Chapter 604: First Round Recap!
At this point in his career, Sheva had already experienced a lot of high-level tournaments. Not the highest, of course, but it was still a strong one that could suffocate any ordinary GM outside. The boy thought that he had seen everything, and yet, the screen in front of him—the content in it, to be more specific—was still enough to make the boy dumbfounded at what he saw.
There, he noticed that out of the four games played today, every one of them ended up with anything but a draw.
Yeah, besides him, Gukesh, Arjun Erigaisi, and Vincent Keymer were able to steal a full point against their respective opponent.
The first one ended up the quickest. Sheva didn’t know how Gukesh did it, but the Indian prodigy managed to snatch the first win of the tournament from Jorden Van Foorest in a quick 1 hour and 12 minutes. Hell, the game lasted for only 21 moves, and the final position was quite nasty.
Jorden Van Foreest still had his queen, his bishop, and two rooks existing on his side, and yet, Gukesh’s attack with two bishops, two knights, two pawns, and a rook was enough to shut down the man’s king. Even if Jorden wanted to do something here, he couldn’t stop the looming threat of checkmate, so the Dutch GM finally resigned when he knew that his fate was sealed.
’Yeah, bastard is still as strong as ever. It seems the tournament is going to be far more interesting than I initially thought.’ Sheva clenched his fist unconsciously; his burning spirit leaked through his eyes.
Meanwhile, Arjun Erigaisi also started the game with a win. The boy beat the Israeli GM, Boris Gelfand, and based on the final position, Sheva could see that the other Indian prodigy was able to get a checkmate on the board.
’Anyway, where are those two? I swear, I didn’t really see them today.’ Sheva pondered for a moment. ’Oh, well... Anyway, I will meet them soon, let’s just wait until the confrontation is over.’
At the end of the day, out of all the Indian prodigies, Sheva was only close to Pragg. Yeah, he had a conversation or two with Arjun and Gukesh, but that was only when Pragg himself was there. If not, well, they were back to strangers again, not even exchanging greetings at all.
After Gukesh and Arjun, Vincent Keymer was the third one to win in this game. The German GM won in a similar fashion to what Sheva pulled, a long and arduous endgame before besting the local hero, Nils Grandelius, in 54 moves.
The teenager was the second-to-last to snatch a win in this round, a little bit faster than Sheva.
So, now, with the first round to be over, four players were in the lead already, and coincidentally enough, they all were just teenagers here. Sheva, Arjun, and Vincent were just 19, and Gukesh was even younger! He was just 17!
No wonder, on the next day, the title of the news on the Chess.com platform was quite bombastic.
TePe Sigeman & Co. Tournament Start, Youngsters Dominate the Field!
The news was flooded by comments instantly, as there were Indian and Indonesian players there. As two countries that were in the top 10 of the biggest populations in the world, both countries had the craziest online troops, ensuring that anyone representing them would have the biggest backing in the world.
Heck, yeah! As expected from Sheva!
Bah! He still cannot be compared to Gukesh, you know?! Win against him first, then brag!
Insolent! Their last game was last year! Everything will change soon!
Hey, don’t count out Arjun in this race!
As the one who handled Sheva’s PR work, Bagas scrolled through the phone and read almost every comment there one by one, and sometimes, he would laugh out loud whenever a funny remark popped up on his screen.
Sheva just shook his head exasperatedly, trying to ignore his best friend while also holding his phone.
It was the next morning, and the second day of the tournament was about to begin. This time, Sheva’s opponent was Jorden Van Foreest, a player with a similar attractive style to his. However, the man had a very valuable experience in his career.
The man was in the team that Magnus Carlsen himself recruited to prepare for the World Championship a few years ago against Ian Nepomniachtchi, and he practiced with a group of beasts like Magnus himself and Danil Dubov, one of the greatest blitz players of this generation.
With that in his resume, there was no way Jorden could be defeated easily today.
’He will also try to bounce back after his loss against Gukesh yesterday, right?’ Sheva pondered. ’Still, at least, playing against him will be far better than playing against Peter Svidler. Man, I don’t want to face such an uncertain endgame again in the future. At least, Jorden Van Foreest will be brave enough to go out, right?’ He shivered a little at the memory of the game yesterday.
Even though in the end, he still managed to win, Sheva attributed it to his luck for finding the right sequence at the right time. However, that was too uncontrollable, and he didn’t want to rely fully on his instinct. At least, not in the standard mode.
Meanwhile, on the other table, Gukesh would have to play against Vincent Keymer in this round. This was a clash between two players who managed to earn a full point yesterday, so it would be interesting to see which one would triumph and gain a better momentum in this tournament.
Of course, for Sheva, ideally, that game should end up in a draw, so that none of them would get two wins in a row after today’s round. However, that was his least concern right now, because if he didn’t put his focus fully on his own game, it could lead him to disaster.
’Yeah, unlike my last tournament, everyone here is strong, some even stronger than me. I cannot slip even for a round, or they would punish me without hesitation. Come on!’