With the title for the challenger section already in his grasp, the rest of the tournant went quite easily for Sheva. Hell, if anything, the hardest part should be outside of the board, as he got chased by people, either fans or dia, to force him to talk. Honestly, while he was basically cured of his cara phobia, the scene of so many people waiting in front of his hotel just for him was enough to overwhelm the boy.
"What the fuck is going on here, Gas?!" Sheva cursed in exhaustion. "You said it would only be a few, but this is not just a fucking few! This is a lot! I have been talking the sa shit over and over again in the last couple of days!"
"Just hang on, Shev. This is what you call suffering from being too successful." Bagas just snorted in amusent, not showing any hint of sympathy.
Sheva snapped, making a lot of rude hand gestures while also sending his fiercest glare toward his best friend. Not that it would change anything, of course, as Bagas himself had never been afraid of his intimidation. Still, at least, this showed Sheva’s stance here, that he didn’t enjoy being interviewed and his life being dug deeper by so many people.
Yeah, Sheva was uncomfortable with how, sohow, the dia managed to dig out so much information about him, from his deceased father, his state a year ago, who only lived from the food stall that Bagas’s father provided him, and so many more.
Hell, they even managed to contact his mother, which, in Sheva’s book, crossed his bottom line here. After all, they asked so many sensitive questions that his mother was also not comfortable sharing with them, and sohow, they managed to portray him as a pitiful kid who was blessed by his chess talent.
Fortunately, even though Bagas teased him a lot, the fat boy still took care of this kind of thing for him. Honestly, if he knew that winning the tournant would bring him so much attention.... Hmm... Well... Maybe, he would still do the sa. After all, he ca with the intention to win, so why would he complain when he got what he wanted?
’Oh, well, let’s just let the storm pass first, then maybe I could have a little room to breathe.’ The boy thought inwardly.
While he was trying to navigate himself to get out of the storm, the tournant still continued, with three rounds left to go. With the others being unable to chase his current point, Sheva didn’t really need to work hard, and honestly, even after his declaration of wanting to get all the points in the world for his rating, once the boy knew that he didn’t need to go all out anymore, his instinct to procrastinate started to kick in.
Not that Sheva would take the initiative to go for a drawish opening line, of course. Hell, no. He would still go for an aggressive opening, just like how he beat the local IM Eline Roebers in round 11 with the Dutch Defense system. At one glance, it didn’t look like he would slow down his pace at all.
However, the sign of his laziness showed in the next ga against Mishra Abhimanyu. The Arican prodigy really gave Sheva a difficult ti, what with how he used the French Defense to kill any aggressiveness that Sheva possessed under his sleeve and forced the ga into a boring positional battle that Sheva hated the most.
If, usually, Sheva would still try sothing creative like sacrificing his pawn or throwing a bait by making a bad move deliberately, but this ti, he didn’t want to risk anything. No, instead, he accepted any exchange that was offered to him, and when Mishra Abhimanyu asked for a draw, he just accepted it easily.
This move surprised a lot of people, since Mishra himself was also an ambitious player. However, after thinking about it, the result was understandable. Sheva didn’t really need to win the ga, and even with a draw, his rating was still far below Mishra’s, so he would get at least 1 ELO rating for the draw.
As for Mishra himself, the boy witnessed how Sheva slaughtered everyone left and right in this tournant, and while he was young and hot-blooded, that didn’t an he was stupid. If anything, the boy knew when to back down, and with Sheva currently riding in his hot montum, Mishra couldn’t find a way to beat the Indonesian GM right now.
So, yeah, a draw was fair, which gave Sheva his second draw in this tournant. It was crazy, considering how more than 50 percent of the gas in this tournant ended up in a draw, yet he managed to get only two of them with one round left to go.
Then ca the last round, where Sheva had to fight against Erwin L’Ami, the veteran Dutch GM whose rating was 2620. This ti, he decided to go all out, not wanting to leave the tournant with anything but a win.
Honestly, at this point, this had beco a little tradition for him, a good luck charm for the future tournant. Sheva believed every single word that dina and the others said about how it was important to leave the tournant with a win, as it would give him a good feeling coming to the next tournant in the future.
So, he didn’t hold back, unleashing the most overwhelming offense that he could pull from his arsenal. Sheva knew that Erwin L’Ami was a very solid player, so instead of allowing the man to form a solid structure, the boy decided to let the Dutch GM take the initiative to attack with the Reti Opening.
It was a successful gamble, as, just in the fifteenth move of the ga, he had already gained a strong advantage on the board. It also helped that Erwin L’Ami also wanted to end the ga quickly, so the mont the ga entered the 23rd move, with Sheva having a 4.4 advantage, the man resigned, giving Sheva his 12th win of the tournant.
In the end, Sheva still ca out as the winner of the challenger section, with 13 points out of 14 rounds available. Not only that, but he also gained 58 ELO rating, making it to 2586, which also put him closer to the 2600-rated club.
Overall, this was a wonderful tournant for Sheva, and as he stared back at the venue for the last ti, the boy couldn’t help but sigh in lancholy.
’Tata Steel Chess... Thank you for the great mory. Please, be kind to next year too, okay?’
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