Road to be the Best Chess Player in the World!

After spending fifteen minutes interacting with his 'fans', Sheva was finally able to leave the crowd and enter the building as quickly as possible. Honestly, even though he had already gotten used to this kind of interaction and he himself didn't mind it, the fans could really overwhelm him, making his brain stop for a moment. Fortunately, it didn't last too long, so the boy could recover from this short episode and put his focus back on the next game.

Of course, Anna and Medina would not let this slide so easily. No, the moment they saw Sheva coming out of the crowd, those two couldn't help but leave some teasing comments about him.

"Oh, I am so jealous! It should be good to have a lot of fans, right, Anna?"

"Yes, Sister Medina! That blonde girl with the blue-strip-white shirt looks gorgeous! Sheva, are you not interested in her?"

"Eh?! What about that girl with glasses? I think she adores him more! They would look cute together!"

Sheva could feel his cheek getting hotter in a second, getting flustered by the teasing he suffered from those two ladies. In the end, he just shut his ears tightly, pretending that those two were just strangers and they didn't know each other at all.

Well, this episode only happened for a few minutes, as right after that, the players finally arrived at the venue one by one. Seeing this, those three also nodded at each other, knowing that it was time for them to go to their respective table. After greeting and wishing each other luck, they entered the building together, and Sheva went straight to the front side, where all the top players gathered to fight for the next round. This time, since he was one of the five players who had a perfect record, the boy had the opportunity to play in table 4, where the exposure from the official broadcasting media of the tournament would be higher than usual.

'Okay, let's get this…' Sheva took a deep breath, adjusting some of the pieces in front of him slightly.

The boy spent the next few minutes trying to calm his mind. It was always nerve-wracking for him to wait when the game was about to begin like this. Five minutes later, Shant Sargsyan finally arrived too, and this was probably the first time Sheva looked at the man's appearance properly.

'Hmm… Interesting…' Sheva pondered for a moment. 'This should be my first time seeing someone from Armenia, right? Well… He seems pretty much ordinary, just like people from the other regions.' There was a slight disappointment in his tone, as if he expected the man would have unique features that could distinguish him from any other people here.

Indeed, besides his bright brown eyes, Sheva couldn't find anything special about Shant Sargyan. The man had a medium skin tone, dark eyebrows, and brown eyes, giving him a friendly and composed expression. He also dressed in a formal dark suit jacket over a light shirt, which added to a professional appearance.

Overall, he was just an ordinary man, and if not for the fact that they were in a chess tournament, Sheva would think that Shant Sargsyan was just an ordinary worker.

Oh, he didn't mean to be rude here. However, this was the first time Sheva met someone from Armenia, and honestly, he couldn't even remember that Armenia existed before he found out about this pairing. It was understandable, since Armenia and Indonesia didn't seem to cross paths quite often. Hell, if he could ask Shant Sargsyan, the boy was sure that the Armenian GM wouldn't be very familiar with Indonesia as well.

'Oh, well, that would be a story for another time.' Sheva shook his head quickly. 'For now, let's try to focus on the game first.'

They waited once again for more than five minutes, and honestly, the waiting moment was always the longest and the most exhausting one for Sheva. This was when his patience was tested, as he was one distraction away from getting his concentration blown away inside his head. Fortunately, a moment later, he heard the alarm ring, the signal that the fourth round of the tournament had finally begun.

"Let's have a good game."

"Yeah, let's have a good game."

Right after they shook hands with each other, Sheva started the clock, and he didn't hesitate to push his E pawn two squares forward. Even though at this point, he had a lot in his opening repertoire, the boy had never thought that he would move on from the E4 opening, thinking that this was the best approach that he could do to start the game as the white piece.

Shant Sargsyan also didn't hesitate here, moving his C pawn two squares forward. He initiated the Sicilian Defense, wanting to go for an aggressive line as the man eyed a win against Sheva. In his mind, even though Sheva had done a really good job by defeating two 2600-rated grandmasters in a row, it could be attributed to the boy's luck, not something that could be sustained for the rest of the tournament. The Armenian man believed that once he put pressure on the right place, Sheva would crumble under his watch within a few seconds.

Well, Sheva couldn't know what his opponent was thinking, so he just ignored that and made a move. Still, even if he could hear the man's mind, Sheva would just laugh it ass off before ignoring the man completely, feeling happy that he was once again getting underestimated by his opponent. It was always easier for Sheva to play someone who underestimated him, as the game would be full of holes that he could exploit at any time he liked.

In the end, Shant Sargsyan went for the modern line of the opening, pushing his D pawn one square forward to give the light bishop a room to breathe while also preparing for his king pawn to move to the E5 square.

They blitzed their way through the opening stage, following the theory completely. Their time didn't even move that much, still getting stuck at around 01:32:40. In the end, though, it was Sheva who made the first strange move on the board, and it was enough to make the Armenian GM pause for a moment.

'Um?! Does he finally make his first mistake?!'