Chapter 110: The New Coach

Chapter 110: The New Coach

"Ivanov, my little brother! It’s been good to see you again!" Thirty minutes later, the call was connected once again, showing the man, Sergei Azarov, in a better state. Although his clothes were still disheveled and his hair was such a mess, at least it was clear from his eyes that he was sober right now. "So, are those my potential students?" The man grinned when he noticed Sheva and the others peeking at Irfan’s screen from behind.

"Yeah, the three on the front; Sheva, Anna, and Claudia, would be the ones who learn from you. As for the other two, they are those three’s best friends and my PR team, so you might see them a lot during the study session." Irfan introduced them all to Sergei.

"Good afternoon, Sir!" All the teenagers there greeted the man formally, something they had been learning in their school, definitely.

"Oh, no need to be that formal, guys!"

"You know that most people would demand respect for their students, right?" Irfan chimed in wryly. "Also, right now, their ratings still belong to the low level one, below 2300, so don’t be disappointed if they somehow don’t meet your expectation, okay?"

"Bah! Who cares about rating?!" Sergei scoffed as if he was insulted by Irfan’s words. "For teenagers like them, belonging to the low-rated category only means two things. First, they lack the opportunity to play at a high level one, and second, they lack proper guidance. There is nothing else other than those two reasons."

Although he spoke with a heavy Russian accent, somehow, Sheva could still understand what the man was saying, and it would be a lie if he said he wasn’t impressed with what Sergei had just said to Irfan here. Sergei’s impression inside Sheva’s mind shifted gradually from an unreliable drunkard to a wise old man who knew what he was doing. Looking at Anna’s expression, he knew that the girl also thought the same here.

’It seems that Master Irfan finds us a really good coach here.’

-0-

The next two weeks passed so quickly, and even though Sheva still didn’t know how good the effect of the coaching session with Sergei Azarov was since he didn’t have any tournaments to play in, the boy still felt the massive improvement in his quality of play. Although the coaching session only happened for three hours and three days a week—Since Sergei’s cost as a coach is quite high—The Belarusian Grandmaster really showed how capable he was, guiding Sheva, Anna, and Claudia to improve their chess game.

The man, Sergei, really tore all the fundamental knowledge that they had been learning up until now and built a new one from brick to brick. It was quite a unique experience, and it would be a lie if Sheva said it wasn’t worth every penny that Irfan spent to hire the man here.

The first thing that Sergei forced them to learn was 100+ variations of endgame techniques. Yes, he didn’t touch the opening at all, saying that they would be able to memorize it all from the book. In his words, the point of the opening was to get a good middle game to attain an advantage, in which the players were later reduced to a won endgame that they should’ve known HOW to win already. That was why he flipped the framework, letting them learning the endgame first rather than polishing their opening repertoire.

Only after drilling more than 100 techniques inside his head did Sheva finally realize how true the man’s words were. While the calculation and intuition skills inside his head were good, with the right knowledge, he wouldn’t have to overuse them to the point that the boy almost fried his brain.

Then, when they delved deeper into the opening stage, Sergei made a slight adjustment to their usual way to learn. He still asked them to memorize all the lines of the mainstream openings like the Ruy-Lopez, the Sicilian, or the Italian, but in addition to that, he also wanted the three teenagers to pick a few variations that they wanted to learn more about before he taught them how to study those variations thoroughly. The way to study itself was pretty unique, with them being forced to learn about the logical bases for each move, letting them all understand the applicability so that they could adapt in every situation, even though they themselves didn’t know the exact theory behind it.

Overall, the coaching session with Sergei really helped them a lot, especially Sheva, who had never learned chess under formal guidance like this. Now, the boy was confident that he could utilize almost all the openings that he got from the system really well, giving the justice they deserved for the items coming from the system itself.

Now, with him improving this much, it wouldn’t be a lie if Sheva said he could be patient waiting for the news about his next tournament. However, he knew that Bagas was still negotiating with his father, so he didn’t want to intervene in the father-son conflict here.

Fortunately, he didn’t have to wait for too long, as a week later, Bagas finally called him for a meeting. Instead of going to Sheva’s house like usual, the fat boy asked him to meet in a small café near Irfan’s house, which Sheva himself didn’t mind at all.

"Hey, how’s it going?" Sheva asked once he sat at the same table with his best friend. "Any good news from your father?" He tried to be casual in the way he asked, but Sheva couldn’t hide the impatience in his tone as he had been waiting for almost a month for this news.

"Eh, don’t worry, I have good news here." Bagas sent a thumbs-up. Then, he opened his laptop while signaling Sheva to come closer, clearly wanting to show something here. "So, I have already discussed this with my father, and we have decided to let you choose. Here, there are two good tournaments in Europe next month that we have already picked the information for you, just tell me which one of them you want to play in, okay?"