Road to be the Best Chess Player in the World!-Chapter 397: The Third Round’s Opponents!

"Getting paired against the top-seeded of the tournament in the third round?!" Medina widened her eyes when she saw Sheva’s next opponent. "How could you be so unlucky? Did you forget to pray or what?" She asked incredulously.

Sheva could feel the corner of his mouth twitching, especially when he saw that the others were also staring at him. Bagas was also laughing his ass off, not even feeling any worry about his best friend. In the end, he could only retort weakly, "You cannot say that I am unlucky!"

"Then, what? You want to accuse the organizer of fixing things up?" Laysa chimed in with a mocking tone.

"What?! No way!" Sheva rejected that idea immediately, getting flustered by the accusation. "I mean, it doesn’t have to be unlucky! If you see it from the other’s perspective, you can even say that I am lucky here!" 𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

"Oh?" This time, everyone looked at the boy curiously. They all knew that Sheva was not the type of person who would say an empty word to lift up the mood. No, he was always blunt, saying anything on his mind without any reservation. So, if Sheva said that he might be lucky here, the boy should have a plan already about how to handle this situation.

"Well, it is simple. Just think about it. If I kept winning my game, sooner or later, I would be facing him. Might as well have this pairing earlier, since I am at least still at my prime right now, not too tired since the first two games didn’t really take a toll on me. Imagine that I meet Alexandr Predke in the fifth, sixth, or, for God’s sake, seventh round. Even though I am still confident, that would be a nightmare."

Yeah, meeting the top-seeded player this early was a better option for Sheva, and the seventh round was the worst-case scenario. After all, the seventh round happened to be two hours after the sixth round was over in a double-header day, so the exhaustion would be at its peak at that moment.

"If you speak that way..." Now, all of them don’t have any doubt about Sheva’s words. Right after that, each one of them also started to prepare for tomorrow’s round, since not just Sheva, but everyone else also had a tough matchup to face.

Medina would have to play against a veteran Egyptian GM, the second-best African player of all time, Ahmed Adly. The man had been living under Amin Bassem’s shadow for a very long time, yet with his rating that was so close to 2600, his strength couldn’t be underestimated. Also, this was the first time Medina would play against him, so the woman was wary about the man’s unknown style.

For Laysa, the girl was paired against a Serbian GM, Aleksandar Indjic. Sheva could still remember vividly how Novendra was beaten by that man in the Olympiad before, and while Novendra himself played like trash in that tournament, Sheva couldn’t deny that Injic was a very strong player. With a rating of 2616, the man would be a tough nut for Laysa to crack tomorrow.

Then, Anna would have a rematch in this tournament, as she would face Suleymanli Aydin from Azerbaijan. They met before in the Jakarta International Chess Festival last February, and at that time, she was beaten mercilessly by the young GM. However, Anna had improved by leaps and bounds in the last couple of months since that tournament, and she was eager to take revenge here.

As for Claudia and Duta, they both had a quite easy pairing compared to the others. With the draw that she earned earlier, the girl would meet an Indian player with a similar rating as her, around 2250. Meanwhile, Duta, who got beaten in the last round, would play against a 1800-rated player, a chance for him to earn more rating in this tournament.

Nevertheless, this night was bound to be a sleepless one, as everyone was busy preparing for tomorrow. It wasn’t just a tough matchup, but also a game that could determine the rest of the tournament. Even though it wasn’t as important as the first round, if somehow they failed to get through the first wall they met, it would be hard for them to bounce back later.

’Okay, so my opponent is going to be Alexandr Predke, huh?’ Sheva took a deep breath, starting to focus on his own opponent. ’A 28-year-old player, still in his prime age. It is clear that he wants to push his case to the 2700-rated club before his performance starts to decline. There had been no major achievement in his career, but he was a prominent player in Russia during his youth. I wonder what his stats would be...’

What made Alexandr Predke dangerous, though, was not just his high rating. More than that, it was the great momentum that he carried to this tournament.

In August, when everyone was busy with the Olympiad, Alexandr Predke, who didn’t play there, didn’t stay idle. In one month, he played three tournaments in total, all of them in Serbia. He got a decent result in the first two, yet fell short of the top in the last round. However, in his last tournament, the Svetozar Gligoric Memorial, the man managed to secure his win, getting 8.5 points out of 9 rounds. He was so close to a perfect tournament, and in fact, the only draw he got was in the last round, where things were already settled. If only Predke wanted to push for a record, he would be able to win and sweep the entire thing into his bag.

That tournament itself wasn’t that good. Only 3 GMs whose rating was above 2500 played there, and the gap between Predke, who was the top-seeded, and the second place was like heaven and hell. With a gap of more than 150 ELO rating, it would be a shame if somehow Predke failed to win the entire thing.

However, that didn’t diminish the fact that all the wins allowed him to ride on a good momentum. The man showed it by getting two convincing wins in a row to start this tournament, and while the opponents were still small fries, that didn’t mean the achievement could be underestimated.

As Sheva read more, his gaze turned solemn, knowing that the game would be difficult tomorrow.

’No, I cannot let him get into his rhythm.’ He shook his head. ’I need to strike fast with a blitzkrieg strategy, trying to catch him off guard and kill him without mercy!’