I'm following game 309, Winter - Smallbrain. Winter is currently on score -1 and Smallbrain is on 0, both within reach of the qualification spots. Winter qualified last season and was relegated back, Smallbrain is new to TCEC and doing quite well so far. A decisive result here can be very important to both engines.
The game started with a 10-ply book in the Averbach system, evals around 0.6 after book.
move 10: The engines transposed to more popular lines, Smallbrain left the main theory again and refused to block the center with c5 on move 9 after a long think. It played c5 on move 10. No exchanges so far, no change in eval as well.
move 13: Smallbrain played f5 and the engines exchanged a pair of pawns. The engines disagreed about evals, both thought this was better for themselves. I have a feeling Smallbrain is right here. Winter is too slow and cautious, Smallbrain's eval dropped.
move 17: now Winter's eval dropped, is there a chance of a black win? Too early for that. Smallbrain has a passer in the center. Winter refused to exchange bishop for knight on the king side, Smallbrain's eval dropped to 0.
move 21: Winter wants to open the king side, Smallbrain is avoiding this and evals are increasing a bit. Smallbrain exchanged a knight for a bishop, now Winter's eval jumped over 1. The other black knight moved to the corner, not a good square for a knight.
move 25: The g file is open, though there are many pieces there. Smallbrain gave a bishop to get rid of a forward knight, it also gained a pawn. Evals keep rising but PVs are full of shuffling. Winter placed a knight on d5, where Smallbrain can't force it to move.
move 30: Smallbrain moved its king out of the g file, both evals above 1. Winter is threatening to double rooks on the g file, seems there's going to be a rook trade there. The eval trend is clear now, and Winter is still a pawn down. Winter doubled rooks, but the trade is not in the PVs anymore.
move 38: Smallbrain again thinks Winter is too slow and its eval dropped. Can it hold? No, evals jumped back up. Winter pushed a pawn on the queen side, not sure what the plan is. Again a shuffle PV. Smallbrain is not moving its pawns on the queen side, Winter pushed to a6. Both evals over 3.
move 46: Smallbrain now has to be careful with the back ranks, defending the a7 pawn and defending its king on h7. This may take a while but Winter should find a way to break the black defense. Winter added its queen to the g file, Smallbrain gave back the pawn to open the center. This looks like the end for black.
move 52: I just realized Winter had a rook on g6 and Smallbrain didn't take with its corner knight. Why? Not important now since the rook moved. The white knight captured two pawns and Smallbrain gave its queen in desperation to take it. Mate is approaching.
move 61: mate, game over. It didn't look like Winter would win this, but it did in the end. If it can hold the reverse it would improve its chances to qualify significantly.
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