Nikolic, Predrag – Ivanchuk, Vassily

2646 2007 · Draw

Queen’s Indian Defense, 2007: Nikolic (2646) against Ivanchuk (2762), and the game stays on rails from start to finish. After 4.g3 Ba6 and the fianchettoed bishops, White opens the centre with 12.e4, pushes 14.e5, and plants a pawn on d6 following 16...Bxd6 17.exd6. The engine flags no turning point at all: neither side hands over the evaluation at any single moment. The accuracy figures say the same, 93% for White, 92% for Black. Once the queens come off on move 32 and the rooks follow with 49.Rxc7+, the bishop endgame fades out to ½-½. The lesson is plain: when both sides keep finding good moves, a game doesn’t swing — it runs out of material.