"Why are you grinning so foolishly like that?" Claudia asked Sheva snarkily, her tone was sour. It was as if the re presence of Sheva here at this table was enough to offend her. "Don’t think just because you have already won this tournant, you could flaunt it in my face!"
Yes, after the seventh day of the tournant, which was also the double-header day, was finally over, Sheva had already co out on top. With eight points out of eight rounds, he was one point ahead of his competitors, Arjun Erigaisi and Praggnanandhaa. However, since he had already beaten those two before, even though they could still match his point, his position wouldn’t get shaken even for an inch.
"Oh, well... I am just happy for the money. I an, 11,000 US Dollars? This could make retire on the spot, you know?" Sheva grinned foolishly. Seeing the jealous gaze from the little girl, though, he couldn’t help but add, "Oh, of course, you don’t know! You have never won anything big, right? Don’t worry, I will tell you how aweso the feeling is later."
So people around couldn’t help but choke when they heard this. It wasn’t just normal teasing of the girl, but also a group attack on anyone else at the table. After all, besides Irene, who won the Won’s Asian Chess Championship in the early 2010s, no Indonesian player had ever achieved a big victory like this, so for them, this personal attack was like a punch in the gut.
"Don’t be so cocky, you Brat!" dina threw a napkin straight at Sheva’s face. "Don’t think that just because you are a far better player than we are, I couldn’t discipline you like the usual." At the last part, she also narrowed her gaze dangerously enough to make the boy squirm on the spot.
"Ah... Ahaha... Sorry, sorry... I forgot that you guys didn’t have a great tournant here..." His tone was so sincere, yet the content was so infuriating that it was enough for anyone else to land a punch straight on his face.
Indeed, besides Sheva, not a single one of them had a good result in this tournant. Well... NO one... Probably, except for Claudia. After all, she had already reached her target of getting 4.5 points and earning her final WGM norm, so it couldn’t be said that her result was bad. However, that was it.
In the double-header ga, she only managed to secure her title with a draw; yet, in the second ga, the girl was completely destroyed by her opponent, a veteran GM from India with a rating of around 2450. It wasn’t even a close ga, as everything only lasted for 18 moves. It seed that she was still drunk from her new title, not being able to lock her mind onto the ga completely.
That was also probably why the little girl was in a foul mood right now.
As for the others, behind Claudia, dina also got the sa result today. With one draw and one loss, the woman had to bury her dream to achieve her first GM norm, and right now, all she wanted to do was to raise her ELO rating as high as possible. Now, with 4.5 points out of 8 gas as well, she still had 4 addition, increasing her rating a little bit to 2428. She still had a long way to go to get into the 2500 threshold, which was quite discouraging since the woman also grew older.
anwhile, Anna and Laysa were even more pitiful. On the double-header day, they failed to get even half a point, getting battered twice in a row. Now, they fell behind the others with 4 points out of 8 rounds, and to make it worse, they even lost rating here. Anna was back at 2399 again after losing 4 points, while Laysa was still stuck at 2391 after losing 3 points overall. Not only that, since they only had one round left and it was determined already that their opponent would be a lower-rated one, they had to bury their dream to get their IM norm here, having to go ho empty-handed.
Honestly, this was a normal result for any Indonesian player. Usually, in a high-level open tournant like this, most of them would only lose rating, finding it hard to beat even the lowest-rated player in the tournant. Hell, more often than not, their achievent would be getting 50 percent of the total points they could earn, just like what Anna and Laysa got right now. However, this year, the standard really changed, and it wasn’t just because of Sheva.
While yes, Sheva’s achievent this year was out of the world, but the others didn’t really fall behind. For example, in Reykjavik, Claudia managed to get 5 points out of 9 rounds, while in Biel, Anna even got 5.5 points out of 9 rounds. Not only them, but Laysa also got a good achievent, sitting in the third place of the Bangkok Open before the Olympiad with 6.5 points, proving that indeed, the Indonesian Chess Community had been improving a lot in the last couple of months.
That was why the result in this tournant was quite disappointing for everyone.
"Oh, well, no need to fuss too much about it." Laysa just shrugged, forking a chunk of at to her mouth casually. "I an, no matter how pain in the ass Sheva is, he is right about one thing, right? We played like shit this tournant, so no need to be in denial over it."
Everyone frowned when they heard that. If they didn’t know better, they would think that Laysa didn’t care about her record. However, anyone in the table knew that the calr the girl was, the more dangerous she would beco.
"So, you just want to brush it off like it is nothing?" Claudia still voiced her dissatisfaction.
In return, Laysa just blinked confusedly. "Wait, who said I would do that?" Her tone was genuinely confused. "I an, you cannot change the fact that we didn’t do well in this tournant, but at least, we still have one more chance to redeem ourselves."
"Oh, really?" Now, even Sheva was intrigued.
"Yup!" The girl chirped happily, not caring about the stares she received from the others. "We cannot go ho bringing bad luck with us, so at least, let’s win our last ga here and start a new journey with a blank paper!"
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