CHAPTER 331: THE FIRST STRIKE!

"Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the Black Rook channel, where we are going to broadcast the 44th FIDE Chess Olympiad live from Chennai, India! I am your host, Septian Bagaskara, and today, I will be accompanied by Sarah!"

"Hi, everyone!" Sarah waved with a smile as the camera panned on her.

"And Claudia Marisa here!"

"Good morning, chat!" Claudia also followed the older girl’s action, grinning widely when she was panned by the camera. The bright energy from the two girls on the stream was enough to elevate the mood, as the chat room exploded instantly when they saw those two here.

Hiji346: Yeah! Let’s fucking goooo!

Brosskzi: Sarah, my goddess! Please, notice me!

GorgonDeahaye: Claudia, you are so cute! Please, marry me!

Froggies: She is 12, for God’s sake!

Gorgon Deahaye has been banned by the moderator!

Bagas was quick with his hand, not allowing the girls to get harassed by the chat group. He wouldn’t mind something like simping or bantering on the chat, but when it was borderline pedophilia like this, that was when the boy needed to step up and make his stance clear.

’Yeah, not just her big sister, but Sheva and Sister Medina would have my head if I didn’t do anything when Ia is getting harassed like that.’ Bagas muttered, somehow feeling a cold sweat on his back. ’Fortunately, I move so fast that she didn’t even notice that chat. Internet sure is a scary place for a preteen girl like her...’

Unaware of Bagas’s heroic action, the two girls just went on, chatting as if nothing was going on there.

"So, which one do you want to watch the most here, Ia?" Sarah asked.

"Even though I really want to say my sister’s one, I think two games are slightly worthier to be followed today," Claudia answered quickly, as if this was the question that they had already talked about before the stream began. "I think that Sheva’s game in the men’s section and Laysa’s game in the women’s section is what excites me the most today."

"Oh? And how so?"

"Well, it is because the storyline here is quite strong, and I am sure that everyone will be intrigued to follow it closely," Claudia said solemnly. "After all, not only are those two the strong front-runners on their board to get a medal in their respective section, but they are also getting closer to getting the norm in this tournament. Laysa is about to get her first-ever IM norm, while Sheva is trying to chase his final GM norm in this tournament. So, yeah, those two will go berserk, and we can probably expect a crazy game to happen on the board."

Bagas nodded in approval, and if this was not live, he would’ve just stood and given the girl a standing applause. After all, what she had just said was inclined to the main purpose of this channel, and that was to promote Sheva’s game more. So, the boy was quite happy that he didn’t even need to ask for it, as Claudia just jumped into the boat voluntarily.

Then, the screen suddenly switched to the board, and now, all of them could watch the game between Sheva and Sabino Brunello better.

"Oh, well... What do we have here? An Italian GM playing the French Defense? A little bit of irony, don’t you think?" Bagas threw the exact same joke as what Sheva had in mind, and Sarah couldn’t help but snort when she heard her boyfriend’s dry humor. "Still, not a lot is happening here. Besides the doubled-pawn for black on the F file, everything is still equal, showing that both players are approaching this game cautiously."

At this point, Bagas had already upped his game. He was not just an amateur who didn’t know anything anymore, but a slightly better player with an ELO rating of 1000 on the online chess. The man also learned so many courses about opening, positioning, and almost everything about chess so that he could host the tournament better, not just following the computer line on the screen.

"Still, you cannot underestimate the effect that the doubled-pawn would inflict on the black piece in the long run." Claudia reminded. "Just look at how quickly Sheva made the move. That means this is already within his calculation, and we all know that Sheva would never go for a drawish game. This means that this goes according to his plan, so we can expect something big to happen sooner or later."

Much to everyone’s surprise, though, the evaluation bar suddenly moved down for Sabino Brunello’s favor. Well, not that much, of course, and even if Sheva knew it, he wouldn’t really care. After all, his thought would always be the same; if not pass through +1 or -1, the game is still a draw, no matter how good the computer engine portrayed the position to be.

However, he needed to be careful here. Sabino Brunello seemed to use the doubled pawn on the F file as a breakthrough to start attacking on the kingside. Four pawns were marching forward, and what made it worse was that Sheva had already castled his king to that side. If he was not careful enough, his defensive wall would reveal a leak, and it would be hard to recover once his opponent noticed that.

’Hmm... I cannot let him advance his pawn further, or it would hurt me a lot here. First, I need to move my knight out of danger. Still, will he push his F pawn immediately, though? If so, the danger would still be there, and my pieces would fall into passiveness. But that is probably the best I could do for now, right? Other than that, what could I do here?’

Every line was examined thoroughly inside his head as the boy wanted to make the best move possible on the board. If only someone were able to pry open his brain and look what was inside it, they would be drawn into madness after seeing so many chessboards with a similar scenario, not knowing what the hell the boy was smoking here. Well, that was probably the case for almost all the players in the world, so something like this was not strange at all.

In the end, though, Sheva felt like the first scenario in his mind was the best he could do, so he just moved his knight from the F6 square while also bracing for the impact.

However, the move that he was waiting for didn’t happen. No, instead, Sabino Brunello thought for more than 10 minutes before moving his A8 rook two squares away from the original position. Seeing this, Sheva’s eyes lit up instantly, knowing that his chance had finally come.

’Yes! Thank you for the blunder, Mister Brunello!’