queen side and opened the b file, also creating a passer on the a file. Evals are still around 1, mostly stable. 

move 29: I'm surprised all rooks are still on the board. The position is starting to look static, everything is protected only if nothing moves. Koivisto's PV is mostly shuffling many moves into the future. Revenge had a different idea, it exchanged knight for bishop. Evals drop under 1 for the first time. 

move 32: RRB vs RRN, black has a passer on the a file. The pawns on the king side seem to be stabilized, Revenge has an extra pawn there but it cannot advance without being taken. Now both PVs look like a long shuffle. 

move 40: Evals are flatlining, this may be a long game without adjudication. 

move 50: Engines are shuffling along, Revenge finally dropped its eval close to 0. There will not be an adjudication without a piece exchange in any case. 

move 60: waiting for a piece exchange, only 20 moves to a 50-move draw. 

move 72: Koivisto reset the 50-move counter, still no piece exchange. At least the engines are blitzing with little time on the clock left.

move 77: finally a piece exchange.

move 81: adjudication, draw.