Road to be the Best Chess Player in the World!-Chapter 531: The Eighth Round of the Asian School Chess Tournament!

Meanwhile, in the venue...

’Brother Sheva and Brother Bagas should’ve already landed at this point, right?’ Nayaka glanced at the clock hanging on the wall. His fist clenched unconsciously as he thought, ’With them here, I cannot show an embarrassing display! I have to win!’

In fact, he wasn’t the only one who thought that. Both Duta and Devi also had a similar mind, yet they all had different feelings there.

For Nayaka, he was so motivated to beat his opponent, wanting to snatch the first place from the Russian FM. As for Devi, the girl was quite relaxed, planning to go for a quick draw to secure her win as quickly as possible so that she could brag to Sheva first. The most pitiful one should be Duta, as the youngest boy there was so pressured to get a win in this round.

Yeah, Duta was the most stressed one, considering his current achievement was the lowest. He was still the number four, out of the top three that was their initial target, and right now, if he failed to win his game, there was a huge chance that he would have to go down to the number five or even number six.

The problem, though, was that the last three rounds of his game ended up in a draw, and he found it difficult to find a breakthrough to help him advance further.Then, to make it worse, his current opponent was the second-best player in the whole tournament, the Turkmenistan player named Amanmuhammet Hommadov, with a rating of 2190.

That Turkmenistan player was just exactly like him, a conservative player who didn’t have the courage to take the initiative. That was why their result was quite bad, not being able to compete for the number one spot here.

’No, no, no, I cannot stay this way.’ Duta slapped his face repeatedly, trying to wake himself up from this nightmare. ’Brother Sheva has already spent a lot of resources on my training, even inviting Master Irene and Brother Taher to help me get through my mental block. I have to show some results here, trying to get some wins! I have to do this!’

With that thought in mind, Duta braced himself for a roller-coaster style of game, picking the Sicilian Defense that he wasn’t really fond of due to the heavy theory and the aggressiveness on the board. His heart was still filled with uncertainty, but this was the choice he thought was best to find a breakthrough that he was searching for.

As a result, the game went quite chaotic. Just in the ninth move of the game, Duta was already at a disadvantage, with the computer engine giving +1.4 evaluation for the white piece. Fortunately, it was clear that the Turkmenistan boy picked the variation he wasn’t really familiar with, the Alapin, one, and as a result, the advantage he earned several times in the early part of the game couldn’t give him any edge in this duel.

The evaluation bar was hyperventilating, moving up and down so quickly, not being able to figure out who truly had the advantage here. Bagas, who saw this in a taxi on the journey to the venue, had the corner of his lips twitching speechlessly at the sight on his screen.

"What the hell?! What is Duta doing there?!" He asked incredulously.

"You confuse Duta with me here, Gas." Sheva snorted amusedly. "You are getting used to watching a machine-like, precise game from me, that you forgot how the grassroots level works. You remember how I easily won my first tournament in Hanoi last year? Or the one in Jakarta?"

That question clicked something inside Bagas’s head. "Yeah, I remember how easy it was for you to destroy your opponent, right?"

"Indeed, and even though my skill at that time wasn’t a GM level yet, at least, I was always confident that I was better than anyone else." Sheva nodded as a matter of fact, not even a single hint of boasting in his tone. "This is the reality of the low-level game. Mistakes happen so often that it makes the game volatile, and no one really knows who will win the game until the last second."

Not only that, the most cruel part of a low-level game like this was how volatile a player’s rating could change in one game. Sometimes, a player with an ELO rating of 2000 could lose about 40+ rating in one defeat, while another player with a rating of 1700 could earn about 50+ rating just in one win against a higher-rated opponent.

This was what Sheva used to climb so quickly, using so many grassroots-level players as his stepping stone. That was why he knew how brutal this kind of low-level game was.

"Anyway, what about the other two?" Sheva asked.

Bagas stopped staring at his screen, the corner of his mouth twitching madly as he smacked his best friend with a small bag he always carried. "Just... Watch it from your own phone, you lazy bastard!"

"Tch! Stingy!" Sheva grumbled, starting to scroll through his phone to access the Chess.com website.

After searching for a moment, he saw the tournament there, and the moment his fat thumb clicked it, the first thing he saw was Nayaka’s game on board one.

"Hmm... Nayaka is still trying to find a breakthrough from the queenside flank, wanting to use the diagonal to create an attack. Not bad..." Sheva nodded in satisfaction. "As for Devi’s game... Wait, she is about to win? Not bad! At least, she isn’t being lazy here, still eyeing a win. She is up two pawns, eh? Well, as long as she could exchange all of the pieces on the board, everything would be a piece of cake..."

It would be a lie if Sheva said that he wasn’t happy, as seeing his disciples thriving like this was a gratifying feeling. He also took a note inwardly to talk to Mister Wahyu about the reward for the three if they managed to reach the target, which was to invite them to the Biel Open next July.

’With how easily he spends money on me, I am sure that Mister Wahyu will agree to the request instantly.’ He smirked a little.

As he kept his eyes on the screen, the taxi finally arrived at the venue, and there, the moment they got out of the car, both Sheva and Bagas noticed immediately two distinguishable faces among all the Uzbekistan people there, very similar to their features. Seeing them standing close to the entrance, Sheva shouted, "Master Susanto, Master Ervan, here!"

-Author’s note-

Hey, everyone! Thank you for supporting my story! I have written a new one with the hope of getting a contract for that story as well, the title is ’The Rise of the Iron Wall!’. It is a football story, so if you like, please give your support by adding it to your collection and giving your power stone to that story! Thanks!