Chapter 198: A Wild Tournament!
True to Sheva’s predicament, though, in the next few rounds, Anna really came out of her shell, crushing all of her opponents like she was a complete beast. Well, not everyone, per se, but the girl managed to hold her own ground, keeping herself in the race to grab the number one spot in the tournament even after receiving such a bad defeat in the first round.
In the second round, the girl really showcased why she was the youngest player in the country who earned the WGM title by beating her predecessor, Irene, in a crazy, chaotic game. Both players went all out, playing a beast mode where they were in for each other’s blood. Anna was eager to win to keep her chance in the tournament open, while Irene wanted to build up her momentum after the draw earlier.
After playing for about 58 moves in around thirty minutes, Anna came out as the winner of the game with her masterclass endgame technique, edging the older woman in a rook versus a knight and a bishop fight. She pulled up such a brilliant and educational technique, which also gave Sheva something to learn here.
Hell, even Master Susanto was impressed with how Anna stayed patient even after getting an advantage and capitalized on it slowly, not even rushing for a second, although she was down by almost 20 seconds. The girl really redeemed herself, especially after the tough defeat in the endgame against Claudia.
This was an important win for Anna, as not only did it bring her back on the race, but this win was also a testament that, indeed, she was still a strong player. Even though her improvement wasn’t as huge as Claudia’s, at least, the girl could still hold her own ground against the other top players, and this was definitely a boost to her confidence.
Unfortunately, against Medina in the third round, she couldn’t follow her positive trend as the game ended up in a draw.
Well, it was a fair result for both players. Hell, Anna even felt like she didn’t deserve to get any points here. After all, Medina played with the fierceness of a starving beast, hunting all of her pieces left and right without mercy. The younger girl was getting suppressed from the start of the game, and even until the end, the evaluation bar had never passed her own side, showing that she had never held any advantage in this game.
She managed to force a draw by exchanging almost all of her pieces, leaving with the opposite-color bishop on the board, which was also the sign that there would be no player coming out as the winner of this game.
In the end, after three rounds of playing, Anna managed to grab 1.5 points, which was not a bad result for someone who failed to win in the first round of the tournament.
The same couldn’t be said for Claudia, though, as it seemed that she had just used all the luck in the world to beat her big sister in the first round. Right after that, she suffered two consecutive defeats against the veteran players here, making her point stagnant at 1 out of 3 games.
Coming to the second round with high momentum, Claudia didn’t expect Medina to go all out since the beginning, and she couldn’t withstand the pressure of the woman’s attack for most of the time in the game. In the end, her defensive line was breached in the 20th move, and in the 26th move, knowing that she couldn’t do anything to survive, the little girl resigned, giving Medina her first full point of the tournament.
Then came the third round, where she had to go against Irene. The two wounded warriors who had just been beaten in the last round came with a mission to regain their form and keep themselves in the race for this tournament. That was why they both went all out since the beginning, wanting to overwhelm each other in a tactical battle.
Unfortunately, it was definitely not Claudia’s best style.
Playing with the Sicilian Defense Alapin Variation, she managed to hold off for most part of the game, even started to push Irene back to her own area. Hell, at some point, Claudia even got -4.2 advantage, showing how close she was to winning this game. However, she couldn’t stay calm until the end, and after a few mistakes here and there, all the advantage she had built was gone, leaving her frustrated for her failure to end the game cleanly.
In the end, though, just in a crucial moment in the endgame phase, she finally wilted. The girl failed to grasp the concept of the rook endgame and the Philidor defense, making a fatal mistake due to the panic of the time scramble that allowed Irene’s pawn to advance into the promotion square. As a result, the little girl had to sacrifice her rook for Irene’s newly promoted queen, and with the woman still having a full rook on the board, she knew that there was no way she could survive this, so Claudia resigned for the two consecutive games in a row.
It was pretty ironic that Claudia, who started the game with a big upset against her big sister, was now back to the bottom of the standings just like everyone expected her to be. As for Anna, who suffered from the defeat in the first round, she managed to climb back into the ranks with one win and one draw, and together with Irene, they trailed Medina, who was in the first place, who managed to get 2 points out of three games.
This tournament was still far from over, though. There were still three games left, and with how tight the point difference between all the players was, it wasn’t clear who would win it all and become the player who would go together with Sheva to the Biel International Chess Festival. Hell, even Claudia could still get the top spot if she managed to get a good result while the others couldn’t find their win against each other.
As everything was still uncertain, the tournament started to enter the crucial stage, and the pairing was back once again, with Anna and Claudia having to fight against each other for the second time in a day.