Road to be the Best Chess Player in the World!

Meanwhile, on board 3 next to Claudia, Laysa and Vaishali went berserk. It seemed that they both wanted to win this game, so those two teenagers didn't hesitate to create such a complicated position from the beginning of the game.

In fact, both Laysa and Vaishali were the same kind of player here. Both girls were very aggressive in their style, wanting to overwhelm their opponent from the very first move of the game. It might not work well, and sometimes, their eagerness backfired on their face pretty badly. However, both girls were still sticking to this style up until now, and since they both also figured out that they were cut from the same cloth, this game was bound to be a rock-and-roll festival for the audience.

'Okay, let's see where she wants to lead us here…' Laysa muttered, glancing sideways at the tanned-skinned girl in front of her.

Playing with the white piece, Laysa was led into the Sicilian Defense from the earlier part of the game. Even in the third move, when the girl was still trying to think of a variation that she could use, Vaishali had already made the decision for them both, going for the French variation by pushing her E pawn one square forward. It was clear from this point on that Pragg's sister didn't want Laysa to be comfortable by having an opening choice here, wanting to drag the game into her own territory.

This opening variation also told Laysa one thing. It seemed that Vaishali wanted to avoid the complicated theory of the Sicilian Defense, aiming for positional imbalances and counterplay, particularly on the queenside. The Indian prodigy didn't even hide her intention here, marching almost all of her pawns on the queenside forward, wanting to take control of that side pretty early.

However, that didn't mean this opening didn't have any weaknesses. Hell, it was clear from the beginning of the game that Vaishali's light bishop was never going to be able to get involved in this game. It could only move between two squares: B7 and C8, and whenever it went, Vaishali's other pieces would only block its path.

Also, this gave Laysa an early advantage, as her pawn on the E5 square would be a menace in the future.

'Okay, everything has been going well enough in the beginning.' Laysa took a deep breath, trying to ease the tension on her shoulder.

Unlike the game between Tania Sachdev and Claudia that went quite fast, both Laysa and Vaishali didn't want to rush things. They had already entered such a complicated move that even one single mistake would be enough to have their head rolled on the floor.

In the end, the first inaccurate move was made by Laysa in the 11th move of the game. Well, it was hardly a mistake, as she just wanted to prevent Vaishali's queen pawn from advancing too far by setting up a buffer with the pawn to C3. However, the computer wanted him to control the G5 pawn with his pawn to H4, and since Laysa didn't do that, now Vaishali had a chance to advance that pawn far enough to the G4 square, kicking out Sheva's dark bishop and knight before taking that menacing pawn on the E5 square.

*Author note: If you want to visualize the position better, check the comment below.

That was definitely not the ideal situation for Laysa, as her advantage lay on the pawn on E5 square. However, Vaishali seemed to overthink in this situation. She spent almost fifteen whole minutes on one move, and in the end, instead of moving her G pawns to kick out Laysa's dark bishop, she moved her H pawn one square forward, and the evaluation bar went back to normal after giving black a slight advantage earlier.

It was quite easy to understand her thought here. Vaishali didn't want to take a risk by advancing a lone pawn too far, so she wanted to prepare for support and made a pawn chain with the H6 move. Right after that, the girl would move her G pawn two squares forward, occupying the kingside with a strong structure. With her controlling both the king and queenside, the advantage would be great enough for the girl to take advantage at this stage.

However, this move was too slow, and her tempo advantage disappeared immediately. If anything, it gave Laysa an idea of what Vaishali wanted to try, and the Indonesian girl could counter it with the H4 move. If Vaishali still insisted on moving that G pawn forward, not only would she not achieve her target to take the pawn on E5 square, but it would only open up her king's defense, which would be a huge target in the future.

True enough, Laysa spotted that move immediately, and she didn't hesitate even for a second to push that H pawn two squares forward.

For a moment, the game was back to being equal again, and both players also started burning their time to figure out what to do here. It was such a complicated position, and one thing that both girls understood about the Sicilian Defense system was that once they made a mistake, it would be very hard for them to recover.

Even Vaishali herself also frowned at this point, clearly not expecting that Laysa could force her into such a complicated game. Even though she didn't underestimate her opponent and had already done her research about Laysa, the almost 100 rating difference between those two somehow gave the girl a false sense of security that she was a better player here, and that she only had to play accurately for most part of the game to win it all.

Well, it was clear how wrong she was, and the girl also started to change her mindset about how she should approach this game.

However, of course, things did not seem to be going her way. While Vaishali wanted to open up a position on the board, she suddenly made a fatal mistake, and Laysa's eyes widened in surprise when she saw that.

'Wait, is this real?!'