Chapter 25
From that day on, in the evenings when Dad got home from work, I learned chess, and during the day Arin and I kept playing games against each other.
Arin, too, seemed to find complex tactical battles fun, because before long she'd abandoned simple board games and was only holding chess pieces.
I was learning alongside her as a beginner too, but every time I played against Dad, I was utterly crushed.
“Uuugh… I have an IQ of 160… is it really okay to lose this badly…?”
“Puhaha! If you put it that way, Dad's been at it for five years. Even with an IQ of 160, you're still nowhere near breaking through the five-year wall, Yua-yeon.”
The five-year wall really was hard to get past.
But whenever I lost, I went back and reviewed where I'd gone wrong.
I started to notice the repeating patterns in how Dad placed his pieces.
‘If Arin is learning seriously too, I can’t just half-ass it as her older sister.’
Arin was also catching on quickly.
At first, when Arin and I played, I won almost every time.
Arin took a long time to understand the rules.
But the moment Arin became fully familiar with the rules, the shape of the games began to change little by little.
“Mm… If I do it like this, and like this… I win, right? Big sis, how about this!”
“Hwah…! No way!”
“Heh-heh. I won-!”
“Uuugh…”
I led the game through the middlegame, but then got hit with a surprise checkmate in the end...
At first I didn't understand why I lost, but after replaying several games, I got it.
Arin's move-reading speed was simply too fast.
In the time it took me to read three moves ahead, she read five; in the time it took me to read five, she read seven.
Her brain-processing speed was overwhelmingly faster than mine.
I had no chance of beating Arin in calculation.
‘But if I can't even put up a fight and lose to a three-year-old, I won't have any dignity left as an older sister!’
If chess were just a game where the better move-reader wins, it never would have become so popular worldwide.
Abstract strategy games like chess—or really, almost all games—are broadly divided into tactics and strategy.
Tactics are moves that gain an advantage in the short term.
Strategy is the direction and planning needed to achieve long-term goals.
Arin had the ability to find the best move in a favorable position. In other words, she was strong tactically.
But she was weak at understanding the flow of an abstract game and planning how to place each piece. In other words, she was weak strategically.
I exploited that weakness and focused my attack on Arin.
I deliberately twisted the position into something complicated, luring Arin's quick judgment into a trap.
And I gradually wore her down by making choices that were advantageous in the short term but disadvantageous in the long run.
Of course, if you can keep pulling off high-level play like that, you're not a beginner.
Even when I did my best to create an advantageous position, Arin would spot a tactic I hadn't calculated and sometimes blow the game wide open.
“Heh-heh. Big sis, you made a mistake, didn't you? This spot is weak!”
“Eek! I lost again!”
“Heehee.”
As of now, our win rate is probably about 7 to 3. And of course, I'm the 7.
‘My edge is still in building positions and drawing the big picture.’
But I couldn't guarantee that gap would last forever.
Arin always replayed every game, win or lose.
✒️✒️✒️
Week 3.
For the first time in a game against Dad, I beat Dad.
Dad toppled his king toward my side first.
“Heh-heh.”
“Oh.”
Dad asked as he replayed the game with me.
“Yua-yeon, did you do this on purpose?”
“Yeah. If you keep the bishop parked here, it blocks the rook's route. If you then pressure it with the knight, there are only two choices left.”
Dad chuckled and put a hand on my head, messing up my hair.
Pat-pat-.
“Winning against Dad in just three weeks is seriously amazing. You're a genius, after all. At this rate, aren't you even smarter than Shin I-jun in his prime?”
“Heh-heh. Yua-yeon is the smartest in the world!”
Dad's pat-patting made my face break into a dopey grin before I knew it.
Around then, Arin was looking at the board and replaying her own game beside us.
“When will Arin be able to beat Dad, I wonder?”
Dad teased her with a smile.
Arin suddenly shot her head up!
“I can beat him right now!”
“Oh, yeah? Want to give it a try?”
“Yeah!”
Dad and Arin's game began.
Arin was an aggressive player who attacked hard right from the opening.
Rather than calculating moves slowly, she would instantly play the best move she could see at a glance.
Dad defended while dragging the position into a complicated mess.
‘In complicated positions, the number of lines you have to calculate explodes, so even Arin's brain-processing speed starts to strain... How she gets through this position will decide the game.’
They were neck and neck through the middlegame.
But in the endgame, Arin suddenly started thinking for a long time.
“Huuuuu…”
A long think that burned up 40% of the entire game time on a single move.
The moment Arin finally made her move.
Dad's eyes narrowed.
Dad played a few moves, then shook his head and toppled his king toward Arin's side.
“Heheh! I won!”
Arin bounced up and down in place, throwing her hands up and cheering.
“Arin, that move from earlier.”
“Hm?”
“Did you calculate all of that before you played it?”
“Yep!”
“My goodness... Dad lost. He was completely beaten by two genius daughters today. Still, he's a pretty good player himself.”
I watched that scene and thought to myself.
‘If we only look at short-term tactics, even Dad's in trouble now.’
On the chessboard, the three of us each had slightly different styles.
Dad's style was strong moves backed by solid opening knowledge and experience.
Arin's was tactics and calculation born from overwhelming brain-processing speed.
Mine was long-term strategy that slowly squeezed the position.
Arin and I had used our own strengths to somehow beat Dad, who until then hadn't been able to beat us even once.
“Yua-yeon and Arin, let's start facing other people soon.”
Dad reminded us of our original goal.
The reason we learned chess.
It was to go to the neighborhood chess club and interact with people.
Arin would build social skills, while I would be exposed to crowds and gradually overcome my stage fright.
“Uuuh… Do we really have to go? Playing with big sis and Dad is fun enough…”
Arin, who had never properly interacted with anyone outside the family, still looked reluctant.
I clasped Arin's anxious hand tightly in mine.
“Arin, I'll go too! I want you to stop being scared of other people, Arin. Let's go together, okay?”
“Big sis…”
Nod-nod-.
Arin nodded.
“Okay, you've made up your mind, right? Then I'll contact the place I'd looked into earlier.”
✒️✒️✒️
The three of us got in the car and headed to the chess club.
Since it was in an area with lots of schools and academies, the chess club—one that drew plenty of teenagers—was fairly large.
[Beginner Class / Novice Class / Intermediate Class / Advanced Class]
The first floor was used by the beginner and novice classes, while the second floor was for the intermediate and advanced classes.
Looking around inside, the youngest kids were around the lower elementary school grades.
There weren't any preschoolers around our age.
Come to think of it, that was only natural. Chess was a complicated game, after all.
A man in his forties who seemed to be the director came up to Dad and asked,
“Hello. Did you come to inquire about enrollment?”
“Yes. I'd like to enroll my children.”
“Hello-! Director!”
“Ah, h-hello...”
We bowed our heads politely.
A good greeting gets you halfway there, wherever you go.
But when the director looked at me, at 105 cm tall, and Arin, at 92 cm, he asked,
“By any chance, how old are you two?”
“I'm five, and my little sister is three!”
Hearing our ages, the director, unsurprisingly, started making a subtle face.
“Ah... to be honest, children aged three and five may have a hard time understanding the chess rules themselves. It's a time when concentration is still lacking. Wouldn't it be easier to follow the classes once they're at least in the lower elementary grades?”
From the director's point of view, we probably looked like parents trying to force their children into advanced lessons too early.
I couldn't just stand by and let Dad be treated like such a cruel parent.
“Director, so...”
Just as Dad was about to speak gently,
I cut him off and, with a bit of emotion mixed in, said clearly,
“Director, please don't look down on us. We've learned every chess rule. We know how every piece moves—the king, queen, rook, bishop, knight, and pawn. We know castling, en passant, and promotion too. We know forks, pins, skewers, and discovered attacks too!”
As I said all that with a huff, the director looked at me, flustered.
“... I-I know those too...”
Arin chimed in as well.
Thump-thump-.
I could feel my heart racing.
A strong rush of adrenaline surged through me.
I had no idea speaking my mind this strongly in front of an adult would be this nerve-racking and scary.
It was clear that, unlike Shin I-jun's body, young Yua-yeon's body wasn't used to regulating her amygdala.
‘So this is the kind of situation Mom had in mind. I need to keep repeating situations like this until I get back the past-life lecture instinct.’
The director's flustered gaze moved to Dad.
Dad shrugged and backed us up.
“Why don't you test our kids first?”
✒️✒️✒️
The director set up two tables.
He pulled out printed chess puzzles and placed them in front of us.
Mate-in-two and mate-in-three problems.
I looked over the puzzles.
My neurons and synapses, sharpened in chess over three weeks, reacted quickly the moment they saw the checkmate positions.
The first problem.
‘The position is queen on e5 and king on f8.’
Time taken to solve it.
Just 10 seconds.
“Queen h8 check, king e7, rook e1 checkmate.”
The director checked it.
“...That's right.”
Second problem.
Time taken to solve it: just 7 seconds.
Third problem.
Time taken to solve it: 12 seconds.
The director's expression, which had shown little expectation, began to change.
At the next table, Arin was quietly studying the board.
Unlike other three-year-olds, she wasn't drooling, wandering off her seat, or throwing a tantrum.
Arin's concentration was clearly different from that of kids her age.
Pointing at a piece with her finger, Arin said,
“...Knight f6, queen h7?”
The director checked it.
“Correct.”
After that, Arin kept answering one after another with unstoppable momentum. She solved almost every puzzle two to three seconds faster than I did.
Once the puzzles were done, the director directly proposed a blitz game against me.
The time control was five minutes each. I took Black.
The director was the one who taught the club students.
He was surely better than Dad.
But the point of this test was to see how far I could hold out.
The game began.
The director grabbed the center with a textbook opening right from the start.
I responded by defending and twisting the position into knots.
I held on until the middlegame...
...but I collapsed under the director's pressure in the endgame.
‘Sniffle... I lost... If I'd managed to beat the director too after talking big, that would've been seriously cool... Then Dad and Arin would've been clapping and saying, wow, amazing.’
Even so, it was impossible for a third-week newbie to take down the director. An IQ of 160 didn't make the impossible possible.
I was disappointed, but the director's expression was, unlike before, one of shock.
“How old did you say you were?”
“I'm five. My little sister is three.”
“When did you start learning?”
“It's been three weeks. My little sister started with me too.”
The director looked down at the board for a moment.
“Good heavens... You got this position in less than a month?”
“No, no, I'm still nowhere near good enough... I lost because my endgame wasn't good enough, didn't I...”
When I said that with a disappointed sigh, the director looked utterly speechless.
Arin's game ended too.
Arin lost as well, but from the director's expression, it was clear she'd left him quite flustered through the middlegame.
The test was over.
The director looked at Dad and said,
“This is a highly unusual case, but I think both Yua-yeon and Yua-rin should be placed in the intermediate class. That's really impressive. Normally, the intermediate class is where middle school students begin.”
“Heheh. My little sister and I are geniuses!”