"TAHER WON! TAHER WON HIS GAME!" Bagas roared, even to the point that most of the people around him turned around to look at what was going on there. However, the boy couldn't care less, as right now, he was possessed by a demon, and he was keeping spouting everything inside his mind enthusiastically. "IT TAKES ONLY 25 MOVES FOR HIM! REMEMBER HIS NAME, YOSEPH. THEOFILUS. TAHER!"

Jinxzi: Let's fucking go!

Breansei124: Now we are 1-1, right?

JonahBTr: Damn! If only Master Susanto could survive and force a draw!

Hilda99: Come on, Yoseph! This is your moment!

Even though Taher didn't really know the existence of the audience's support on the Internet, that was probably the least thing he cared about right now. He had his heart racing so fast, his face flushed red in excitement, and even his hands trembled violently due to the enthusiasm brought by this game.

It was probably his best win ever in an official tournament. After all, he didn't play abroad quite often, getting restrained by the logistical problem like most of the Indonesian players outside. He was also one of the few who were jealous when the news about Sheva getting an unlimited sponsorship came out, and the man was desperate to show his talent outside. Fortunately, in the biggest event of the chess world this year, he managed to do so, putting his name into everyone's radar.

Unfortunately, on his left side, Master Susanto didn't quite get the same success as Taher achieved just a moment ago. The man was getting overwhelmed by Bogdan-Daniel Deac, the Romanian grandmaster whose rating was 2674. He couldn't get out of the pressure, even for one move, and almost all of his pieces got caged on his own territory, and he couldn't even escape to make a counterplay. In the end, after 33 moves, Master Susanto finally couldn't find any solution to his own misery, so he resigned, giving the Romanian team their first point in this matchup.

'So, the rest of the matchup is up to us younglings, huh?' Sheva muttered, glancing sideways at Arfan.

Coincidentally enough, the boy also did the same, and their eyes met for a second. It was just a very short time, yet a connection formed between those two. They both were on the same wavelength here; at least, they couldn't lose their game. Even if in the end, both teenagers only had a draw, it was still better than nothing, since on paper, Romania was always the better team in this matchup.

Still, it wasn't Sheva if he didn't try to win his own game.

'Okay, what is the game plan here?' Sheva took a deep breath, wiggling a little to make himself comfortable. The frown on his face was back as he started to think hard once again, this time. 'Okay… My position is not that bad. I only need to put my king into a safer place, and after that, I could start taking over his territory slowly. Let's do it. Let's try to suffocate him first.'

Yeah, even though at first, Sheva was in a good position, it was equalized pretty easily by David Gavrilescu. However, the boy felt like the initiative was still in his hands. Even though his rook was pretty much in an awkward position, it was still controlling the G file nicely. Meanwhile, his other rook also did well, cutting off any route that had to go through the C file. Basically, Sheva was controlling two important files on the flank, ready to make a breakthrough whenever his opponent made a mistake.

Of course, it was not 100 percent perfect for him.

In order to make his rook control those two important files, Sheva had to abandon the idea of castling his king, and now, it was in a pretty awkward situation. Fortunately, David Gavrilescu didn't really have any attack incoming, so the boy could still walk his king to the safe zone without having to worry about the snipers from the enemy's land.

David Gavrilescu also made a pretty weird maneuver here. The man made his king walk back from the kingside, where it had castled before, back to the queenside, wasting about four moves to go to that side of the board. However, it was a calculated action, since all of Sheva's pieces were ready to blow that kingside in a spectacular explosion.

Now, he forced Sheva to reroute them all so that they would aim at the queenside, which wasn't easy since it would take a lot of moves to do that, and it didn't count the countermeasure that David Gavrilescu was about to make.

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

However, Sheva still welcomed this development with open hands. He didn't have a problem marching his A pawns forward, letting it become his suicidal soldier. Not only that, he also put his light bishop to a good position on the back, ready to snipe that queenside and blow it up when necessary.

The tension kept growing on the board, and both players were sweating right now. Even Arfan, who still had a game on board 3, also stood up, observing Sheva's game intently. Compared to his boring game, the boy felt like Sheva had a huge chance to do something better, and he didn't want to miss it here.

Now, board 4 was surrounded by all the players from both countries. Master Susanto frowned deeply as he watched the game from a distance, inwardly regretting his failure to do anything against Bogdan-Daniel Deac.

'Damn, how could I let two youngsters with no experience hold the fate of the country like this?' He clenched his fist hard to the point that it started to hurt him.

Even though Sheva didn't really know what exactly everyone thought, he could still feel the nervousness reaching the top behind him. Hell, the boy could even hear Taher breathing heavily, and the man watched the game from quite afar.

However, the more the pressure was on his shoulder, the calmer the boy became. He kept scanning throughout the entire board a few times, calculating all the possible lines, and was ready to pick up the best one here.

As he thought deeper, a small smirk suddenly curled on his face as Sheva found an interesting line here, and even though no one could listen to what he said, the boy still muttered lowly, "And in this position, I sacrifice… My rook!'

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