Chapter 6: The Mystery GM

"Shit Noah, have you seen this one?"

The day was Sunday, a day after the final state placement tournament. With the loss to Lake Tech, River Park dropped to the 2 seed for the state bracket tournament in 2 weeks. Toki, having now tasted the joys of playing on the 64 squares, had become even more obsessed. He was viewing historic games in a private room at the River Park public library next to his school on his laptop.

"I've seen all of these Toki," Noah replied, "That one's the…"

"Yo check this out man!" Toki said pausing at a certain point of the YouTube Video.

"Yes… that's the…"

"Boom queen sac!"

"Yes… like I've said," Noah said becoming slightly irritated. "This is the famous…"

"But it was just a bait boommmmmm, double check."

"Yes… that's the…"

"Isn't that so cool!?" Toki interrupted completely ignoring Noah, "Man, I didn't realize how sick some of these past chess ga…"

"That's the evergreen game," Noah sighed closing Toki's laptop. "It's probably the most famous game ever, up there with the opera house game and Fischer vs Byrne."

"Wait really?" Toki said looking at Noah and blinking a couple times "Well why didn't you say so?"

"Ughhh…" Noah said face palming, "anyways, forget chess for now, we're here to finish the math homework remember?"

"Oh… right!" Toki said taking out his textbook, "Give me 5 minutes."

"Huh?"

Despite his over the top personality and occasional lack of street smarts, Toki was extremely naturally talented in math. As he took out his notebook as well, he quickly began solving all the Algebra problems hastily as if it was simple arithmetic.

"Hey… what did you get for number 5?" Noah asked.

"4x + 4"

"Okay… what about number 8?"

"1253 feet"

"And what about…"

"1.42613"

The assignment that was supposed to take about an hour ended up taking Toki a mere 10 minutes. After he finished, he quickly looked over at Noah's assignment.

"Okay!" Toki said putting his answer sheet to Noah's.

"Number 12 is 5x^2 +4x+2, number 15 is 4261, number 19 is 42.126, number 24 is -2i."

"Uhh… okay, thanks?" Noah said not complaining about the free answer sheet Toki provided.

"Okay, now let's play a game!" Toki said taking out a chess board from his bag.

"What? Did you have that…"

"Chess chess chess chess chess!" Toki spam said as he began setting up the board.

"Alright alright, I suppose we could use some extra practice now that homework's done,"

"You won't get me this time Noah! From now on, you're my rival you hear?"

"Uhhh… okay? I guess I am now?" Noah said moving his pawn to e5.

"Okay just follow standard theory from YouTube," Toki thought moving his knight to f3. Noah, seemingly imitating Toki's exact move, moved his own knight to f6.

"What?" Toki thought, "Why's he copying me? Okay, whatever, I'll just develop my bishop, if he takes, and I take, then he has to deal with a fork threat. I'm so clever."

Noah however, simply defended his e pawn with his d pawn moving it to d6. Toki then defended his own e pawn with his d pawn. Noah developed his other knight to the e6 square, and Toki castled.

"Okay… solid so far," Toki thought, "My light square bishop's out and his isn't. I just got to keep playing developing moves and…"

But before he could finish his thought, Noah, instead of a standard move, moved his knight to g4.

"What… what the hell does that accomplish?" Toki thought, "Does he think I'm an idiot and will get checkmated by the knight? I'll just kick it away."

Toki placed his h pawn on h3 attacking the knight.

"Okay nice… I've won a tempo; he has to retreat the knight now to the square where it came from."

But Noah had no intentions of retreating; instead, he simply moved his h pawn to h5.

Fishing Pole 1: https://imgur.com/a/e3KUx6P

"What…" Toki thought looking at the board in disbelief, "did… did he just blunder his knight?"

He looked at Noah who had the usual drowsy expression on his face.

"Okay… free piece is a free I guess," Toki thought taking the "free knight," with his pawn. Noah then recaptured the pawn with his pawn attacking Toki's knight.

"Okay… what does this accomplish, I'll just retreat my attacked knight." Toki thought moving his knight to d2. It was here however, that Noah already had a forced checkmate in 3 as he moved his Queen to the h4 square.

Fishing Pole 2: https://imgur.com/a/zfOt2cS

"What… the hell?" Toki thought in shock looking at the position.

"This one's the fishing pole," Noah said yawning.

Toki looked at the board for a good 3 minutes trying his best to find any sort of plan out of the potential checkmate. Finally, he found something.

"Okay… it's going to be unpleasant, but I can run my King away by pushing my f pawn."

"That doesn't work," Noah said as after Toki pushed his f pawn forward one square, he pushed his g pawn to g3 effectively forcing checkmate on his next move.

"Okay this one doesn't count!" Toki said as he began resetting the board. "One more one more, this time I won't fall for your cheap tricks!"

"Whatever you say…" Noah said once again yawning and setting up the pieces. The two played another game that didn't last much longer than the last.

"Blackburn shilling trap,"

"Grr… one more!" Toki said setting up the board again, "This time I'm playing black!"

"If you say so…" Noah said as they switched seats. After about the same number of moves as the last 2 games however, Toki was once again checkmated.

"Légal Trap"

The two continued to play several more games as Noah seemingly knew every possible cheese strategy as he continuously either checkmated Toki or won his queen with relative ease. By the 10th game, Toki had gotten quite tired.

"Okay okay I give I give," he sighed, "How the hell do I even avoid all these trap lines?"

"Play King's Indian?" Noah suggested shrugging.

"But that's boring,"

"Then watch YouTube videos on them, that's how I learned," Noah said as he began packing up his board.

"Wait… one…"

"Can't bro," Noah said looking down at his phone, "There are money matches going on at Millennial Park right now."

"Huh?"

"Money matches," Noah repeated as he finished packing, "You know? It's when you wager some money on games against scrubs at the park. There's a whole scene nowadays there you know."

"What?!?!" Toki asked astonished, "How come nobody told me?"

"Dude… I explained this to you when we were playing bughouse," Noah said face palming again.

"Oh yeah..."

"How the hell did he solve those math problems so fast?" Noah pondered as he began walking towards the door.

"Alright let's do it!" Toki said quickly following behind him not knowing that on that day, they would meet a surprise mystery player, playing at that very same park.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Yooo what's good Noah?"

On the way to Millennial park, Noah met up at the corner of a street with who Toki recognized as Liam and "that other dude" who Noah had wanted to play bughouse with previously.

"Yoooo what's good Liam, what's good Brian?" Noah said giving them hi-fives.

"Hey what's good?"

The two of them looked over at Toki.

"He the guy from yesterday?" Liam asked.

"What's up guys?" Toki said waving his hand at the 2 of them.

"Hey,"

"Yo."

The four of them began walking towards the tables of the park. On their way there however, they saw a large crowd of people gathered around one table.

"What's going on here?" Toki asked.

"That the mystery GM doing the 5x odds wagers?" Noah asked.

"Yeah with a crowd that big, it's got to be him." Liam replied.

"Who?"

"There's been this dude going around the park recently," Brian explained, "He's been holding these 5x odds wagers where you play him in blitz time format, but he gets 1/5 of your time."

"1… 1/5 of your time!?!?" Toki repeated stunned.

"Yeah man," Liam said, "He has a clock he carries with him to the park. No one's been able to even draw him much less beat him yet."

"Holy… he's really that strong?"

"Yeah, that's what the rumors say," Liam continued, "And the craziest part is apparently no one knows who this mystery GM actually is since he, or I suppose it could be a she, always wears a hoodie, scarf, and sunglasses masking his identity."

"Jesus, sounds like something straight out of a movie."

"Pshh… I bet I can take him," Noah replied. When Toki looked at him, it was as if he had gone through a personality change once money was on the line as he could see fiery in his eyes, "how much does he wager each time, 20$? 50$?"

"Any amount you want," Liam replied, "Rumor has it he gives half his winnings to charity as well."

"Damn… how nice."

"Pshhh, that won't make me go easy on him." Noah said, "Where do I sign up?"

"Don't know," Brian said, "Let's go check it out."

The 4 of them walked near the crowd. Being a lot smaller than most of the adults there, Toki managed to squeeze his way towards the front to get a better view. True to Liam's scouting, there was in fact a disguised figure sitting there across from a man who also looked like a high schooler wearing a very formal tuxedo suit with a buzz cut and goatee. Next to the board they were playing at were 20$ from each side set aside and a play clock. As Toki looked at the times, he noticed that the mystery GM had around 30 seconds left on his clock while his opponent had around 1 minute. The position looked pretty balanced with the suited man having 2 knights and the mystery man having 1 rook and pawn majorities on both sides.

Park Game 1: https://imgur.com/a/IS3CKOw

"Is he really that good?" Toki thought, "He's down a piece, surely this is losing."

But just as his looks were as Liam advertised, the mystery GM's play was as good as Liam advertised too. Swiftly but methodically, he coordinated his queen side majority in the proper way so that the knights had no way of defending against the push without at least one sacrificing itself. As Toki looked over at the suited man, he could see beads of sweat running down his face.

"Shit… he got me." Toki heard the man in the suit mutter under his breath. He tried his best to defend the pawn promotion, but it was as if the moves came intuitively for the hooded figure as he escorted a pawn all the way to the 7th row.

Park Game 2: https://imgur.com/undefined

By this time, the clocks were evened out as both players had around 15 seconds each. But the match was already decided as the suited man simply looked at the position shaking his head. Just as his remaining time was about to run out, he knocked over his king.

"Good game," he said reaching out his hand at the mystery figure who, without saying a word, simply nodded his head and shook the suited man's hand.

"Holy…"

Toki couldn't believe what he was seeing, the two had moved at blistering speeds so much so that his mind could not keep up with what was going on.

"Psh… I bet I could take him," Noah said startling Toki as he and his two comrades made their way to the front to stand next to him.

"Where do I sign up?"

"There's a line bud," a brunette man around 30 years of age said next to him, "You'll have to sign your name on the waiting list."

As he said that, the mystery GM took out a pen and pulled from under his board a sheet that Toki saw had at least 20 names on it with half of them crossed out. Next to the names was the amount the player wanted to wager.

"Here's your chance," the brunette man next to them said, "My turns next, sign up before we start."

"Urgghhh waiting." Noah said rolling his eyes, "But whatever, Ima make bank today,"

He walked up towards the hooded figure grabbing the pen from the table.

"So… I sign up here right? What time controls you use?" He asked.

But as he did and the hooded figure looked up at him, he gave out a shocked squeal instead.

"Huh… I don't think that's a number, 5 minutes 1 minute sounds pretty fair though I…"

"Soo… sorry" the figure said in a soft deep voice. Despite the depth of it however, Toki felt his voice sounded a bit… feminine?

"That's all for today!" the figure continued beginning to pack up his board.

"What!!! But I'm up next!" the brunette man next to Toki complained as he went up to the mystery GM. The mystery GM however, simply ignored him packing up his chess pieces in his bag and leaving his chair.

"Sorry, I have to go!" He said quickly scurrying off. The crowd groaned as they began to disperse from the table. As the figure began to run off however, Toki could not help but focus on the violet scarf he was wearing. Something about that scarf seemed familiar… like he had seen it somewhere before.

"Nice going brat… you scared him off," the brunette haired man complained to Noah. He sighed. "I waited an hour to play."

"Oh really? How much were you going to bet?" Noah asked.

"100$... 100 I for sure was going to win."

"How about I take you on instead then?" Noah said, "Same wager, even time controls."

"You're real cocky for an underage brat you know that?" The brunette man replied, "Alright, I'll take you on that bet then, don't cry if you waste your parents' money."

"I make my own money," Noah said grinning as he began helping to set up his opponent's board on the table the mystery GM had previously been at. Toki however, was not paying attention at all at the two as his mind was only focused on the scarf the mystery GM had been wearing.

"I swear I've seen that before…" he thought to himself, "And that voice too… why does it all seem so familiar?"