Road to be the Best Chess Player in the World!-Chapter 418: Sheva VS Arjun Erigaisi! (I)
"Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the Black Rook Channel! Together with me, Septian Bagaskara, are the lovely lady who you all know already, Sarah, and a special guest who has been guiding us throughout the crazy round yesterday, the one and only, Mister ChessBase India himself, Sagar Shah!"
"Hello, everyone!" Sagar Shah waved at the camera with his usual sweet smile.
"Today, we are having another interesting matchup! The fight for the top spot between Sheva and Arjun Erigaisi!" Bagas explained. "Also, you might not know this, Mister Sagar, but the game today is a big deal for us Indonesian people!" He smiled mysteriously.
"Oh?" Now, Sagar Shah was curious.
"Indeed! You might not notice this, but Sheva has already earned three norms to become a GM, and the only thing he needs to do is to cross 2500! With the four wins he earned in this tournament, his rating is about 2498.2, and he only needs one draw to become the fifth ever Indonesian player to become a GM!" The light shining in his eyes showed how excited Bagas was.
"Really?! Then, congratulations!"
Sagar Shah was genuinely happy for Bagas, Sheva, and the entire Indonesian Chess Community. He himself didn’t look down on them for celebrating a mere GM title, as in India, they would get one in almost every month. However, the man could still remember clearly his childhood, when Vishwanathan Anand was fighting tooth and nail for India’s bright future in chess.
At that time, just like in any other developing country, parents would prefer their children to go for a prestigious job like a doctor, an engineer, or a lawyer.They would think that chess was just a game to spend in free time, and sometimes, some parents might even forbid their children from playing that, forcing them to study.
Now, parents still want their children to get those kinds of jobs. However, they also started to see chess as a prospective job, especially with how the government supports the entire community, and while it wasn’t purely because of Vishy Anand, anyone could figure out that 70 to 80 percent of this was related to him.
He knew that India was lucky to have such an amazing player in Vishy Anand to help develop the community to flourish up to this point, and while it might be a little bit far-fetched, the man also hoped that Sheva could do what Vishy Anand did for India in Indonesia.
"Yeah, but he still needs to take care of this game first," Bagas explained further. "That is why, we apologize beforehand, Mister Sagar, but today’s game will definitely be on Sheva’s bag!"
"Oh? You are that confident?" Sagar smiled playfully. "Just wait, Arjun is also not a pushover that you could ignore!"
As they both threw banter at each other, the game finally started, and the screen immediately shifted to the table where both players were fighting. Playing with white, Sheva didn’t hesitate to go for his usual 1.e4 routine. However, Arjun returned the favor with the move that made the boy frown instantly.
’The Pirc Defense?’ He muttered under his breath. ’Man, this is going to be difficult...’
Yeah, instead of going for the Sicilian Defense or the French Defense that Sheva had already prepared for after a full night of research, Arjun went for an unconventional opening, pushing the D pawn only one square forward while also letting Sheva take control of the center since the beginning of the game.
This opening was called the Pirc Defense, and it would be a lie if Sheva said he was familiar with it. For as long as he could remember, the only game where the boy played against this opening was against Niclas Huschenberth, a strong GM from Germany, during his time in Biel. At that time, he won the game, so Sheva didn’t really pay a lot of attention to the opening. However, he knew that Niclas and Arjun were two completely different players, and the latter was definitely stronger.
’Yeah, I have never thought that one day, someone would try to use my unorthodox opening strategy against me.’ Sheva smiled wryly. ’Karma is a bitch, for sure.’
Fortunately, the only thing that Sheva remembered very well from this opening was that its setup resembled the King’s Indian a lot, so the boy was still quite familiar with the opening. The only thing he needed to be careful of was to not to overextend his pawns, because the huge space given to him by Arjun was so tempting to take control of.
’No, let’s do it slowly.’ Sheva took a deep breath, trying to calm his mind. ’I don’t need to rush things. Even a raw is enough for me to get my title. Also, a draw is not a bad result. We are the only ones who still have a perfect record, so losing a half point will not mean too much for us. Let’s take it slowly and not try to do anything stupid.’
Well, his mouth said one thing, but in reality, he was doing the complete opposite of it. The boy kept having his eyes wide open, trying to find any possible flaw in Arjun’s position to help him break through this position. However, since his desire to win was not that much in this game, Sheva decided not risk anything except if it was necessary.
"Well, it is quite rare for Sheva to get outwitted in the opening stage, right?" Sarah couldn’t help but ask.
"Indeed, usually, his opponent would get caught in Sheva’s mind game already, especially when he pulls an unorthodox opening from his arsenal." Bagas nodded solemnly. "Who would’ve thought that in this game, he would be the one who suffers from that?"
"In fact, Arjun’s thought process is simple." Sagar chimed in. "Anyone who researches Sheva’s playing style deep enough knows that he likes to take initiative in the opening stage to get a time advantage, so the best way to deal with that is to flip the table and use his own strategy against him. It is a dangerous tactic, since Sheva is quite apt in strange opening line variations, but this is also Arjun’s specialty. Now that the initiative is in Arjun’s hands, let’s see how Sheva would proceed with this matter..."
