CHAPTER 72: THE OPENING CEREMONY

Unfortunately for Sheva, instead of going straight for the opening game, the first agenda today was the opening ceremony, with a lot of important people taking their sweet time to talk in front of more than one hundred chess players inside. He had to hold back the urge to yawn here as sleepiness was threatening to kill him on the spot.

Honestly, Sheva was not the type of person who enjoyed this kind of event. The mumbo—jumbo words either became a lullaby that helped him get a bad neck from sleeping in such a weird posture or the source of confusion inside his head. Either way, the two options were really not good for his head.

Hell, even when Utut Ardianto, the living legend and the person he met briefly in Vietnam, stood up on the stage and spoke, it still couldn’t spark his interest. Fortunately, this only lasted for fifteen minutes before all the people there spread out, going straight to the table where they were going to play.

"Shev! You are here too!" Suddenly, a cute, high-pitched voice greeted him from behind. When Sheva turned around, he could see Claudia smiling cheerfully at him. "It is good to see a familiar face here!" She sighed in relief.

"Didn’t you meet with Laysa earlier?" Sheva asked, clearly remembering that the girl had left him and Bagas to search for Anna. However, it seemed that he asked the wrong question here, as the girl’s face turned into a big scowl.

"You mean that bimbo?" The little girl sneered hatefully. "Who cares about her?! Anyway, if you somehow meet her, don’t forget to knock her out again for me! Put her in her place, okay?"

Sheva felt the corner of his lips twitching, somehow seeing clearly the beautiful relationship between Claudia and Laysa. The boy also noticed that Claudia seemed to get closer to him since he managed to beat Laysa in the blitz game a few days ago. It seemed that Laysa really got on Claudia’s wrong side, and no matter what happened, she would hate the older girl with everything she had.

"Anyway, who is your first opponent?" Sheva asked, trying to shift the topic.

"Just a small fry, not worth mentioning." Claudia clicked her tongue in annoyance, clearly feeling dissatisfied with the drawing result. "Out of all the players with a higher rating than me in this section, how could my first opponent turn out to be someone with a 1500 rating? It is not fair!" She stomped her feet childishly.

Indeed, unlike the tournament in Vietnam, where the highest rating was just around 1970, this time, the highest rating was 2250, and above Claudia, whose rating was 1993, there were about 27 people available. It was frustrating to get a weak opponent when her aim was to get as much rating as possible in this tournament.

"Well, it doesn’t really matter, right? I mean, if you have any dissatisfaction with your opponent, just beat them all until you face the one you want to meet." Sheva shrugged nonchalantly.

"You are right, and I know that too. Still..." Claudia grumbled, still a bit unhappy here. "Anyway, what about you?" She didn’t forget to ask, too.

"Me?" Sheva smirked. "Well, I get the eighth seed here, someone called Ardianto with the ELO rating 2196."

"What?! That is unfair!" Claudia pouted more. "As long as you didn’t lose, your rating will be boosted uncontrollably!"

"Exactly!" Sheva tried his best to hold his laughter as he bragged to the little girl in front of him. Still, the boy didn’t want to affect her mood that much before the game began, so he changed the topic once again here. "What about Anna? Who is her first opponent?"

"Oh, Big Sis?" Claudia grimaced. "She is so unlucky! Her first game is going to be against Master Susanto! That is definitely a death sentence!"

Sheva crooked one of his eyebrows a little bit. Although he had already expected something like this, the boy wouldn’t expect the tournament to make this kind of a bold pairing from the start. After all, it was clear after Anna’s comment on the newspaper earlier that she was the hottest prospect among the chess players in the country. If the tournament wanted to ride her fame, they had to do it with a bang, which was pairing her against the best player in the tournament, Susanto Megaranto, from the very first start. It was a calculated move, and only those inexperienced or stupid wouldn’t be able to see that.

"Well, don’t worry too much about her." Sheva decided not to say that part, trying to reassure the sulking Claudia. "If anything, she should be the happiest among the other, right? I am sure your big sis is still in ecstasy today, especially since this tournament would provide her with an unlimited amount of top chess players all around the country. If anything, I would say that I am quite envious of her..."

This... Even Claudia had to admit, albeit begrudgingly, that she was jealous of her sister for being able to play in such a top-rated tournament like this. They both went quiet, silently regretting why their rating was so low and determined that this tournament would be the best event to bounce as highly as possible. Even though they didn’t say anything, their gazes basically told each other their ambition here.

"Anyway, we need to prepare ourselves, too." Sheva finally broke the silence. "Just get as many ratings as possible, I am sure that our time will come soon. Also, if you dare to lose against any other player besides me, I will laugh at you, remember?" He grinned goofily.

Claudia scoffed, not out of hostility, but at how ridiculous the statement that Sheva had just thrown. "I should be the one asking that question, right? You have been able to force more draws against Big Sis and even won a game against that Bimbo. If you somehow dare to lose against those nobodies outside here, I will never forgive you, get it?!"

"Yes, Ma’am!"