Since Sheva lost in the fifth round, it was normal for him to get a draw against a low-rated player in the next round. This was just how things worked in the tournament, as both Irene and Claudia had already experienced that after their defeat in the second round. In the end, Sheva was paired against Theo Khoury, a young man from England with an ELO rating of 1949.

Of course, for Sheva, who was trying to improve his rating, this pairing was far from ideal. However, he could only accept it, as it was indeed his fault for losing the game. Still, looking at the gloating gaze he received from Claudia, the boy could feel his mouth twitching madly, somehow feeling irritated at the girl. Well, not that he could blame her, since she herself had already passed the same situation. Now, it was his time to do so, and he couldn't afford to suffer more here, especially against a low-rated player like this Theo Khoury.

Fortunately, the game went pretty well for his side. Playing with white, he managed to put pressure on his opponent since the earliest stage of the game. Theo made a mistake by trying to play the Caro-Kann defense, the opening that, even though Sheva didn't use that much, was still one of the best rewards that he got from the system.

Sheva managed to play perfectly for the first fifteen minutes while also putting pressure on his opponent's queenside. Even though Theo Khoury managed to defend well for a while, in the end, he got flustered, making several unnecessary blunders that only worsened his position. It didn't take long before the English boy finally realized how screwed he was, and after playing for about one and a half hours, after playing for about 25 moves, Theo Khoury finally resigned, bringing Sheva back to the road of victories.

Then came the sixth round of the tournament, where Sheva had to play against the FIDE Master from Romania, Bogdan Burlacu, with a rating of 2286. This time, Sheva decided to treat the game carefully. After all, the last time he played with the black pieces, he suffered his first-ever defeat in his career, and even though he tried to convince himself that it was okay, the bitterness of the defeat still lingered inside his heart, and a win with the black pieces was needed to regain his confidence.

Fortunately, the FIDE Master turned out to be a quite easy opponent. No offense to Bogdan Burlacu, but he played like a drunkard, making some shady choices on the board. At first, Sheva took a lot of time to think whether those moves were deliberate baits or just stupid blunders. However, after the Romanian FM somehow blundered a fork and had to give up his rook, Sheva knew that the game was on his bag.

The win against Bogan Burlacu really put an ease on his shoulder. Not only did it manage to make him regain his confidence, but with two wins in a row, Sheva managed to put his name back in the equation. Now, he was back in the top ten players of the standings, straight below several top-seeded names like Praggnanandhaa or Gukesh.

With five points out of seven rounds, he was still down a whole point from the current leader, Max Warmerdam. Yeah, even though he failed to win against Claudia in the fifth round, the Dutch grandmaster was still strong enough to put his name as one of the biggest candidates to win the entire tournament.

After Max Warmerdam, six top players chased with only a half point behind. Coincidentally enough, those six were the names that were pretty familiar in Sheva's ears. From Gukesh, Praggnanandhaa, Mads Andersen, and Hans Niemann, at least four of them had been playing against an Indonesian player in this tournament, with two of them—Gukesh and Hans—managed to get a full score in their games.

Then came Sheva, among a bunch of top players with five points, still having their chance open to win it all with two rounds left. The probability was quite slim, but some were still hopeful that they could break through and somehow slip into at least the top three of the tournament.

Well, Sheva himself didn't have that kind of thought. After all, after facing three top-tier grandmasters and never even once did he beat any of them, the boy finally realized the gap between him and those top players. He could see that becoming a champion was an unrealistic dream right now. So, he decided to lower his target, and that was for the last two rounds; the boy wanted to at least win one game against a top-rated grandmaster.

A very tough target, but still possible to do so.

Speaking of the other Indonesian players, it seemed that after their successful fifth round for forcing a draw against Max Warmerdam—for Claudia—and Gupta Abhijeet—for Irene—the two female players didn't really have a good result in the next two rounds.

Claudia was slightly better, with her able to force another draw against Christopher Yoo, an American prodigy just like Mishra Abhimanyu. Not only that, in the next round, the girl also stole another half point from Brandon Clarke, the first opponent that Sheva beat in this tournament. In the end, with 4.5 points, she was thrown away from the top twenty players on the standings, and in the next round, the girl had to go back to playing against a low-rated player—much to her annoyance.

Unfortunately, Irene didn't get the result that she wanted at all. In the sixth round, she was defeated by the third-seeded player, Adhiban Baskaran, the Indian grandmaster with an ELO rating of 2633. It was quite normal since the rating difference between them was more than 250. However, what made it worse was that she got her second defeat in a row after the seventh round; a low-rated player, Marie Maxime, with an ELO rating of 2150, somehow managed to upset her with a win. Now, the woman was struggling in the middle of the table, having to fight against the other low-rated players for the last two rounds.

Then, finally, came the last day, where the last two rounds would be packed as a double-header day. It was definitely going to be a rough day for Sheva, especially considering who his opponent was for the morning session tomorrow.

Adrian Sheva (2115) – (2638) Idani Pouya

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