Chaoskouji

Chapter 6.5 - A Casual Game of Chess

I was sitting at a table in a park, my latest victim having stormed off after being absolutely crushed when he approached me.

"Afternoon, Ayanokouji. What would you be doing here that would leave that poor third year so upset?" Nagumo. Apparently he'd come with his goon squad to investigate what I'm doing.

"Just playing some chess with seniors. Is there a rule against such behavior?"

"No. But swindling money is frowned upon not just by the school, but the student council as well. Which leaves it up to me, the Vice President, to teach you some discipline, to teach you to respect your seniors." Apparently, my lackluster greeting had offended him.

Nagumo absolutely didn't care that I was wagering points with seniors over games of chess. From my investigations, he had conducted much more rule breaking activities than I had, some of them even bordering on illegality. Obviously, he was here to assert his dominance over me, to prove that there was no reason for Manabu to favour me over him. Seriously, that egotistical attitude of his would be his downfall. By assuming the world was his to rule, it was very easy to push him in a certain direction.

One day I would be forced to deal with that, but not today.

Five of his classmates stood behind him, probably trying to look intimidating and try to push me around. It wouldn't work, but if it made him feel secure who am I to take a dummy from a baby.

"I'd like to play. There's no problem is there? Same rules you gave everyone else, and we wager a lot more points than you have before. With your string of victories, I'm sure you can agree that's reasonable?" He was trying to goad me. Poor choice, Nagumo. This game was what I wanted in the first place. If I was going to be subtle about earning points through chess, I wouldn't have posted the challenge on the school forums. Your insecurity leading you here was my end goal.

"Very well. Same rules for everyone. I earned 750,000 points from my games so far, so I'll put up that much. Winner gets the lot, you play white, so to make it fair in the event of a draw or stalemate I take three quarters of the pot. Agreed?" I held out my hand to him, which he shook and responded.

"Agreed" Seating himself at the table, he observed the white pieces, before taking out his phone. "Unfortunately, the rules you mentioned never prohibited using a chess engine. Sure, you may be good, but I can use a computer and crush you. You made a mistake giving me white, now I can't lose." He leered at me. What a moron. Obviously I left those out of the rules. Now he had an overwhelming advantage over me, there was no way I could escape from the situation. Or so he should think.

"That was an oversight on my part. I guess I'll just have to play my best, and hope to not lose."

Nagumo began the game with e4, to which I replied with c5. If I wanted a draw against a human, the berlin would be my best option, however his phone, probably running some browser version of stockfish, would always aim for a draw if there was no clear win, to trade off all the pieces if it determined the game even. By following it religiously, his own tool would lead to my victory.

The pieces began moving across the board, an open Sicilian, Najdorf variation was the opening played. Pieces were traded, pawns were pushed, and the game remained completely even. Despite this, every move Nagumo had played so far was perfect. I had been relying on the browser engine to be flawed, to cut corners in order to run quickly without the brute force a GPU engine would have, but it seemed it was good enough to match me anyway.

Of course, it was rare that I lost to a computer, only happening five times in my last year at the white room, all of which from black, but it didn't mean the game was simple. There were many moves where I had to stop and think, consider up to twenty moves ahead, before deciding on the best course of action. All this time, however, Nagumo was getting increasingly frustrated. Even with a computer aiding him, he couldn't make any progress in the game, a draw becoming more and more inevitable.

Eventually, his computer should have told him to trade queens. It was the best move in the position, in fact the only move that didn't lead to black outright winning, but based on my own analysis, the computer was probably saying trading would lead to a draw. While he hesitated, contemplating whether he should trade or not, Horikita Manabu decided to finally make his presence known. I had messaged him earlier, asking him to come over to supervise a game, and he had arrived just after Nagumo did, and watched from a nearby tree as we played.

"An impressive game so far. Not an easy position to play from. From my own experience, as limited as it is, wouldn't trading queens be the best option here?" The appearance of the Student Council President galvanized Nagumo into action, and he swiftly traded the queens.

"Horikita-senpai, what a surprise. You seem to have caught us in a tense match, with rather high stakes. What was it you bet again, Ayanokouji? 750,000 points? Be prepared to lose them." In front of his idol, Nagumo had no choice but to act confident and cocky. While he was terrified on the inside, not understanding how I was keeping up perfectly with a computer, he looked completely composed. Ignoring my dislike for the man, his acting skills were incredible.

"Tense? I wouldn't have thought so when you have a computer aiding you. Or would you say that Ayanokouji is a better player than a computer. Because if so, that's incredibly high praise to give to someone." Nagumo ground his teeth but didn't respond. As much as he wanted to, there was no way out of this situation.

The game continued, and slowly more pieces were traded off the board, before eventually I sacrificed my rook to take his last pawn, ending the game in a draw.

"An incredible game, Ayanokouji. I doubt there would be many grandmasters who could keep up with you."

"I just have a lot of experience playing against computers. Growing up I had no one else to compete with, and I got very used to matching their patterns."

"An impressive performance, nonetheless. Now, I believe there was a 750,000 point wager?"

Nagumo transferred me the 375,000 points, since we had drawn not won, before rising from the table and leaving in silence with his goons, not even shaking my hand or congratulating me.

"How rude of him. I should warn you, Ayanokouji, you have poked the hind of a bear. Take care with him or you may find yourself out of school faster than you expect."

"I knew exactly what I was doing, especially by calling you over for added affect. He is one of the few people who could make my life interesting. I see no downside from this situation."

"I would like to see you back up that claim this year. For you to face off against Nagumo would be a battle I would very much enjoy watching." Manabu sighed for a moment, before sitting in the chair Nagumo had just vacated. "Would you mind? I haven't played for a while, and it would be an honour to play against someone as talented as you."

"Why not. I don't have anywhere else to be."

With that we reset the pieces and a new game began.

Authors Notes

When I was writing chapter 6 i really wanted to do a bit more on what Ayanokouji was doing in his spare time, but I could never make it work. Hence, this chapter. Just a short one, adds a bit of depth to Nagumo/Manabu/Ayanokouji relationship, and was fun to sit down and write.

It's short so I'm breaking my every second day schedule, which as been working well so I'll stick to that, and posting this. Enjoy!