The festive atmosphere was gone immediately from the table, and this time, everyone was so solemn after reading the content on their phone. The tension was palpable, with some even saying that the temperature seemed to drop drastically within a few seconds.
The cause was clear as well. Each one of them saw their name on the pairing list, and somehow, none of them was happy with that. No, just like what Sheva said before, everyone had a difficult opponent, and it would be impossible to maintain their good record so far for tomorrow's game.
"Who is your opponent, Ann?" Laysa asked, her voice barely a whisper. A big frown was still on her face as she was still thinking of the name she got paired against for tomorrow.
"Samant Aditya, a high-level IM who should be a GM already. He is one of the three players who still have a perfect record so far." Anna answered with the same solemnity. "What about you?"
"Me? Your opponent today." Laysa sighed helplessly.
"Wait, you mean to tell me you are facing Bu Xiangzhi?" Anna blinked in surprise. When she saw her friend nod, the girl could feel the corner of her mouth twitching madly at that. "What the heck? How could he face three Indonesian players in a row? Is there anything shady behind the scenes?" She asked incredulously.
Sheva choked for a moment, then started to laugh at the déjà vu feeling he had right now.
"What?" Anna frowned, not liking how the boy laughed.
"No, nothing." Sheva shook his head quickly, not wanting to invite the girl's temper toward him. "Just thinking how funny it is. I swear, Sister Medina also said the same thing last year when Yu Yangyi fought against three of us continuously, remember? She even threatened to call the organizer, demanding an explanation about this."
It took Anna a moment, but when the memory came, she felt heat rush to her cheek. Indeed, the situation was exactly the same as last year, and coincidentally enough, it was also them against a Chinese GM who was the top-seed of the tournament. Still, once was a coincidence, but twice was definitely not here.
"Well, I appreciate your active mind, but let me remind you what I told Sister Medina last year. We are just a weak country in the chess community, nothing worth targeting for. Also, even if it was to help Bu Xiangzhi, there is no need to deliberately target us, as it is so easy to get noticed. The more outrageous it is, the more it is impossible for something like this to be rigged."
Anna just grunted grumpily, yet didn't have any reason to deny his reasoning. It was just that the situation was so ridiculous, what with Bu Xiangzhi getting paired three times in a row against the Indonesian players. No matter how she looked at it, the girl couldn't think of anything except that there was a shady business behind the scenes here.
Still, those two weren't the only players who got a tough pairing. Hell, everyone had one here, what with them having a good result so far.
After her successful survival show against Pranav Anand, Devi would have to face a young Chinese player named Peng Xiongjian. The boy didn't have any title yet, but his rating was so high, around 2489, with two GM norms on the bag already.
This was the typical case for any Chinese players. They wouldn't really go abroad except for getting a title, so most of them only came when they needed to. That was why so many young Chinese players had a high rating even though they still hadn't had any title yet, always aiming straight at the GM title.
Claudia also had a tough matchup here. After winning her previous game, she had to face Victor Erdos, a strong and experienced GM with a rating of 2571. He was the tenth-seeded player of the tournament, a solid player who didn't really show any weakness so far.
Sheva was a little bit familiar with the man, though. The boy remembered well enough how he helped Medina prepare for the game against him, and it was also at the same tournament last year. It seemed most of the players here were regular, what with them always being here every year.
As for Dita Karenza and his three students, Sheva found out that none of them faced a GM, but their opponents were the high-level IMs who were closer to the GM level than ever.
In hindsight, this was definitely the more dangerous situation, since their enemies would be hungry for blood. They wanted to get as many wins as possible, hoping that somehow, their result would be enough to give them the GM norm they wanted.
Devi was getting paired against an Indian IM called Harikrishnan with an ELO rating of 2450, Nayaka had to face the Chinese strong young player named Wang Chen, and Duta met a familiar name for all the Indonesian players here, the veteran IM from Vietnam whom they had been fighting a lot in the regional tournament. As for Dita Karenza, her opponent would be Huang Renji, another young Chinese player who was chasing a GM title.
When Sheva saw this, he couldn't help but frown, knowing that it was a difficult situation. 'There is not a lot of data about those young Chinese players, right? They often played inside their own country, so it will be difficult to conduct research on them. Man, what a troublesome situation…'
He didn't really notice, though, but everyone had already shifted their eyes to him. It was Bagas who reminded the boy, nudging him a little, before he fully realized the situation here.
"What?" Sheva asked, slightly taken aback by their stares.
"Uh… Sheva… Do you think you can help with our preparation today?" Laysa asked while also trying to act cute here. "I mean, you have done the same in the last couple of days, right? Now, can you do it for us all here?"
Seeing their hopeful gazes, Sheva couldn't help but have the corner of his mouth twitching, knowing that he had to pull another all-nighter today. Still, he liked this challenge, so the boy just took a deep breath and smiled.
"Sure! Come on, give it to me, everyone! Let's see who can get better with my help tomorrow!"
Comments