CHAPTER 341: THE GOAT’S CRAZY STATS! EVERYONE’S AMBITION!

"Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the Black Rook channel! It will be a very long day for our boys and girls in Chennai, as today, they will have to face two difficult opponents! The ladies would have a tough matchup against Georgia, a powerhouse country in women’s chess, while Magnus Carlsen, the GOAT himself, and the Norwegian team have already waited for the boys on table 8!"

Hilda99: Damn! How could we be so unlucky like this?!

Jity88: It doesn’t matter! Magnus Carlsen is invincible, but the Norwegian team is not!

Froggies: Yeah, and we still have Sheva in our team! Come on!

Even though it should be the women’s team that got a higher exposure since they had a better performance up until now, somehow, the attention shifted to the men’s team completely. Well, it was understandable, since everyone recognized Magnus as the greatest player who shaped this era, and such a big man would be playing against them, so of course, all the people would be excited. They wanted to see how far the gap between the Indonesian team and the GOAT himself was, and even though it was an unrealistic win, a few people still hoped that Master Susanto was able to force a draw on board 1.

’System, scan his stats for me first, please.’ Sheva didn’t forget to do this once the boy saw Magnus sitting on the chair. He himself also wanted to see how far the distance here was, just to be dumbfounded when the stats were revealed.

[DING! The scan is successful!]

[Name: Magnus Carlsen]

Attacking 99

Defense 98

Calculation 99

Strategy 98

Intuition 99

Time management 99

Title Slot: [Endgame Master] [Prodigy Crusher] [GOAT Aura] [Computer Brain] ...

’Damn! His stats are almost perfect?! Only defense and strategy are not perfect, yet those two are already 98! One point away from the perfect score! Also, what the hell is that title slot?! He has 1... 2... 3... 9?! Nine titles equipped?!’

This title thing was something new from the system, and Sheva only had one after receiving it from his great performance in the Biel Tournament a few weeks ago. However, what was this? Magnus Fucking Carlsen had nine! Even though Sheva couldn’t know the effect of each title, based on one that he had already achieved, the boy knew that any title could boost a player’s performance beyond their normal stats in a specific circumstance.

’Yeah, this is bullshit.’ Sheva smiled wryly. ’Well, he is not the GOAT for nothing, right?’

"So, what is the pairing today?" Bagas spoke on the broadcast. "Well, let’s see who is going to play who for the men’s team! Here is the starting lineup for today’s match!" Right after that, the screen changed, showing a table with a list of players from both countries.

Priasmoro Novendra (2478) – (2864) Magnus Carlsen

Susanto Megaranto (2522) – (2672) Aryan Tari

Yoseph T. Taher (2456) – (2638) Jon Ludvig Hammer

Adrian Sheva (2311) – (2593) Johan-Sebastian Christiansen

It was an interesting matchup. There were a lot of things to talk about. First of all, Sheva’s rating was still based on the first day of this month, which meant his achievement in Biel hadn’t been counted yet. In reality, up until now, his rating should be around 2449, which was crazy to think about, since the boy gained almost 150 ELO points in one month. That just showed that he was in a crazy run this month, and the rating could climb higher since there were still about four games left in this tournament.

Then, the fact that the rating difference on board 1 was almost 400 points had to be discussed. It was crazy, especially considering Novendra was not a weak player. His rating might be below the standard for a grandmaster, but it wasn’t that much. It was just... Magnus’s rating was untouchable in this case, and a normal GM wouldn’t be able to touch even the edge of his clothes.

The other surprising thing here was that Novendra was going to play for board 1 today. They all had talked about the possibility of throwing away the game against Magnus yesterday, so this was basically the team’s way to tell everyone that they would sacrifice Novendra, who was in bad form, while hoping that the other players, who were in better shape, would overturn the score.

It was a logical choice, yet somehow, this was unfair for Novendra. If people didn’t know better, they would all think that the man was getting bullied in the team.

However, this was not a decision based on malicious intent. Hell, if anything, Novendra was the one who offered himself to be sacrificed in this matchup. The man knew that of all the players on the team, he was the perfect one to play this role. His form was the worst here, so losing one more game wouldn’t change the mood at all.

Still, that didn’t mean he would give his head voluntarily.

Even though Novendra knew that he was no match for Magnus Carlsen, that didn’t mean he would go down without a fight. Hell, if anything, the man was determined to make it hard for the best player in the world to break through his defense. He had already done quick research last night, and while his findings were not that useful, at least they gave an insight into how he should approach this game.

’Drag him into the most theoretical game possible! That is my only chance to trouble him!’ Novendra muttered this strategy inside his head. ’All of the draws Magnus suffered this year came from a boring theoretical opening that didn’t allow him to penetrate into the opponent’s defense. Even though the opponents who could do that are basically 2700-rated players and I am not one of them, at least, the strategy is valid, and I could try it here!’

It wasn’t just him who was excited here. Everyone was the same, and even Master Susanto didn’t show it; the man was shaking in nervousness right now. They all knew that with Magnus Carlsen here, they would get more exposure today, so if they could pull off a miracle, they would be able to make their name resounding in the sky.

So, with that in mind, all of them thought the same thing here.

"Let’s make some noises today!"