Road to be the Best Chess Player in the World!-Chapter 518: Fourth in a Row!

"Hey, Sheva, why do you look so happy?" The moment Bagas was done with his streaming, he could see Sheva grinning foolishly like he was just falling in love for the first time.

"What? You don’t think that I shouldn’t be too happy about my win?" Sheva retorted immediately, yet there was no heat in his tone. If anything, the grin only widened on his face, enough to make his best friend step back in fright.

"Well... Not saying you shouldn’t be happy, but I mean, it is rare for you to display such happiness so blatantly like this." Bagas shrugged. "Usually, you will just sigh in relief, wanting to go back to the hotel room as quickly as possible, then take a huge chunk of the meal for yourself. The only occasion where I remember you being this happy should be when you won the Tata Steel Challenger last month, right?"

Hearing that, Sheva stopped walking, turning his head at Bagas as he stared at his best friend intently. The silence was enough to make the fat boy uncomfortable, as he asked weakly, "What? I’m just saying, right?"

"...You know that it is creepy, right?"

Bagas choked instantly, stomping at Sheva’s foot quite hard. "What do you mean by creepy? Don’t slander me like that! It is just a basic observation, nothing more and nothing less!" He glared at his best friend fiercely.

"If you said so, then why don’t I know anything about your habit?!"

"That’s because you are less observant!"

"You dare to tell that to the best GM in Indonesia?!"

"Bah! Shameless!"

As they walked into the hotel room, those two best friends just kept bickering with each other, even attracting people’s attention. Those who knew Sheva’s identity also started recording him, and soon, Sheva would be able to see himself getting viral once again in the chess community for acting like this.

’Still... Thinking about it, indeed, today’s mood after winning the game is a little bit better.’ Sheva couldn’t help but think.

Of course, the boy knew exactly the reason why. First of all, the game really satisfied his appetite, as Mateusz Bartel indeed played his favorite style. He would definitely prefer the aggressive war with them going for each other’s throats, compared to having to go for the tug-of-war that would wear down his stamina to drop.

Moreover, the biggest reason why he was so ecstatic right now was the addition of the ’Current state’ on the system’s stats. Even though it wasn’t set in stone, this stat allowed him to predict the outcome of some games, such as Jergus Pechac, whose current state was only 54 percent, and with all of his stats reduced by 5 percent as a result, the Slovakian GM lost against the Lithuanian GM Paulius Pultinevicius.

Not only him, but Vincent Keymer, who was on fire, the so-so game between GM Benjamin Gledura and IM Richard Stalmach, or even Erwin L’Ami’s terrible state, everything was within his prediction.

This stat would be useful once he stepped into a bigger league, as most people there were proficient in bluffing to get an easy draw. Somehow, imagining the scene of him refusing the draw offer and insisting on killing his opponent because he knew the opponent was in a terrible state was enough to excite him, and that was why the grin was so wide today.

True enough, after setting up his mind, Sheva started utilizing the new feature in the next game against Erwin L’Ami. Playing against the man with the current state of 42 percent, Sheva didn’t buy any attempt to take any three-fold repetition or other draw offer from the Dutch GM. Even though he had to fight for a long and arduous endgame battle, it never crossed his mind that he would accept a draw, especially knowing that he had an advantage in stats.

Fortunately, the moment he had been waiting for finally came, when Erwin L’Ami finally slipped in the 55th move, allowing Sheva to get two of the man’s pawns for nothing. With an overwhelming three against one pawn, even though both sides still had a bishop, that couldn’t change anything, and in the end, the man finally resigned. The war lasted for 3 hours and 12 minutes.

This gave Sheva his fourth win in the tournament, putting him on top of the standings. The closest player behind him was the Hungarian GM, Benjamin Gledura, with 3 points out of 4 games. The man managed to snatch two wins and two draws, becoming Sheva’s competitor for the number one spot. They would fight against each other in the sixth round of the tournament, and that day could be the fateful day where Sheva would seal the entire tournament for himself. 𝕗𝕣𝐞𝐞𝘄𝐞𝚋𝚗𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹.𝚌𝕠𝚖

However, it would still be for the day after tomorrow. Sheva still had a day off, allowing him to take a breath after getting into the zone for five days in a row. This was the advantage of an invitational tournament, as the schedule was more humane. If it were an open tournament, there was such a thing as a double-header day, where he had to fight two games in the same day.

Thinking about that, Sheva couldn’t help but shiver. ’No, no, no, I don’t want to imagine that.’ He shook his head strongly. ’Is that why the top players don’t want to go for any open tournament, though? Besides the pitiful amount of money, the schedule is too tight, and if one doesn’t plan carefully, they would crumble before the final round could start.’

Well, that was another story for the future, when Sheva decided to join another open tournament again, like the Reykjavik or the Biel one. For now, though, he still had a game to focus on, and while this fifth round wouldn’t bring any decisive result for the entire tournament, for Sheva’s career, the boy had a chance to achieve a milestone here.

His rating was already 2598, and with one more win, he would be able to reach 2600 ELO, becoming the first one to ever do it from Indonesia.

This was the chance for him to write another Chapter in the country’s chess community, and the boy was more than eager to grab it in the next game against Jan Vykouk.

-Author’s note-

Hey, everyone! Thank you for supporting my story! I have written a new one with the hope of getting a contract for that story as well, the title is ’The Rise of the Iron Wall!’. It is a football story, so if you like, please give your support by adding it to your collection and giving your power stone to that story! Thanks!