Revealing the mastermind - Classroom of the elite

Girl talk(Part-2)

Ayanokouji POV

"Going for the Najdorf, aren't you?" Sakayanagi said, chuckling

"Woah! I had no Idea Ayanokouji-kun was good at chess."

"You also play too, Ichinose?"

"Not really, I only know the basics. Its just that a couple of people in our class were playing at an online platform. I also once asked him if we could use chess as an event in the commanding tower exam but they said they were not confident in their skills."

"Then you ended up deciding against it."

"Umu." She replied cutely. The match aside, Ichinose is watching us play with attention as if trying to figure out the intentions and mindset behind a certain move.

Chess might be in someway a method to explore the mindset of the person you're playing. Some play in an attacking manner, some prefer defensive moves. Everyone looks for possible traps and other moves that might throw-off your opponent. More than a game, sometimes chess can become a psychological warfare.

Najdorf is a well researched line in the sicillian defense named after a polish Grand master. Many GMs play it today. In the modern chess world, the invention of chess engines have allowed people to intensively search for new variations for both white and black and the complexity of the game has skyrocketed.

We are currently playing the English attack of the Najdorf which is considered as the modern main line and has been intensively played and analyzed. Sakayanagi seems to me quite well aware of the theory in this. The same goes for me as well.

As opposed to the attacking mentality that she held during our game in the special exam, she is playing calm and positional moves. Moves you would expect from a human perspective rather than a machine.

It is impossible for humans to analyze an ongoing game the same way as a machine. We do not possess the same calculating or memory power. That is the reason people develop principles that guide them to make a move in certain positions while at the same time they develop some sort of 'intuition' as to which moves are better than others.

This is more of an informal game. My opponent is not focused on winning at all. If anything, she's trying to enjoy the game to its best. And looking at how the game is proceeding, it may be a good mental exercise for me to do the same. I'd like to enjoy the game as well because it seems a bit fun in some way.

"I don't understand the moves at all. This is high-level stuff." Ichinose was looking at our game and was a bit stressed.

It was only natural. For someone who is not well-versed with chess, it would be hard to find the possible motive behind a move that was played while keeping in mind the next 7 or 8 moves of the game.

"Oh my! Look how I am enjoying this. Fufufu" 

If Kamuro was here, she would have called that laugh creepy and I can't deny that.

But I can sense her excitement while playing this. I would be the same if not for the many gazes all around the cafe that are slowly starting to concentrate towards us.

I am sitting with the leaders of two classes at this table. Even if you don't consider those videos, this situation itself ins conspicuous. Normally I would do anything to avoid being in this situation but it is thanks to those videos that I can meet with some people without being labelled as a traitor by my class.

From the corner of my eye, I looked over at the table where the girls from my class were sitting. Even though I am not in the range where I can listen their conversation, I can feel some tension in the air around them.