"Oh, no!" Sagar Shah had both his hands on his head while his jaw dropped in pure shock. "Praggnanandhaa is losing his calmness and is too eager to take the lead! In fact, he doesn’t need to do that! He just needs to stay patient because he has already managed to force an inequivalent exchange with his bishop for Sheva’s rook! Now, all the painstaking effort that he built is gone instantly!"
Compared to his shocked reaction, though, the audience on the live broadcast exploded with cheers right after the evaluation bar on the screen fell.
Froggies: Hahaha! As expected, Sheva is so good at playing with fire!
Hilda99: Damn, my heart cannot take it anymore! Why would he always do this for ?!
Loki01: It doesn’t matter anymore! Sheva is at an advantage! Hahaha! Aweso!
While all the Indonesian viewers cheered crazily, a number of the Indian audiences on the broadcast fell into silence, lanting how the ga could be overturned so quickly. So of them even thought that Sheva was lucky here, because if Pragg didn’t make any mistakes, the Indian prodigy would be able to win this ga easily. However, this argunt died instantly at Sarah’s explanation next.
"Everyone might think that Sheva is just lucky that Pragg is being careless here. However, it goes deeper than that." The girl said solemnly. "Sheva has been planting the idea in Pragg’s mind that he set a big trap since the beginning of the ga, making him play so cautiously, unlike his normal playing style. We all know, though, that the trap doesn’t exist at all. We can see from the evaluation bar that Pragg is always at an advantage since the beginning of the ga."
"So, when Pragg finally notices that he got bluffed..." Bagas’s words trailed behind.
"The gear switched in his brain, and he started to go back to his original playing style and even more." Sarah continued with a nod. "This is just a simple psychological tactic. Sheva tries to suppress Pragg’s natural style, so when the style is allowed to go back, it will go uncontrollable." She finished with a solemn tone.
Sagar Shah could only listen to the explanation with a complicated expression. He didn’t expect that Indonesia, a barren country that hadn’t produced any good talent in history, would be able to birth a monster like Sheva. The fact that Sarah could explain this matter flawlessly within a second also made him rethink his evaluation of that country, knowing that there was no way a land that could nurture two brilliant minds like this could be ordinary.
"In fact, I could understand Pragg’s temptation here." He finally spoke with a heavy tone. "Just look at here, you can see that after sacrificing the bishop, Pragg could break through that side as well by pushing his G pawn, then after that, he would have a rook, a queen, and a knight staring directly at the king. If he doesn’t calculate carefully, which he doesn’t, in this case, the temptation will be hard to ignore, resulting in this situation happening." He sighed helplessly, knowing that there was nothing that could be done about this situation.
Sheva himself had his eyes lit up instantly when he saw the mistake. He knew that this was bound to happen soon, and when the mistake was on the board, he knew that his chance finally co.
’Okay, this ti, it is my turn to be patient.’ He took a deep breath, trying to contain his excitent. ’I have a lot of different ways to attack him, but I don’t need to be hasty for that. First, let’s get my king into safety first. I don’t need to move it, but my knight could cover his position as well. This will also activate that piece, and my queen will have more room to create. Then, after that, it is ti for to have fun.’
The grin on his face was basically a big sign that he was about to go on a rampage next.
-0-
Tak!
Tak!
Tak!
The venue was still dead silent as ti went by. However, anyone who took a glance at the ga on board 2 would recognize how tense the situation was. Everything got even more chaotic as the ga passed by, with both Sheva and Pragg trying their best to navigate the ga in their favor.
The one who was most concerned about how the ga went was Arjun Erigaisi. The other Indian prodigy frowned when he saw the situation there, definitely not liking how his friend was pushed to the edge of the cliff.
’What’s wrong, Pragg?’ The boy muttered under his breath. ’How could you make such a rookie mistake like this? It is not like you, you know?’
Well, he himself wasn’t the one who played on that board, so Arjun didn’t know what Pragg was thinking right now. However, unlike his friend, Arjun didn’t really know a lot about Sheva except that he made a crazy run in the Olympiad, so his lack of knowledge about the Indonesian boy prevented him from grasping the situation better.
In his mind, though, Sheva’s hype should be a flash in the pan, sothing that would disappear imdiately. Against Pragg, the prodigy that Arjun grew up and fought alongside, Sheva’s magic should be over instantly. Not only was it because of the rating difference, but Arjun believed just like him and the other two Indian Prodigies, Gukesh and Nihal Sarin, Pragg possessed the potential to be the best in the world, so a re 2500-rated player shouldn’t be a big problem.
However, after seeing how Pragg was struggling in this ga, Arjun also started to change his mind. He was a proud and slightly arrogant boy, but stupid was definitely not one trait that could describe him the most. His evaluation of Sheva changed imdiately, and he also started to analyze the Indonesian boy at the table more seriously.
’If I win my ga and he wins against Pragg today, there is a huge chance that I will have to play against him, right?’ He muttered once again, staring at the board intently. ’Maybe, I should’ve asked Pragg about him. It would be embarrassing if we both are used as a stepping stone, right?’
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