Road to be the Best Chess Player in the World!-Chapter 447: Timeskip Into December!

The news about him joining the Tata Steel Chess in January spread quickly like wildfire. Some people lamented why the organizer would invite someone in the same league as the cheater, and some had a clear enough head to point out Bagas’s analysis. Still, overall, the reaction was quite positive for Sheva’s side, with a lot of his fans still believing that he wasn’t cheating.

Sheva himself was excited by this. It wasn’t because of the chance to prove that he wasn’t cheating. No, the boy himself had never thought that he needed to prove anything here. Once he played more tournaments with consistent results, those voices would slowly dissipate from the surface.

No, what made him excited was the reward of winning first place. Not the money, but the opportunity to get promoted to the Master Section next year. Yeah, the winner of the lower section would have a guaranteed invitation for the next edition in the Master Section, ensuring that the tournament’s competitiveness was still there.

This was definitely excellent news for Sheva. While he still believed in himself to get his rating climbing even higher in the next year, the boy didn’t know how high he would climb, and even any normal GMs around 2600 ELO rating had never played there before. So, getting a guaranteed invitation was definitely a nice thing for Sheva.

As for the possibility of winning being so low...

Well, Sheva was confident that he could make another upset. While his initial rank was 11th player out of 14 contestants, he still believed that with the system’s enhancement, he could win almost all the games there. It might be cocky, but Sheva had every excuse in the world to think about that. So, in his mind, the one ticket to the master section two years later should be in his own hand already.

"This should be my first time challenging the world, right? No, the second time should be more appreciated, as I have already won the Olympiad. Still..." Sheva was shaking in excitement. "It would be fun to slap them all in their face! Damn, I cannot wait for January to come!"

While waiting, though, he didn’t stay idle. Just as Bagas suggested, Sheva started playing in a lot of the Rapid & Blitz tournaments. ’After all, it would be embarrassing to have a GM with no rating in those two sections.’ He muttered to himself.

The first one he joined was the SCUA Rapid & Blitz, held by the chess school formed by Utut Ardianto himself. It was an internal tournament with a lot of youngsters joining the fun, yet since this tournament was approved by FIDE, it meant he could use this tournament to grind his rating.

As expected, Sheva swept the entire section by himself. In rapid, he went for 9 out of 11 games, only getting four draws out of eleven games. The blitz also didn’t go as smoothly as he wanted, yet Sheva still won it all. He managed to get 13 points out of 18 rounds, putting him way ahead of all of his competitors.

In the end, this tournament allowed him to bounce from no rating to 2000 already, which was a great deal for his development.

Then, he continued his journey, going to Penang for another quick chess tournament. The boy still won the rapid section, but in the Blitz one, he got overturned by a Vietnamese GM, only managing to get 12 points with 6 consecutive draws in a row. This should be Sheva’s worst performance so far, yet it was still enough to bring back the second place in the tournament.

Lastly, at the end of November, Sheva played in Bangkok, and there, he didn’t really play around. The entire venue got turned into a slaughterhouse, with Sheva butchering everyone lying on his table. Just like the first tournament, he got the number one position in both categories, allowing the country’s symbol—Garuda—to fly higher in the sky.

’Now, my rapid rating should be around 2400 for both sections, right? He muttered to himself. ’2366 for the rapid, and 2331 for the blitz. Hmm... Not bad...’

It would be a lie if Sheva said that he wasn’t satisfied with the result. After all, he raised two of them from basically nothing to an FM standard rating, which would let him out of the embarrassment of being a GM with no rapid and blitz ratings. Hell, some of his good results even caught some attention, and his heart wavered a little bit at some people who asked if he would play in the World Rapid & Blitz next Christmas. However, Bagas rejected that idea quickly, not wanting Sheva to get distracted at this moment.

"No, stick with the plan, Shev." The boy said solemnly. "Next January will be your first time playing in Tata Steel, so put that on top of your priority list. Don’t let yourself get distracted by anything else. You can still get into the World Rapid & Blitz next year, right?" 𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂

Yeah, the World Rapid & Blitz themselves didn’t have any requirement, so getting there was not that hard. As long as Sheva registered and paid the fee on time, he would be eligible to play there, which wasn’t as hard as how he got into the Tata Steel Tournament next month. This convinced the boy, so he had to speak reluctantly about his absence from that world event.

Nevertheless, he had quite a productive two months in the past, grinding his rating for the other sections to get to the point that it didn’t embarrass him. Now, it was December, and Sheva was back to put his focus on the event next month, the standard chess that would determine how his career would go in the future.

However, before he could think further, there was still something that caught his attention. Something that he had been waiting for for two months since he joined the conflict between Magnus and Hans Niemann, and the day finally arrived.

It was the final day of the World Chess Championship, and honestly, Sheva couldn’t wait to see Ding Liren triumph as the last one to laugh today.

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Author’s note: Hey, everyone! I just write a new novel as an entry to the WSA 2026 competition, with the title of ’I Am the God of Football in the Fantasy World’. Please, help me support this new novel by adding it to the library and leave your comment in it. Thank you!