It was fifteen minutes before the ninth round was about to start, and almost all the players, including Sheva, had already been in their spots to play the last ga of the tournant. However, even though Sheva was there, his soul was wandering far away, leaving the mortal plane and letting his brain lead him to the wonderland. He could be seen dozing off in his chair, with no one knowing what he was thinking about.
Honestly, it was quite disrespectful for Sheva to doze off before the ga. However, his opponent didn’t really mind about it. The man knew that Sheva had just won the entire tournant, so it was understandable for the boy to get drunk in ecstasy and forget about his surroundings for a while. Hell, if anything, the middle-aged man in front of him really hoped that Sheva would keep disrespecting him like this. If sohow, Sheva didn’t go all out and he managed to force a draw, he would already consider this ga a win.
Yeah, it was a bit extre. However, the man had already seen the data he got from the website Chess Result, and the average rating loss that the players who were defeated by him suffered was about 45 points, and that still didn’t count Cao Van Binh, the top-seeded player who was also Sheva’s opponent in the eighth round. Poor boy, Cao Van Binh lost 62 points in rating after the defeat, forcing his ELO to plumt below 1900 again. Thinking about the probability of him losing that number of ELO, the man felt his tooth aching, and he really hoped that Sheva would go easy on him and aim for a quick draw.
Of course, if Sheva could hear that man’s thought, he would’ve laughed it out loud. Also, there was one thing that the man misunderstood here. Sheva wasn’t dozing off because of his win in this tournant. Hell, he even forgot about that, having his focus contained to the other matter. As for that other matter itself... Well, let’s just say that Anna’s bold declaration during the interview really shocked him to the core.
’The world champion, huh?’ He muttered to himself. ’Even though the standard of being the won’s world champion is far lower than in the open section, that doesn’t diminish how difficult it is... Yet she said it with a straight face, a pure confidence... What a scary girl...’
What Sheva didn’t dare to say, even inside his mind, though, was that there was sothing inside his heart that was wavering here, flickering like a candle blown by the wind. Before this, being a world champion was sothing that never crossed his mind. Oh, he might ntion about it once or twice. However, that was only his inner monologue and his delusional side that thought he could rule the chess world after getting the system. In reality, even he himself knew how hard it was to climb into the higher spot in chess.
Yet the confidence laced in Anna’s tone when she declared her ambition to be the won’s world champion... It moved him. It ignited a tiny rebellious spark inside his heart, giving him an insane idea that was enough to send a shiver down his spine.
’Maybe.... I should try to dream big and aim for the top like her?’
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Of course, once the ga started, Sheva regained his focus, not intending to go easy on his opponent. Poor that man, he didn’t even know what hit him until he had already lost everything. Sheva went ruthless here, going for the King’s gambit that he had already been familiar with to strike where it hurt the most.
Even though the man knew that Sheva was proficient in the King’s Gambit, it was quite hard to think of a counterasure in the middle of a tournant, especially when he himself didn’t know whether Sheva would go for it or not. Now that Sheva went for the King’s Gambit, the man regretted his decision earlier about why he wouldn’t search too deeply into this opening, leaving him now in a blind situation where he had to navigate himself through the dark forest.
Sheva really didn’t show any rcy here. He used the imbalance position to keep pressuring his opponent, and once the man tilted, he struck like lightning, leaving nothing but a bare land in the man’s territory that would only get worse as ti went by. After 19 moves, the man finally couldn’t bear the pressure anymore, resigning the ga while also giving Sheva the last point to establish his na as the ultimate winner of this section.
anwhile, on the other side of the hall, Anna and Claudia were also thriving, not finding any difficulty in beating their opponents. Even though their match wouldn’t change anything—Anna had already secured her WGM title and wouldn’t be able to get the first place in the IM section, while Claudia had basically secured the second place behind Sheva in the U2000 section—they still went all out, not wanting to lose any more points than necessary.
Playing against a fallen International Rating from Thailand, whose rating was below 2350, Anna didn’t show any weakness, luring her opponent patiently until the man caught the bait she threw. Once everything was set, she executed her plan cold-bloodedly, forcing the opponent to resign in the 32nd move. This also increased her ELO rating by 22 points, elevating her rating to the new height of 2331.
As for Claudia, even though she was struggling at the start, the little girl managed to recover quickly, showing her resilience in a tough positional battle. Her opponent didn’t even realize when the situation was overturned, and kept attacking Claudia relentlessly before he walked straight into the landmine. In the end, she managed to win her ga pretty neatly, giving her the additional 15 points rating. Coupled with her other results in the first eight rounds, in total, she managed to gain 44 points.
Unfortunately, her rating is still stuck in 1986, failing to cross the threshold of 2000. If only she had managed to win against Sheva, the girl was sure that she would’ve already crossed that line by now. Unfortunately, that was just another one of the ’what-ifs’ scenarios without any chance to change it.
The last round went anticlimactic, and while there were a lot of actions here, the tension had already gone as the winner of all the sections had been determined before that. However, after spending a full week on chess, Sheva finally could take a little breath, a thought suddenly crossing his mind.
"Damn... It is finally over, huh?"
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