Road to be the Best Chess Player in the World!-Chapter 367: A Quick Win for Taher!

"Oh! 40 minutes have passed, and it seems that we are going to have our first decisive move today!" Claudia exclaimed in surprise. "GM Murali Karthikeyan finally committed the first blunder here! He slides his queen from the G5 square, allowing Brother Taher to get his knight jump into that square! Now, the rook and the queen will follow from behind, and he would have overwhelming pressure on that side! Brother Taher grabs the initiative of the game!"

Sarah nodded at Claudia, sending an approval thumbs-up to the girl. ’It seems that she has already gotten used to being the commentator here. She announces it quite flawlessly.’ She thought to herself. However, her heart clenched after realizing why she was able to do that. ’Yeah, for her, it would be more fun to play rather than to talk here, right?’ The older girl wondered.

Indeed, once again, Claudia had to sit on the sidelines, and it was quite heartbreaking since this was the last round of the tournament. However, she couldn’t help it. A sacrifice had to be made here. Even though Irene had just lost her game yesterday, her presence was still needed, as the opponent was Anna Muzychuk, probably the best women’s player in the world right now. Even though the chance to win was slim, the presence of a leader and a veteran who had been in a lot of big tournaments like this in the past was necessary.

Claudia herself didn’t say anything once that decision was made. However, anyone could see how disappointed the girl was, and even Sheva and Anna, the two people she was the closest to, didn’t know how to cheer her up.

"So, Brother Taher is already at an advantage this early?" Bagas asked curiously. Unlike his girlfriend, the boy was an insensitive jerk who didn’t know how to read the room, so he just treated everything normally.

"Yeah. After all, the G5 square is a strategic place to launch an attack for Brother Taher. Once it is controlled, everything could explode instantly. Look, even if his knight gets exchanged, the dark bishop that follows from behind will be another menace for the black piece, and it will be hard to neutralize the overwhelming attack on that kingside."

The girl also didn’t forget to demonstrate the line she had thought on the board on the screen. Only with that, all the people in the live chat room could understand what was going on and appreciate the situation more.

Biksaw15: Damn! +2 already?! How could I not know that Taher is that good?!

Hilda99: Bah! You new followers will not know about this, but once in the past, Taher was the child of prophecy! The one whom everyone is optimistic about being another GM!

Morthal68: Really?! Then, how could he still be an IM when Novendra is already a GM?!

Holmes4869: Yeah, he is better than Novendra! He should be higher, right?!

Hilda99: I think it is probably a resource problem.

Holmess4869: Nevertheless, he is playing so handsomely today! Come on, Taher!

While Taher himself didn’t know about it, somehow, he got a wave of new supporters from the broadcast, all cheering for his success today. Unfortunately, the man was still busy scanning through the entire board, not having time to address this matter at all.

’Yeah, it seems that he just realizes his mistake here.’ The man clenched his fist tightly as he saw the panicked expression on Karthikeyan’s face. ’Yeah, come on! Just crumble more and die! No need to struggle for too long, okay?! Just let me get your head!’

Anyone who heard his inner voice would be dumbfounded, not expecting Taher, who was always quiet and had a flat expression all the time, to have such a psychotic thought. However, the boy himself didn’t care about this. Right now, all he had in his mind was how he should make the man in front of him squirm more under his intimidation skills. A cheap trick, but enough to score a point against an opponent with a weaker gut.

The most magical thing, though, was that the strategy seemed to work perfectly here. Taher himself didn’t know whether it was because he was being creepy and intimidating or Karthikeyan himself was panicked, but the next few moves that the Indian GM made were all blunders. Somehow, funnily enough, it was enough to overwhelm Taher, as the man didn’t expect that the game would be this easy.

’No, is this fucking real?!’ Taher even had to wipe his eyes several times, trying to make sure that it was not his illusion. ’How could he play this badly? Is he okay or not?’ He couldn’t help but take a glance at his opponent, worried that the same thing that had happened when they played against Norway would happen again, but this time with him being the one who received the end of it.

Fortunately, it was just his imagination here. While yes, Karthikeyan panicked and had his face pale, but Taher could see that everything else was okay. Still, he didn’t want to take his chance here, so the man decided not to slack off, starting to push further on that kingside.

Well, he didn’t have to wait for so long to reap the result. The pressure that he created seemed to be overwhelming enough, and Karthikeyan didn’t have any solution to deal with it. In the end, Taher finally decided to sacrifice his knight to open up the road to the opponent’s king, and it worked perfectly to his advantage.

"Yes! With this knight sacrifice, Brother Taher is just 8 moves away from checkmating his opponent!" Bagas exclaimed excitedly. "He is so close to winning! It seems that we will have our first point a little bit earlier than our usual schedule today!"

It seemed that Karthikeyan also realized that his life was already on the line here. The man thought hard, yet was not able to find anything to counter or even to get out of this embarrassing situation. In the end, after wasting 20 more minutes having both hands clutching his head in desperation, the Indian GM finally offered a handshake here.

He resigned, giving Taher a win in just 1 hour and 27 minutes.