"Good game…" Anna took a deep breath, offering her opponent a handshake after her game was over.

"Yes, good game." Her opponent, a Serbian old man called Milos Pavlovic, accepted the handshake gracefully before standing up from his seat and walking away with a tired face.

It was quite strange to see him tired, since the game itself only lasted for two hours. Even though it was such a long time, compared to any other game in this building, that game was definitely below average in terms of time. However, Anna didn't think too much about it, knowing that it should be because the man was so old that he wouldn't be able to stay fit for such a long time, especially after playing for a whole fucking week without taking a single break.

Anna herself didn't feel any regret for taking a quick draw in this game. Even though she had a chance to push her luck and try to win by dragging the game into an endurance battle, she saw that her opponent wasn't really in his best condition, and the thought of an old grandfather having to fight for such a long time just to lose it all didn't sit quite right in her stomach.

So, yeah, indeed, Anna let the old man take a quick draw, and she herself was quite satisfied with the result that she got here.

In total, the girl managed to get 6 points out of 9 rounds, and this also secured her second IM norm in four months. That was such a huge record to achieve, and she even had a chance to become probably the youngest Indonesian player to earn the IM title in history. Even though the girl didn't really know who the current holder of that record was, she felt like it was possible, especially since Indonesia itself was not that great in chess.

It was just a pity that she didn't face a lot of grandmasters here, or it would be a GM norm that the girl got, not the IM one. Nevertheless, Anna was satisfied with the result, knowing that not a lot of players—especially Indonesians—could even get closer to the feat she had achieved right now.

Other than that, Anna also earned a lot of points here. Out of nine rounds, she got 4 wins, including her game against the Spanish veteran grandmaster Eduardo Iturizzaga in the second round, 4 draws, and only one loss against Yu Yangyi in the third round of the tournament. Overall, she got 43 rating points, putting her so close to the 2400 threshold that she needed to pass to get the IM title. With that additional point, her rating jumped to 2378, becoming the third-highest rated women's player in Indonesia.

'Well, this should put my name several levels above Laysa, right?' She thought to herself with an amused smile.

Yeah, even in this situation, the girl still didn't forget to send a jab to her rival back home. Even though she herself was not a playful person in nature, having hung out with Laysa and Claudia, the two people who were the embodiment of chaos, of course, Anna would pick up one thing or two from them. Hell, she even had half of her mind to brag on Laysa later, wondering what kind of wonderful words would come out of her friend's mouth.

'Oh, anyway, let's see how the others are faring right now.' She stretched her stiff body a little before starting to stroll over the venue. 'Let's go to Sister Medina's game first.'

Anna walked slowly and tried to observe every game that she could see, trying to see if there was any good game that could pique her interest. Unfortunately, today was the final round, and most of the players who were satisfied with the result they achieved in this tournament chose a quick and easy draw so that they could get an early rest. Well, she herself also did the same, so Anna had no one to blame here.

Knowing that she couldn't find anything interesting, the girl went straight to Medina's game, where she could see that the older woman was trying hard in her chair. Seeing this, Anna frowned, wondering if there was anything wrong on the board.

'Sister Medina should be trying to get a quick draw, right? I swear, I remember her saying that earlier this morning.' She mused. As the girl arrived at the scene, though, she couldn't help but have her eyes widen in surprise. 'No! Did she just make a blunder here?! Why is her own queen trapped? Sister, what is going on?!'

Indeed, Medina was in a terrible situation right now. Her own queen was cornered on the edge of the board, and if it tried to escape from that embarrassing situation, it would only open up the hole in her defense that would get her checkmated in two or three moves. Of course, she could have exchanged the rook first before the disaster came, but it was clear that Medina's queen wouldn't be able to escape from the guillotine. Not if Medina still wanted to avoid the L here.

'It would take a massive throw from her opponent to save Sister Medina's life here.' Anna looked at her sister with pity. 'Good luck, Sister Medina. I hope you can get a miracle here.' She said her silent prayer before continuing her strolling over the venue.

As Anna reached table one, where Sheva was currently fighting, though, a crowd had already gathered there. Everyone wanted to see the decisive game, eager to know which miracle was stronger. Yeah, even though Muradli Muhammad's journey was not as bombastic as Sheva's, the fact that a 2526-rated player could be the sole leader of the tournament where more than twenty players had a higher rating than him, even including two super grandmasters with the ELO rating of 2700, was a miracle by itself. That was why this game attracted a lot of attention, probably only slightly lower than the decisive games in the grandmaster section.

Still, the crowd around made it hard for Anna to see the game clearly, and no matter how hard she tried to sneak in, the girl would only be pushed out immediately. She frowned deeply, trying to think of a way to get a better look at the situation on the board. However, before Anna could come up with a solution, someone suddenly tapped her shoulder, and when the girl turned around, she was startled to see the person who was approaching her.

"Bagas?"

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