Apr 30, 2026
Author's Commentary #25:
Time to talk about Chapter 25: You're not number one.
The Icelandic team has been foiled, with Köfun being caught cheating and Ragnar losing to Okisato. Ragnar certainly isn't number one now, nor is Iceland, though only Köfun will end up getting punished since he was the one caught cheating. This means that Sportlegur will have to play for all the remaining matches.
Now that the match has concluded, it's time to talk about it more in depth. First off, as I previously mentioned, Japan actually did face Iceland in round 10 of the 45th Chess Olympiad. And in it, they won 3-1. Their one loss ended up being on board 3, instead of board 2 like in the story.
As for Laura, I originally planned for Mimoko to be the one to spot the cheating and call the arbiter, but I decided the role fit Laura better. This decision in turn led to me fleshing out her character more, and gave me an idea on what to do for some of the other characters that have been introduced this arc.
Speaking of the cheating, the Köfun game was not originally shown, with only vague descriptions being given regarding the state of the game. Obviously, that wasn't an option here as I wanted to showcase the game in full. As such, you'll notice that in the game log for this game, I included the moves Mori originally made in order to showcase how much more advantageous the positions were for him and why Köfun cheated where he did.
Okisato's game, meanwhile, featured an Arctic Defense, which as some might remember, is a great opening to play in Atomic chess, not so much in normal chess. Of course, Okisato still won as he normally does.
I initially planned to have Ragnar get away with his cheating and have Okisato try and spot it by viewing his notes. I backed off at the time as I felt this would be a bit too much work, not to mention I wanted Ragnar's game to end in a checkmate. Here, however, I utilized that idea in Mori's game, though as we saw, Köfun even messed with the notes too to further cover his tracks. This allowed me to retain the original conclusion for his game where Laura catches him cheating.
Now with Japan's victory over Iceland, things will shift back over to the women's side. To give a refresher, Japan's chances are looking good there too as they currently lead 2-0. All they need is a draw to clinch the match, which seems likely at the very least. Even though the Italy match is still ongoing, I will say that the Iceland match is easily the highlight of round 2 for me as the games in it were so much fun to write.
That's all for this commentary. I hope you enjoyed it.
