Road to be the Best Chess Player in the World!-Chapter 451: Watching the World Chess Championship (IV)

"This same line again?!" Everyone groaned when they saw the opening line that both Ding and Nepo picked for the fourth game of the day. "Come on! Why are they expecting something different here?!"

Yeah, the opening they picked was the same Ruy Lopez line that they had already committed in the second game. As any wise person said, madness was to do something the same over and over again and expecting a different outcome. However, maybe this was their intention beforehand. They didn’t want a different outcome, wanting to get a draw and continue this tug-of-war.

"This should be the last rapid match of the day, right?" Sheva asked, trying to remember the exact format in this tiebreak.

"Yes, it is four rapids, and if nothing happened, then they would go for the blitz for... Well, forever." Anna whispered, starting to yawn. Even though it had only been two hours, which was far from their usual time spent in standard chess, watching three boring games in a row would bore anyone to death.

"Do you think anything will happen?" Claudia asked. Seeing Sheva staring at her stupidly, her face flushed red in embarrassment. "Yeah, a stupid question. Sorry about that one."

Both players didn’t even hide their intention at this point, wanting to repeat the same line they had two games ago. It took 16 moves for the game to deviate from the second game, and it was Nepo who broke that deadlock with an inaccurate move.

"Oh! We finally have something here!" Medina, the one who just arrived late, clapped excitedly when she saw this. "Anyway, your thought, Shev?" She asked the big star immediately, knowing that anyone in the room was more interested in hearing Sheva’s thoughts here, wanting to know how capable their new star was.

"Well, not really much can be done with this position." Sheva just shrugged. "It might show -0.3 for black, but whether it is -0.3, +0.5, or even -0.9999, as long as the evaluation bar hasn’t crossed plus or minus one, everything is still drawable."

This was always his philosophy, and honestly, Sheva had never thought anything about that. He didn’t expect, though, that among the players here, his words would impress some of them somehow.

"Well, if he said it like that..."

"No wonder he has never seen relaxed in the middle of the game, huh?"

"Maybe, that is the difference between him and us mere mortals."

"They sure are weird, huh? Picking up such strange wisdom when they can learn any other valuable things here..." Sheva said, having a sweat drop on his face. Anna just giggled softly, knowing exactly the source of his confusion.

Soon enough, though, the situation changed again. This time, Nepo made a blunder. It seemed that the Russian GM also started to get impatient, not wanting to exchange all of his pieces in one go just like the first three rounds. This time, instead of accepting the trade offer, he pushed back his bishop to his own territory, which was a fatal mistake according to the computer.

"Yes!" Sheva clapped excitedly, attracting some attention. "His bishop is now in a very passive position! It is time for Ding to attack! Now, it all depends on where he would place his—Oh, motherfucker!"

"LANGUAGE!"

The curse came out of nowhere, and Medina threw a tissue immediately to reprimand the boy. Well, his reaction was understandable, as Ding really had a chance to create something. Unfortunately, the Chinese GM decided to go conservative, wanting to exchange pieces instead of going for a tactical battle.

This was a rare opportunity, and yet, somehow, Ding missed it completely. Sheva was unsure if this kind of chance would appear again in this game or not.

’Let’s just hope that this miss is not going to bite him in the ass.’ He thought inwardly.

The game continued, and with the missed opportunity from Ding, Nepo seemed to gain a second life. This time, he didn’t want to go for any bold move, intending to force a draw like before. It seemed that his slip a moment ago woke the man up from his daydreaming, and now, he wanted to go down into the blitz game to determine everything.

For a moment, things seemed to be equal, with a high probability of the game ending up in a draw. Hell, Nepo even tried to force a three-fold repetition by keeping Ding’s king in check. However, when it was just one move away from the draw, Ding suddenly changed his mind, and instead of taking the draw, he self-pinned his own rook for a chance to counterattack.

"Oh?" Sheva crooked his eyebrows slightly. "He still wants to do something?"

Even though the move itself didn’t really do anything, at least it showed that Ding still had ambition in this game. However, with how bleak the position was, it was just a bark without a bite. Or... So, that was what he thought.

However, it seemed that the move shook Nepo for a bit. The Russian GM didn’t expect that Ding would refuse the draw offer. The self-pinned move also tempted him to push forward, letting him target that rook. If Ding didn’t do anything, his rook would be gone in two moves.

And once again, or... So that was what everyone thought. However, that was exactly the trap. Once Nepo started chasing Ding’s rook, that was when the Chinese GM could start pushing his pawns, getting so close to the promotion square. That was also exactly what he did in this game, and suddenly, the evaluation bar dropped, showing -4.6 for the black piece.

"Oh! Now, it should be over!" Some of the players cheered when they saw this. At this moment, they all just wanted the game to be over quickly. "There is no way Ding would choke this up, right?"

"It depends, but I don’t think such a player would throw such a massive advantage like this..." Irfan said solemnly.

It seemed that this time, Ding didn’t have any intention to throw away the game. He started to exert his dominance, marching all of his pieces forward to support the promotion line. His hand was trembling, and even from the camera, anyone could see that the man was sweating a lot. Nepo was also the same. The Russian man kept playing around with the pieces that he had already taken before, a sign of his being on the verge of collapse.

This time, though, Ding really showed why he deserved to be here. The execution was a bit messy, and the nervousness also started to get to him, yet the man still did everything perfectly. No mistake, no flaw. Everything was clinical.

In the end, after surviving for 58 moves, Nepo was finally on the death door, couldn’t help but let out a deep, exhausted sigh.

He resigned, and the World Chess Champion for this period would be the Chinese super GM, Ding Liren.