CHAPTER 97: VS CLAUDIA AGAIN!

Five minutes later, the alarm rang through the loudspeaker, signalling the beginning of the seventh round of the tournament. To no one’s surprise, Sheva and Arfan’s tables were surrounded by a lot of people already. Most of them wanted to watch what kind of players those two were who somehow managed to catch GothamChess’ attention.

While he didn’t know how Arfan handled this matter, Sheva couldn’t care less about that. Right now, he had an opponent who was eager to beat him, and one moment of concentration loss would be enough for him to get punished. The boy just closed his eyes for a moment, trying to dive into his focus state. Right after that, he opened his eyes, showing a sharp gaze before pushing his D pawn two squares forward.

Yeah, this was definitely not his normal routine. After all, Sheva was always the 1.e4 player, so it caught Claudia off guard for a moment. As for why he decided to choose that, honestly, it was just a decision he took on the spur of the moment earlier. After playing two games in a row against the 1.d4 opening, he went for that unconsciously, feeling that he didn’t need to adjust his state for too long.

Unfortunately, Claudia managed to snap out of her surprised state pretty immediately, returning the favor by letting her knight jump to the F3 square. However, this was already within Sheva’s expectations. There was no way a mere opening could catch her off guard for too long, especially not with the normal 1.d4 opening. She decided to go for the Indian defense with a lot of variations to choose from, depending on what Sheva was going to do.

The boy pondered for a moment before pushing his C pawn two squares forward, attempting to control the center of the board pretty early. Claudia replied with an immediate action, pushing her E pawn one square forward to give her dark bishop a room to move and to prepare the D5 move. For a moment, it looked like those two would transpose the opening into a normal Queen’s Gambit decline. However, instead of moving his B pawn, Sheva decided to let his G pawn take the action first, signalling that he was going to castle on the king’s side.

’The Indian’s Defense, huh?’ Claudia muttered to herself. ’This is the first time I’ve seen him playing this opening. Still, I couldn’t underestimate him. He always knows a lot of strange variations. Better keep it solid and simple before he can create more chaos on the board.’

Claudia thought for a while before she finally decided to bring out her dark bishop, giving a check to Sheva’s king. This was the Bogo-Indian Defense, an opening that would often lead into a solid positional game. It was clear that the girl wanted to drag Sheva into her most familiar territory here.

’Now, let’s see what you would do...’ She thought while also glancing at her opponent.

*Author’s note: If you want to visualize the position better, check the comment below.

Normally, the white piece would push the dark bishop to cover the check. If that was the case, Claudia would have a lot of options, from enforcing his dark bishop with the pawn on the A file or even in the C file. Hell, she could also bring her queen to the E7, protecting the bishop from afar. Everything was good as long as she didn’t try to exchange the bishop directly.

However, instead of going for the main line, Sheva went for a different approach. He used his B1 knight that hadn’t been developed yet to cover the D2 square, letting it get protected by almost all of his pieces. This move definitely startled Claudia, who didn’t expect that Sheva would know about this variation.

However, this didn’t change her overall strategy. The girl bulldozed her way through Sheva’s defense hotheadedly, something that was definitely not her style. Hell, she even took the risk of exchanging her bishop with Sheva’s knight. It was quite risky, since in the Indian Defense game, no matter which variation it was, two pairs of bishops would always have a strong position in the later stage.

For the next few moves, both players developed their pieces pretty quickly, with Sheva himself trying to put pressure by putting three connected pawns in the middle of the board. He also delayed castling, still trying to find a crack in Claudia’s defense. It was clear that the boy played a dangerous game here, especially since his opponent kept giving him a check after another.

In the end, after playing for more than fifteen moves, Sheva finally castled his king to the kingside. However, the protection provided by the pawn wasn’t that much, since Sheva had already pushed almost all of them forward. The fact that Claudia’s light bishop stared from afar didn’t help him at all. Hell, even the amateur players who watched on the sideline could tell that this was a bad position for Sheva. Claudia would only need to chop Sheva’s pawn structure in the middle, creating a little bit of chaos and forcing one or two doubled pawns on his side, and the game would be on her side.

*Author’s note: If you want to visualize the position better, check the comment below.

However, even with all of that advantage, the computer engine still said that the game was equal. After all, Sheva’s pieces were also in strategic squares, staring at Claudia’s kingside from afar. He was also waiting for Claudia to make a mistake, and once it happened, his pieces would be ready to go rampant, killing everything left and right.

For a moment, the game entered a stalemate, and the situation itself was quite tense. Both players were in a pretty much open position and got ready to launch their attack, yet they were still patient enough to wait for the right moment. They kept shuffling their pieces back and forth, trying to poke and probe for a hole. Honestly, this game turned into a boring one, as not a lot of action happened here. However, it was bound to happen, especially with Claudia’s steady playing style.

However, a strange thing suddenly occurred on the board. Sheva didn’t know how or since when it happened, but suddenly, he felt like the balance of the game shifted quietly toward Claudia’s side.

’Wait, what the hell is going on here?!’