NOVEL NEXT Chapter 226: Sheva's Next Opponent, Shant Sargsyan!
When Sheva found out that, indeed, his next opponent would be Shant Sargsyan, he couldn't help but let out a relieved sigh. It wasn't like the man was weaker than Puranik Abimanyu. Hell, if anything, the Armenian GM had the higher rating here, being the fifth-seeded player of the tournament. It was just… Sheva had already paid attention to the top five players of the tournament, so he knew Shant Sargsyan's stats by now and could make a little preparation for the game tomorrow.
'System, show me Shant Sargsyan's stats again, please.' He muttered to himself.
[DING! The scan is successful!]
[Name: Shant Sargsyan]
Attacking 87
Defense 87
Calculation 88
Strategy 84
Intuition 83
Time management 83
Sheva pondered for a moment while starting to search the last couple of games that Shant Sargsyan played. This was just another tough matchup for him, as the Armenian GM was a very well-rounded player. His weakest stats, intuition and time management, were even higher than what Sheva had, making it seem impossible for him to handle.
Fortunately, even though on paper, Sheva's chance to win was almost null, the boy had already figured out that stats didn't mean everything. Someone could still be lower in them, yet if they had a good day or their opponent was not in their best state, they could steal a draw or even a win against their opponent. That was exactly what Sheva did against Niclas Huschenbeth and Aryan Chopra in the last two rounds, and this time, he was determined to continue his positive trend against Shant Sargsyan.
'Hmm… This is going to be difficult…' Sheva hummed lowly; a slight frown could be seen on his face. 'Not only difficult, the game tomorrow is definitely going to be a long and exhausting one… Man, I really need to preserve my stamina tonight.'
Yeah, after checking Shant Sargsyan's last ten games, Sheva found a common pattern here. He was a player who had big ambition, coming in every game with the aim to win it all. Hell, even when the game had already entered a draw position, he would still be stubborn enough to continue and wait until his opponent tilted rather than accepting a quick and easy draw.
In three games in which the man had a draw result, Sheva found that two of them lasted for more than 65 moves, with Shant Sargsyan keeping pushing the game to the brink before finally accepting the draw. Not only that, out of two games that he lost, the Armenian GM didn't even resign when the situation was definitely far from his favor, only giving up when he saw checkmate on the board.
Shant Sargsyan's relentlessness and stubbornness would definitely be a huge factor if Sheva wanted to steal a point from the man. This game was definitely going to be a test of patience for the boy, as Shant Sargsyan would definitely try to drag him into an endurance battle.
'Yeah, fuck, at this point, I shouldn't expect an easy game after getting three wins in a row.'
Meanwhile, Anna also found herself in a difficult spot right now. Sheva didn't help her prepare for the game tomorrow because they had already researched everything that they could find about the man yesterday. Yeah, her opponent in the next round was Yu Yangyi, the top-seeded player of the tournament and also Medina's opponent in the last round.
'First Sister Medina, and now me, why are we so unlucky?!' The girl had to hold back the urge to curse. 'What's next, Yu Yangyi is going to play against Sheva in the fifth round? What is this?! Yu Yangyi's special event to trample all the Indonesian players in this tournament?!'
Anna spent almost half an hour cursing the fact that she got paired against the Chinese grandmaster in the next round. Unfortunately, this was something that she couldn't change, no matter how much the girl complained, so in the end, she just swallowed all the harsh words on the tip of her tongue and decided to go for their research yesterday about Yu Yangyi.
As for Medina… Well, she would face a local player with an ELO rating of 2098, so the woman was definitely the one who could sleep the best tonight.
Without anyone noticing, time passed quickly, and the new day finally came. Both Anna and Sheva had their eyes bloodshot red, having stayed awake pretty late last night. However, they felt like their effort was not futile, as both teenagers had a pretty solid plan to face the game.
They all went to the venue pretty early, coming there when not a lot of players had already arrived. To no one's surprise, even though it was still early, a little crowd had already gathered in front of the venue, probably waiting for the players from the GMT section to come. It seemed that Gukesh and Nodirbek Abdussatorov, the Uzbekistan prodigy, had done a good job in that highest section, while Le Quang Liem, the highest-rated player overall, started to bounce back after a slow start.
It was the fourth round of the tournament for the open session, and for the Master's one, today should be their fifth round. The tournament should reach the beginning of the climax stage here, where all the top players start to play against each other. The fact that Sheva could sneak into that list was amazing enough, and fans also started to notice his presence.
"Mister, can you give me an autograph?"
"Let's have a photo together!"
"Mister, you did a good job, like Magnus Carlsen! I am your fan right now! From which country do you come?"
Somehow, a bunch of teenagers stopped Sheva from entering the venue, wanting to interact with him before the round began. Bagas took out his phone quickly, recording this wholesome moment as Sheva didn't have any stage fright in handling this situation. Well… After the first time he faced fans in Vietnam, the boy had already prepared for this kind of interaction, so he wasn't bothered by this small episode at all.
"I didn't expect that he would get fans in a foreign country like this…" Medina somehow felt complicated when she saw Sheva being surrounded by a bunch of teenagers. "Also, did someone just put Magnus Carlsen's name in the same sentence as his name? Isn't it a bit too much?" Somehow, she was speechless over the comment thrown by those kids.
"Well, they are probably not someone who follows high-level tournaments, so they don't know the difference between those top players and us who are still scrapping in an open tournament like this," Anna answered nonchalantly. Her gaze went softer, though, as she looked at the adorable sight of Sheva interacting with his fans with a fond gaze. "Well, they are lucky to become his fans right now, because I am sure Sheva would only climb higher in the future, leaving us all in the dust."