CHAPTER 75: ANNA & IRFAN’S DIRE SITUATION!

For a moment, the entire booth fell into silence as both Bagas and Sarah stared at the woman next to them in disbelief. Hell, no one even sent anything on the chat box, probably too perplexed by Master Irene’s statement. After all, it was rare for a commentator to give their verdict directly like this. However, Master Irene had the skill and qualification to do that, so the two teenagers didn’t dare to say otherwise.

"Is there any reason why you think their games are unsavable, Master Irene?" Bagas asked, still wanting to get the woman’s opinion. It seemed that Master Irene finally realized what she had just said and covered her mouth in surprise.

"First, I apologize for my rudeness before. I didn’t mean to diminish both Master Irfan and Anna’s fighting spirit by saying that they would lose the game." The woman said quickly before her words could be misinterpreted wildly by the audience. "What I mean by unsavable is that I couldn’t find a way to save this position if I were in their position. After all, it is quite difficult to stay calm when playing against Master Susanto, and Grandmaster Aydin from Azerbaijan is also a strong youngster who has been emerging to the top of the chess world in recent years. I will not be able to wait patiently for them to throw the game without making any mistakes first."

RonaldOSIu: Well, if she said it like that... I can see that too...

MessitheGOAT: I mean, she is basically not wrong, right? Against any top player, it would be hard to turn the tables once the player made a mistake first.

Hilda99: Still, she shouldn’t say something like that so openly. I mean, she should be supporting our players, right?

Frwoggies: Hey, lady, while it is good to support our own players, we also need to stay objective here. Also, Master Susanto is our player, and he is the best in the country. Do you think he doesn’t deserve the support, too?

Hilda99: You know that I didn’t mean that!

While the audiences were entangled in their debates, Master Irene let out a deep sigh, somehow relieved after getting away from the blunder that she was about to commit before. She was still pretty much new in this field, so it was difficult to filter her mouth sometimes. Fortunately, the audience of this Black Rook channel was quite understanding and didn’t give her any hard time due to her comment earlier.

The reality, though, was exactly what she said. Both Anna and Irfan were in a difficult time, finding all of their movements to be blocked by their opponent’s side. For Anna, she had to think of a way to get her king out of the danger zone. However, it wasn’t easy to do so since Master Susanto’s three pawns on the kingside had already rushed too far. Not only that, his dark bishop and knight had already infiltrated too deeply, and after that, the man would be able to tear a hole in Anna’s defense to force the way for his queen and rook to threaten her king.

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

Irfan was also on the same boat here.

Honestly, watching Irfan’s game against Aydin was like riding a roller coaster. Both players kept making inaccurate moves, making the evaluation bar on the computer screen go into cardiac arrest. It was so frustrating to see both players fail to capitalize on the advantage each other gave. However, after the twenty-fifth move, it seemed that Aydin started to wake up from his hangover, playing with the surgeon’s precision without missing a single move. Even if he only had a rook and a light bishop compared to Irfan’s two rooks, the fact that Aydin had four more pawns that were ready to rush forward told Irfan that he was in such a bad situation.

Sheva, who was watching the game from the outside of the hall, also sighed deeply, feeling hopeless about Irfan and Anna. "Master Irene is right, you know? No matter how difficult it is to accept, you have to learn that your sister is not invincible and will lose a lot of games, Ia." He said softly to the girl next to him.

"You don’t know that! Anything could still happen in this game!" Claudia retorted, still not turning her eyes from the phone in her hand. It was Sheva’s phone, of course. He picked it up after entrusting it to Bagas during the game. However, since Anna’s situation worsened, the phone had been taken over by Claudia as the girl watched the rest of the game nervously.

Sheva couldn’t help but sigh once again, somehow not knowing what to feel here. He knew that, based on the tears threatening to fall from her eyes, Claudia herself knew that Anna’s game was a lost cause. However, out of her love and admiration for her sister, a glimmer of hope still flickers inside her heart. It was a strange thing for Sheva, who didn’t have any siblings, yet somehow, he could still respect Claudia’s strong feelings toward her big sister.

Unfortunately, this couldn’t change the rest of the game. Master Susanto really showed why he was a tactical genius here. He didn’t even let Anna’s king take a breath, hunting it down with all of his pieces.

Of course, Anna didn’t surrender so easily. Even though she knew that her king was one step away from the enemy’s surroundings, the girl still kept trying, probing Master Susanto’s defense to find a miracle. Hell, at one point, she even forced two repetition-folds, and one more repetition would force the game to end up with a draw.

Unfortunately, she wasn’t that lucky. Master Susanto managed to find a way to defend his king, putting it on a safe square before continuing his attack on her. In the end, after almost all of her pieces were gone and the evaluation bar on the computer screen showed that she was only seven moves away from getting checkmated, Anna finally accepted her fate.

She offered a handshake, resigning after two and a half hours of fighting.