Chapter Thirty #2
Their heads were bent together as they conferred in low tones. Daniil was emphatically gesturing, while Ciara leaned back in her chair with her eyes rolled upward in thought, visualizing whatever it was he was describing. Beann lay on his side at her feet, snoring peacefully.
“No,” she said dismissively. “No, king h2 is excessive.”
“Right,” Daniil said, with some disappointment. “It should be a draw either way.”
It was a familiar enough scene: Two players, in the aftermath of a game, discussing how it could’ve gone, had only they seen this move or that plan.
“What is this?” Shea demanded.
Both of them looked up at her, startled by her intrusion. They looked so casual, sitting there, as if Shea had invited them—as if there was nothing strange about the two of them breaking into her room and playing a game without her.
“Where have you been?” asked Daniil.
“We’re going over some ideas.” Ciara’s cheek dimpled as she smiled. “We are your seconds, after all.”
Your seconds. That struck her somewhere unguarded.
In the lead-up to this tournament, she’d had her coach and a team of seconds.
There was Yangmei, of course, and a few other grandmasters she met with a few times a week.
It was pragmatic, impersonal by her own design. But this … It felt almost like family.
“Come look at this,” said Ciara.
Shea approached the board as if in a trance.
Beann’s tail thumped against the floor, and she stooped to stroke his ears.
She half listened as Ciara and Daniil explained some weird line they’d dug up in an old book.
There was intricate theory behind it and a ton of novel ideas.
All of it washed over her. They’d gone through so much trouble for her, and it was all pointless.
She wanted to laugh. She wanted to sweep all the pieces from their squares, just to watch them clatter on the floor, as loud and shocking as a smashed vase.
No amount of preparation or collaboration or grit would change the inevitable outcome of tomorrow’s game.
“Are you even listening?” Daniil demanded.
“I am,” Shea said blearily.
“This is your game we’re analyzing,” he said impatiently. “You don’t remember this?”
Shea stared down at the board. “Should I?”
He looked aghast. “You played it three years ago.”
Shea studied it for a while. “Right. Yeah. Round three of Tata Steel 2023. I won this game, I think. But I won in a stupid way.”
“You did,” he agreed. “But it’s not about perfection. It’s about the fight.”
“Look, I appreciate the effort here.” Shea tried to keep her voice even. Neither of them deserved to be targets of her anger when it had nothing to do with them. “But anything less than perfection isn’t going to cut it.”
“I take it you were not successful,” Ciara said wanly.
“Nope.” Shea pulled up her sleeve and showed her forearm to Ciara. “Unless this means anything to you.”
“I don’t see…” Ciara paused, then waved her hand.
The letters slowly came into view, like blood welling up from a wound, and burned brightly.
She glanced up at Shea through her heavy eyelids, looking deeply unimpressed.
“Ah. I do see. And what did she extract in exchange for this illuminating information?”
“Nothing really. Just that I’d devise some fitting punishment for Midir.
” Shea hid her face in her hands. So much good this spell would do her.
So much good any of the theory seared into her mind would do.
“It doesn’t matter how prepared I am. He’s drawing on the combined knowledge of anyone who was ever halfway good at this game—and cocky enough to challenge him.
We have no way to stop him from doing that. I’m fucked. Don’t you get it?”
“All right.” Ciara peeled Shea’s hands away from her face.
“Let us take this one step at a time. We can look at the games of the people he’s defeated before, so you will not be completely unprepared for their style.
And remember that you are choosing the time format. I think a bullet game would be wise.”
Shea had nearly forgotten. Midir had mentioned that at the Final Four dinner.
A bullet game—a format where each player had fewer than three minutes in total to play—would give her some advantage, theoretically.
Usually, those games came down to time scrambles: The result was decided by whoever made the last mistake.
“That introduces too many chances to make mistakes.”
“Yes,” Ciara said. “But none of the players he’s stolen from will be as experienced in that format as we are. Besides, it’s less time for him to think. The best chance you have is to get a novel position and play something that baffles him.”
“And what would that be?” Daniil scoffed. “Play like AlphaZero and push the h-pawn up the board for no discernible reason? A joke opening like the Meadow Hay Mistake?”
“Actually,” Ciara said hesitantly, “I have won many nice games with the Meadow Hay Mistake.”
“Of course you have,” Daniil said, disgusted.
She had. There were many video compilations of those games, and Shea had watched a good number of them. Most of her opponents didn’t let her have her fun, though. They were too afraid to accept the gambit and enter into the main line. It would be too mortifying to lose like that.
The Meadow Hay Mistake was an objectively terrible opening. You could play it with black or white; either way, the plan remained unchanged. For white, it went like this:
1. a4, disrespecting your opponent and flouting the conventional wisdom of controlling the center of the board
2. rook a3, a move that—if your opponent plays e5—allows them to capture your rook in exchange for their dark-squared bishop