Road to be the Best Chess Player in the World!

"Now, the situation changes again, with Sheva back in control of the game." Irfan sighed in relief when he saw Aryan Chopra make a mistake that threw away all the Indian man's advantage earlier. "What he has to do is simple; put his queen on the G6 square and push Chopra's knight back to the first rank, and later, start pushing his D and E pawns forward. It is time for him to put pressure on his opponent, and in this situation, I am sure Sheva would never make any mistake."

Unlike before, when the game was still pretty much chaotic to predict, this time, Irfan said with a tone full of confidence that Sheva would be able to capitalize on this situation easily. After all, he knew the boy pretty well, and this was the kind of position he loved the most. Even though the opponent was a grandmaster, Irfan was confident that as long as Sheva could maintain his composure, the boy would be able to at least steal half a point in this game.

"Oh, well… Let's go back to our match of the day, the IM Aulia Medina Warda fighting against Yu Yangyi with the black piece." Bagas operated his laptop quickly, changing the connection to the camera that pointed out at that particular game.

There, anyone could see Medina frowning deeply, trying to figure out her current situation. Yu Yangyi himself just crossed his arms in front of his chest, looking at the board coldly with no hint of emotion flashing in his eyes.

"Well, what do you think about this situation, Master Irfan?" Bagas asked, trying to get the man to explain the current situation to his viewers.

"Oh, this is a difficult game…" Irfan operated his own laptop quickly, moving back the board on the screen to the original state before starting to trace the moves that had already happened on the board. "It seems that Medina is eager to get a good result here, as she uses the rarer side of the Sicilian Defense's line, the Moscow variation. This is the line that the legendary Garry Kasparov himself popularized, less in theory yet still pretty sharp in offense. It seems that she wants to put more pressure on Yu Yangyi's side."

"Um… Isn't that a little bit… I don't know, risky?" Bagas asked with a little hint of uncertainty in his tone. "I mean, his opponent is a top-seeded player, right? Even though Grandmaster Yu Yangyi failed to win his second-round game, he is still a very strong player. Should Master Medina really choose this approach?"

"Well, you are right, Bagas. If I have to say, Medina's move is not just a little bit risky, it is even borderline suicidal." Irfan answered solemnly. "Grandmaster Yu Yangyi is a player with keen eyes on his opponent's mistakes, so once Medina makes even a single inaccuracy, he would be ready to punish it directly. I don't know what prompts Medina to choose this opening, but I really hope that she will not regret it later."

Meanwhile, at the venue, Medina herself also sweated there, starting to regret her bold approach. After all, she would only use a normal open variation or probably the dragon one as her usual approach. But this time, the woman suddenly thought something crazy and went for something that she herself had never played, even for a single game in any official tournament that she had ever joined.

'Oh, no, I am going to get killed here.' Medina bit her lips nervously. The feeling grew more as she saw the stone-cold expression on Yu Yangyi's face, and the fact that she couldn't see his eyes clearly behind the glasses somehow made the woman think that the Chinese grandmaster had already seen everything he needed on the board to kill her. 'Oh, gosh… This is terrifying…'

Having already committed to the aggressive line of the Sicilian Defense, Medina didn't have too much choice except for gritting her teeth and continuing to march forward. Unfortunately, Yu Yangyi was a sniper for his opponent's mistake, as he spotted some inaccuracies pretty quickly before capitalizing on them for his advantage. Hell, he even managed to corner Medina's dark bishop into an ugly spot and isolated that piece from getting involved in the game again. The evaluation bar also moved to his side, giving -1.2 to show that the Chinese Grandmaster was the one who took the initiative here.

"This is too difficult for Medina." Irfan shook his head helplessly. "Yu Yangyi's initiative in this game is starting to overwhelm her, and while it is cruel for me to say, sooner or later, Medina will crumble under the pressure, and mistake after mistakes are bound to happen here."

Unfortunately for the woman, what happened in the next hour was exactly what Irfan had predicted in the broadcast. No matter how much she thought of getting away from her situation, it seemed that she would only get trapped deeper into this nightmare.

She really tried her best to escape from this horrid situation, even trying to trick Yu Yangyi into a perpetual checkmate on the corner of the board. However, the Chinese grandmaster was not an ordinary player, and no cheap trick would be able to fool him like that. He was playing like a machine, bulldozing his way through Medina's territory with an accuracy that showcased why he was one of the best players in the world.

Medina could only stare blankly at the board, not knowing what to do right now. Things had been spiraling down uncontrollably, and she herself couldn't find a way to get out of this situation.

Her king was about to be cornered in the middle of the board, and to protect her position from getting nuked by her opponent, she had to sacrifice her queen with no compensation at all. Her knight was also in an ugly spot without having any squares to move. Even without looking at the evaluation bar, Medina knew that she was about to lose this game. Still, she didn't want to give up too soon.

Unfortunately, her effort was proven to be futile, as in the 39th move of the game, Yu Yangyi managed to fork her rook, knight, and king straight at the same time with his queen, and after seeing the situation in the board, Medina finally lost all of her fighting spirit, smiling bitterly for the last time before she finally offered a handshake.

She resigned.