You're not number one

"And with that, Japan's back in the game, but things will be tough. Nancy, care to recap what's happened over at board 1 since we last checked in?" Danny asked.

"Sure thing. We last left off on move 7. Ragnar had moved his queen to d3 while Okisato responded with e5. But now we're at move 14, with a queen's side castle, queen f7, king b1, b6, h3, knight e7, rook h2, knight d7, g4, bishop b7, g5, f5, g6, and finally, h captures g6, all being played out. But the real story is the eval bar," Nancy stated.

"Correct, Okisato now has the advantage, but it's the reverse over on board 3 for Team Japan. This match could end in a draw."

At board 3, Mori stared at the board then back at his scoresheet in frustration. "I go for another walk, come back, and have this to deal with!? How the hell is this not being caught as cheating!?" he fumed.

According to the scoresheet, queen c2, bishop captures f3, g captures f3, queen d7, knight c3, knight c6, knight captures b5, bishop e7, and queen a4 had all been played. The issue though was with Mori's next alleged move of a queen's side castle.

"I know I castled king's side! How is there no way to prove that!?" Mori fumed.

"Your scorecard says "O-O-O", not "O-O", and according to our eyes in the booth, no foul play was detected," the arbiter frowned.

"You suck at your job! Maybe your equipment's busted too!"

Now faced with a check in the form of queen a6, forcing king b8, Mori had little choice but to play the move and watch as the game continued with pawn to d4.

"No more leaving. I'm gonna sit here until this is over," Mori thought as he angrily moved his bishop to d6.

"So close... If that knight wasn't on c6, mate in 2 after I take on a7 with the queen," Köfun thought as he eyed his prize. "Just need him to look away, then I nudge the knight up one to c5 as I check with the capture. Genius!"

Back at board 1, Ragnar was hatching a similar scheme. "You think I've lost? Don't count me out. For trickery's the lesson of this game," he thought as he moved his knight to g5.

Okisato simply slid his queen to g8, but then Ragnar moved his pawn to f4, instead of f3, the best possible move he could make.

"Oh, one step too far," Danny frowned as Okisato castled queen's side.

"Now how about you do the explaining," Nancy nodded as Ragnar moved his rook to f2.

"Well, after that last move, f captures e4, knight captures e4, and knight f5 are all likely. But what you'll notice is that White does not have a lot of places to move, while Black has more space. Oh, and lo and behold, my prediction was spot on. Knight g5 has also been played by Ragnar, but to illustrate my point, Okisato just played e4, meaning the queen's gotta move, probably to d2. And if you're busy moving your pieces to safety, you can't control the board."

Sure enough, Danny was right. With Ragnar running away, Okisato was able to focus on offense, moving his knight out to f6. Ragnar was also failing to make proper counterplay as his bishop to b5 ploy allowed for knight d5, essentially forcing rook e2 to keep Ragnar in the game. Now when f-knight captured e3, rook captured e3, knight captured e3, and queen captured e3. It was two knights for a rook, but Okisato was already ahead. And when you're ahead in chess, the strategy is to trade off pieces.

After Okisato moved his king to b8, Ragnar decided to move his bishop out from enemy lines to g4. "Nyahg, he's ticking me off! I'll have to cheat if I want to salvage this. But he just won't look away!" he thought as Okisato moved his pawn to d5.

Regardless, Ragnar had a scheme brewing. A dance of queens then commenced, consisting of queen d4, queen e7, queen d2, queen f6, and queen f2, being broken by Okisato moving his h-rook to e8. Ragnar moved his pawn to h4, hoping it could sneak by, but Okisato countered by pushing his own pawn to e3, sending Ragnar's queen packing to h2.

"Does he really think that h-pawn can do anything? I have two rooks on the back rank," Okisato thought as he moved his pawn to d4.

The move triggered a rook trade beginning with Ragnar capturing the pawn at d4 with his rook, Okisato capturing said rook with his rook, and Ragnar capturing said rook with his c-pawn. Okisato had the edge though as now he could play pawn to e2, forcing Ragnar to capture said pawn with his bishop to prevent the pawn from queening. Okisato countered by capturing the pawn at d4 with his queen, completely dominating the board.

"Oh no you don't!" Ragnar thought as he moved his knight to f3, and gaped in horror as said knight was promptly captured by Okisato's bishop. "Noooo... HAH!" he maliciously thought as he captured the bishop at f3 with his bishop.

"Check, it's the end for you," Okisato growled as he moved his rook to e1.

Indeed, it was now mate in 4, and Ragnar knew it too, but that's exactly why he went with this malicious plan. "I go king a2, he goes queen c4. Then it's b3, queen c3 and I have a free move. No, I need to go bishop d1... only if I don't move my queen to f8! I just need to wait for him to look away, and I win!" Ragnar thought.

Indeed, once queen c3 was played, Ragnar held off on moving his bishop to d1, and wrote "Qf8+" down on his notation sheet for his 39th move, even though the move wasn't possible. But in over-the-board chess, if the cheating wasn't spotted, the cheater was in the clear, and if he pulled off the illegal move, rook to e8 would be Okisato's only legal move, and following the queen capturing said rook, it was mate.

Okisato wasn't giving Ragnar the time of day though. Considering the position was not only lost for Ragnar, but essentially forced, Okisato found it oddly suspicious that Ragnar not only wasn't resigning, but appearing to stall for time. Though Okisato did glance towards board 3, and scowled at what he saw. Mori's position was completely lost.

Sensing his chance, Ragnar lunged for the queen as Okisato slowly turned back around.

"CHEATER!"

Ragnar froze, as Okisato turned his attention towards the source of the accusation. Standing behind board 3 in rage was Laura Amore.

"Ma'am, what do you mean by your accusation?" an arbiter asked.

"I saw the large man nudge his opponent's knight to a space which would result in mate in 2 thanks to his latest move! And that's not all, the man sitting over there was conveying moves to him!" Laura declared as she pointed at Ginji.

"Oi, oi, I'm from Team Japan. Thanks for trying to do us a solid, but our boy's losing fair n' square," Ginji sneered.

"Pull up the notes and replay the game! Get the video recordings for the board cameras too! If he cheated now, he might've cheated before too!"

As a crowd began to form around board 3, Okisato directed his attention back to Ragnar. Thanks to Laura's outburst, Ragnar had accidentally put his hand on his bishop, and since the touch-move rule was in effect, he had to move the bishop.

"No.... NO! That woman ruined everything!" Ragnar fumed as he moved his bishop to d1.

"Oh, so you were going to cheat. Well, you're losing anyway, so no use making a fuss over it," Okisato snarled as he captured the bishop at d1 with his rook.

"No, I'm number one. I'M NUMBER ONE! I can't lose!" Ragnar fumed as he moved his bishop to h5.

"No, you're not number one, unless it's number one loser. Checkmate, asshole," Okisato growled as he moved his rook to a1, winning the game.

Ragnar clutched his head with both hands and wallowed in agony at the sight. "No! I would have won if only I could have cheated!"

And speaking of cheating, Prokrutka arrived and after some deliberation, determined Köfun had in fact cheated to achieve a winning position and was thus handed a loss, meaning Japan had won the match against Iceland 3-1. 

"Seriously, you can detect when someone's sneaking moves off an engine, but miss over-the-board shit? Good thing there's board cams, or it would have been your asses in for a bad time!" Mori huffed as he stormed away. 

Ginji was in the clear though as since there was no video recordings showing him flashing hints to the Icelandic team,  Laura couldn't prove he was colluding against Team Japan, but nonetheless, he had earned Laura's ire. 

"Why was she even back here anyway? I thought she went back. Well whatever. I'd better prepare my excuse for Oki-chwan," Ginji thought as he headed out.

The full games:

White: Ragnar Fúinn (2576) Black: Okisato Tanabe (2700)

1. Nf3 f6

2. e4 e6

3. Nc3 Bb4

4. a3 Bxc3

5. dxc3 Qe7

6. Be3 d6

7. Qd3 e5

8. O-O-O Qf7

9. Kb1 b6

10. h3 Ne7

11. Rh2 Nd7

12. g4 Bb7

13. g5 f5

14. g6 hxg6

15. Ng5 Qg8

16. f4 O-O-O

17. Rf2 fxe4

18. Nxe4 Nf5

19. Ng5 e4

20. Qd2 Nf6

21. Bb5 Nd5

22. Re2 Nfxe3

23. Rxe3 Nxe3

24. Qxe3 Kb8

25. Be2 Qe8

26. Bg4 d5

27. Qd4 Qe7

28. Qd2 Qf6

29. Qf2 Rhe8

30. h4 e3

31. Qh2 d4

32. Rxd4 Rxd4

33. cxd4 e2

34. Bxe2 Qxd4

35. Nf3 Bxf3

36. Bxf3 Re1+

37. Ka2 Qc4+

38. b3 Qc3

39. Bd1 Rxd1

40. h5 Ra1#

White: Köfun Gríma (2501) Black: Morizane Moribe (2399)

1. e4 d5

2. exd5 Nf6

3. c4 e6

4. dxe6 Bxe6

5. Nf3 Qe7

6. Be2 Bxc4

7. O-O Bxe2

8. Qa4+ b5

9. Qc2 Bxf3

10. gxf3 Qd7

11. Nc3 Nc6

12. Nxb5 Be7

13. Qa4 O-O-O

14. Qa6+ Kb8

15. d4 Bd6 (Black won due to White being caught cheating)

Match score:

Japan: 3 Iceland: 1

Japan wins 3-1