CHAPTER 81: THE DUTCH DEFENSE’S DEBUT

When Sheva saw Ummi push her D pawn two squares forward as her first move, his eyes lit up instantly. He had been saving the platinum-level knowledge inside his head for this occasion. Of course, he could test it against Anna or Claudia during their sparring games. However, Sheva held back, wanting to test the knowledge in a real game, and this time, against the best player in the section, a prodigy just like Anna, he finally had a chance to show off.

’Let’s see how well she is prepared for the Dutch!’

As he pushed his F pawn two squares forward, it was clear that Ummi didn’t expect this. A small frown could be seen on her face, taken aback by Sheva’s surprise opening. After all, it wasn’t quite easy to play the Dutch. Both players had to be ready for everything since frontal confrontation was unavoidable.

Seeing her reaction, Sheva clenched his fist inwardly. One of the purposes of a strange opening like this was to shake his opponent’s mind. Once she saw a strange move that she hadn’t seen often in a chess game, the woman would waver a little bit, and that was the best time for Sheva to put pressure on her.

Unfortunately, while Ummi was indeed startled by his opening choice, she didn’t see any reason to panic. No, instead, she struck back, developing all of her pieces precisely while also putting pressure on Sheva’s queenside. She even forced Sheva to move her knight into the guillotine, forcing his knight to be exchanged with hers. It was an equal exchange in value, but Ummi also managed to hurt Sheva’s pawn structure and gave him a double-pawn on the E file, definitely not something good for the boy.

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

Hell, even the computer engines gave the evaluation that Ummi had a slight advantage in this opening stage. However, even though Sheva also noticed his position was chaotic, that didn’t mean he was worried or doubting the platinum knowledge planted inside his head. No, if anything, this situation was definitely what he wanted to appear on the board.

’Yeah, come on... It is time to push forward!’

True enough, in the next few moves, Sheva started building pressure on the kingside. It was crazy enough to do so, especially since he had already castled on the same side. He basically stripped his own king’s protection just for the sake of attacking his opponent, which definitely was not the best approach here. Hell, if Anna saw this, she would scold him mercilessly for forgetting the basics of balance she taught him in the past.

Now, his king was exposed in a pretty much open spot on the edge of the board, only getting protected by the light bishop on the front square. It was such a dangerous position that even the computer engine showed +1.1, as if this position was equal to Sheva down a full pawn. Of course, this was enough to make some of the people outside worried.

"Master Irene, what do you think about this position?" Bagas asked. "The computer shows that Sheva is at a disadvantage here. Is this because his king is in an open position?" Even though his chess skills were quite low, Bagas had learned a lot about this game, and he still knew the basics of how to assess someone’s position.

"Indeed, Bagas, you are right." Master Irene nodded solemnly. "However, this position is not as clear as what the computer shows. After all, you can see that Sheva’s queen is trying to infiltrate from the kingside, and he is just one step away from getting his claw to reach Ummi’s chain of pawns on the kingside. If there is something I know about Ummi, it is that she tends to overthink in this kind of situation, and she would always ensure that her king is safe enough first instead of taking a risk and pushing forward while letting her king get stared at by Sheva’s pieces."

True enough, Ummi really thought hard about this position, burning her time a lot just for one move. Sheva had to hold back the urge to yawn due to the boredom here, as it would be very rude to do so in front of his opponent. However, it was ridiculous how the woman in front of him would spend almost an hour just for one move. Hell, he had even finished reviewing the entire online novel plot that he just read yesterday during this time, just so that this boredom wouldn’t kill him first.

Yeah, this was the problem that all the new players in chess would face. They didn’t know how to stay calm and focus all the time, especially when their opponent took their sweet time to think, like what happened in this game. Sheva knew that this was really a dangerous time, as his concentration could slip unconsciously, and it would be hard to recover quickly once that happened.

Fortunately, this situation didn’t last for too long. Ummi finally made a move to respond to his aggressive invasion, forcing a knight trade while also fianchettoing her dark bishop to aim straight at Sheva’s king at the h8 square. She even invited Sheva’s queen and light bishop to infiltrate her kingside, wanting to play a dangerous game here.

However, it was clear that Ummi made a blunder here.

The move would be good if she were playing against any other opponent. However, Sheva’s playing style was like swimming in danger. The more his opponent wanted to throw oil, the more he wanted to burn down everything to the ashes. In this case, after seeing the invitation, the boy didn’t even blink, accepting it all by abandoning his light bishop so that his queen could infiltrate deeper.

Now that both players were ready to play with fire, Sheva couldn’t help but smirk, looking at the woman in front of him in a new light.

’Man, who knows that a quiet and cold woman like her could be this aggressive to play against...’ He muttered inwardly. ’Still, now that I tear her defense, the king hunt is going to start. Let’s see how long she could run... Hahaha!’