CHAPTER 83: ONE MISTAKE TO DEFINE THE GAME!

’Um?! She makes such a rookie mistake?’ Sheva shook his head quickly, staring at the board in disbelief. ’What the hell is she smoking here?!’ He frowned, still not believing that Ummi, the genius girl a few years ago, before her title was taken over by Anna, would make such a silly mistake.

Honestly, if only he could hear Ummi’s inner thought, the boy would be dumbfounded, and all the images of her inside his head would crumble instantly. After all, who would’ve thought that a woman who looked serious and imposing like her would be so expressive inside her head?

Well, it would be a story for another time, as right now, he had to face the board first. Sheva also didn’t forget to glance sideways toward the woman, trying to read her micro expression just to see whether there was a bluff or not. However, Ummi didn’t show anything, just showing up with her poker face. It was either she was the best actress in the world or she was clueless about the mistake she had just committed, and honestly, Sheva started to believe that it was the latter one in this case.

The mistake that he was talking about was the fact that Ummi was too eager to put her king on the safety, so she herself didn’t notice she was walking straight into his bishop’s line of sight. While there was still a pawn blocking Sheva’s dark bishop to get through the white king, it was quite easy problem to solve. After thinking for a while and finding that this was not a bluff or there was no trap lying in front of him, Sheva finally gritted his teeth, pushing his rook forward straight to the mouth of the tiger.

’Yeah, let’s sacrifice... THE ROOK!’ Sheva couldn’t help but snort when he remembered this. Honestly, a rook sacrifice would always bring him back to the memory of what brought him into this sport, the time when he accidentally caught Bagas watching Gothamchess’s short video during his work time. ’Now, let’s see whether he would take it or not...’

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

Now, Ummi was entangled with two choices here. She could’ve just taken the provocation here and gotten Sheva’s rook. However, in doing so, she would also open up a crack in her defense. Sheva’s queen would infiltrate instantly, and since all of her pawns were on the front line already, there wouldn’t be a safe square for her king to protect itself.

However, if somehow she decided to ignore the sacrifice and put her king and queen into safety, her queen would’ve been hunted down by Sheva’s rook, and sooner or later, the boy would force an exchange between his rook and her queen, which would be a disaster in the long run.

Either way, though, her position was pretty much a disaster here, and Ummi herself realized that she was only a few steps away from getting defeated in the game. In the end, she decided to ignore Sheva’s rook sacrifice, not wanting to let his opponent infiltrate deeper into her territory. However, she also had to face the consequence, as in the next few moves, her queen was pinned to her king by Sheva’s rook. The poor queen, she had to sacrifice herself just to give a few more breaths to her already dying spouse.

Now that Sheva was up a queen, it was quite easy to capitalize on this advantage. All he needed to do was to simplify the game, exchanging all the pieces so that his queen’s advantage could take a greater effect on the board. First, he did so for their last bishops, and after that, he also tried several times to exchange one of her rooks with his only rook so that the endgame would be him with a queen against her with only one rook. Unfortunately, she still resisted, not wanting to exchange more than what she had done.

However, Sheva didn’t mind it at all. After all, her king was pretty much in a weak position. So, he just changed his target, chasing down the white king relentlessly until he managed to corner it to the edge of the board. True enough, even with two rooks on her side, Ummi couldn’t really do anything against him, letting her king fall into the oldest trap in the chess world.

The staircase mate.

"Urgh... Good game..." Ummi groaned slightly as she finally offered a handshake, admitting her defeat. "I thought that you were just a typical famous player with subpar skills. It seems that your ability is far higher than I expected before." She smiled while praising him.

"Oh, well... Thank you..." He rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly while also sighing in relief for winning the game. While it was the first time someone told him that he was famous and even doubted his ability just because of the fame, honestly, Sheva couldn’t blame her for doing so. After all, Bagas had already explained what would happen in the future once the YouTube channel his best friend used to promote him became bigger. "Anyway, you are also a good player. Honestly, until your one mistake when you let your king run into my bishop’s line of sight, I was still not sure whether I had the advantage or not." He didn’t forget to praise his opponent, too.

"I can see that too now, but I panicked at that time..." Ummi groaned, covering her eyes in regret. "I was hesitant about whether your queen is dangerous enough to pose any threat or not, and in the end, I didn’t want to risk it, letting my king run away first. I didn’t even notice your bishop sniping from that far!"

Sheva had a sweatdrop when he saw the depressed woman in front of him. Gone was his impression that Ummi was the quiet, elegant type of woman, as she showed her true self as a chatty one with the tendency to overthink. Still, this was definitely better, since he himself also enjoyed this conversation. They chatted for a while, discussing their game earlier and what they should do to improve themselves.

After a while, Sheva finally realized that he had spent a lot of time here, and he wanted to see the situation in the other games too. His concern was definitely for Anna, since he had just consoled her yesterday. However, before he could leave, Ummi gave him one last warning that was enough to ring an alarm inside his head.

"Next round... Be careful with Arfan..." She said mysteriously. Sheva stopped for a moment, staring at Ummi questioningly. He didn’t even know who ’Arfan’ that she was talking about, but the boy knew it was a genuine warning for him, so he decided to listen. "Arfan... I tell you this about him... He shouldn’t even belong to this category in the first place..."