I Have Too Many Money-Making Talents - Chapter 135

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Too Much Money-Making Talent — Chapter 135
Baduk tournaments typically follow a single-elimination format.
The tension runs high, and a champion can be determined in one decisive sweep.
Chess tournaments, by contrast, generally operate under the Swiss System.
Classical Division had chosen this format as well.
Every participant plays one fresh opponent each round.
A win earns one point.
A draw earns half a point.
A loss earns nothing.
No opponent faces another twice; final rankings are determined by totaling every participant’s score.
“Ugh.”
My first-round opponent: Milos Blahov.
His fingers hovered over the chess piece, hesitant, then froze in mid-air.
When he realized there was no path forward, all strength drained from his body.
He studied me quietly, then extended his hand.
A handshake that acknowledged defeat.
In chess, it was the sign of surrender, and a mark of respect toward one’s opponent.
I slowly took his hand, then released it.
‘One point earned.’
I organized the game record and submitted it to the arbiter dispatched by the International Chess Federation, then returned to my seat.
Other participants’ games were still underway.
This tournament used an increment system: sixty minutes base time, plus thirty seconds added per move.
A typical game runs two to three hours.
Mine had ended in less than thirty minutes.
I decided to use the remaining time watching other matches.
One game in particular captured my attention.
‘Jakub Hromadko?’
Thick blonde hair, a sharp jaw.
He was the young man who’d looked me over with naked disdain when I’d entered the Salon earlier.
According to the player profile, his official rating was 1978.
Yet watching him actually play, his strength carried a weight that numbers alone couldn’t capture.
‘Deep calculation. Every move is precise.’
Above all, he made no mistakes.
Without mistakes, his opponent grew increasingly desperate, eventually lost in confusion.
He struggled to create any opening, but each time Jakub Hromadko sealed it off decisively, tightening the vice.
‘……That’s over 2000-point strength.’
In Baduk terms, perhaps a three-dan amateur, or close to five-dan.
Near professional apprentice or semi-pro level.
Far beyond what a simple rating could convey—this was no easy opponent.
Then.
“……!”
My eyes met Jakub Hromadko’s as his hand rubbed the back of his neck.
His lips twisted into a smirk.
Naked contempt.
Beneath it, a faint undercurrent of disdain.
I didn’t look away from him, when someone tapped my shoulder from beside me.
“In-ha.”
It was Kang Seung-hu.
“Want to step out for a bit?”
I nodded and left the Salon; a bitter East European winter wind bit into my skin.
Each breath felt like the cold scraping the inside of my lungs.
Kang Seung-hu hesitated briefly, then spoke in a low voice.
“He’s a racist.”
“What?”
My voice rose before I could stop it.
Kang Seung-hu’s expression hardened.
“Apparently he made slanted-eye gestures at the camera crew staff. That smirk he gave you is probably part of the same thing.”
“During filming?”
“……Guess he did it where the cameras couldn’t see. Happens all the time when you’re abroad.”
Kang Seung-hu, with plenty of overseas filming experience, spoke with calm familiarity.
But I was not going to let it go.
‘What kind of thing is that?’
I’d heard that racial discrimination still existed overseas.
But I never imagined it would reveal itself so brazenly, so casually.
Kang Seung-hu sighed and spoke.
“Look, just ignore it. Even if we got permission to film, we can’t control people like that.”
I turned my head and looked through the glass.
Jakub Hromadko, stroking his chin as he played chess, appeared hazy beyond the pane.
‘Not being welcomed—that’s fine.’
Such things didn’t matter.
That they took pride in chess’s birthplace and wielded their ownership like a weapon, that they looked down on me as someone with no official rating, that they treated me as a strange foreigner—I’d already steeled myself for all of that.
But racial discrimination was different.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t just let this pass.”
A flicker of anxiety crossed Kang Seung-hu’s face, as if he feared I might cause trouble.
I smiled slowly.
“I’ll pay it back. Through chess.”

* * *
After a light lunch of sandwiches at the Salon, the afternoon match began.
Round Two.
My opponent’s name was Radislav Kopriva.
A very dignified-looking Eastern European man in his fifties, the kind whose face suits glasses well.
Official rating: 1760.
I had black again, but I wasn’t disappointed.
By the time all rounds were finished, the ratio of black to white would even out anyway.
Slide.
Radislav Kopriva pushed his first move slowly forward.
A stable choice, befitting his first impression. The flow that followed was equally stable.
The London System.
The opening amateurs favor most.
Because it pursues both stability and practical strength, many players seek it out.
But that meant the path was predictable.
‘Moves that appear often are moves you can anticipate.’
A trap.
Every opening contains unconventional pitfalls.
I cast the bait, subtly rearranging the placement of my black pieces, and let him walk straight into the snare himself.
In a flash, he lost his knight and bishop.
An obviously disadvantageous position by any measure.
But the disadvantage opened a space where my bishop found a path.
Slide.
A pawn advances.
Slide.
My knight leaps up, the rook seizing control of the open file.
White’s typical London structure twisted in an instant.
The bishop’s path was blocked, the queen cut off from retreat.
The center wavered, and the stable framework he’d relied upon collapsed inward.
For a moment, bewilderment flashed across Radislav Kopriva’s face.
He groaned and clutched at his hair, but it was already too late.
“Ah.”
A low sigh, and then his hand extended.
He conceded the loss.
After we shook hands, he rose abruptly from his seat as if wounded by his defeat before a no-rating player, and left the Salon.
‘Losing to someone with no official rating really stung him, it seems.’
I stood and submitted the game record to the arbiter.
Returning to my seat, I gazed at the neatly arranged chessboard and ran through the game I’d just played in a quick post-game review in my mind.
I dug in hard, looking back with intensity—were there better tactics, a stronger defense, a superior middle game approach?
How much time passed like that, I’m not certain.
A new shadow fell across the chair opposite me.
My Round Three opponent: Tomasi Kratohol.
A man in his mid-thirties, striking for the height typical of Eastern Europe and the sharp, prominent nose that marked his features.
His official rating was 1873.
That was a full 120 points higher than his second-round opponent, Radislav Kopriva.
Yet it didn’t trouble me.
‘At last—White.’
From the opening move, I deployed my pawns as deliberately as drawing a hidden card.
He glanced at me, then responded with a solid, measured move.
The Caro-Kann Defense.
A fortress—solid, enduring, aiming for dominance in the middle game and beyond.
In Baduk terms, it was a safety-oriented opening strategy, like the small-point corner solidification.
A variation that showed its strength in the endgame.
But I had no intention of letting this game drag on.
‘……Should I shake things up?’
I switched immediately to the Advance Variation.
I forced the center, strangling Black’s pieces, and blocked the diagonal lines to restrict my bishop’s mobility.
An opening designed to choke off my opponent’s advances.
My knight, settled in an L-shaped formation at the center, seized control of the space entirely, bending the balance to my will.
Black attempted to push pawns forward, trying to open lines of play.
But.
Snap.
I unveiled the Discovered Attack.
Check the king, force it to move, and in that instant, the rook hidden behind it snatches the queen.
‘It’s over.’
The moment Black lost the queen, his position collapsed entirely.
His pieces tangled together, bound and immobilized, while mine poured unobstructed into his territory, trampling it.
Scratch.
The tip of my pen marked d8 on the score sheet.
One look at the game record made Black’s disadvantage unmistakable.
Tomasi Kratohol’s face had gone rigid, his hands frozen—unable to move another piece.
“……”
And for good reason. Each chess piece carries its own value.
A pawn is worth 1.
A knight and a bishop are worth 3 each.
A rook is worth 5.
And finally, the queen is worth 9.
In practical play, it’s often weighed even heavier—assigned a value of 10.
Losing a queen, in that sense, was tantamount to losing the game itself.
In the end, before the fortieth move was even reached, he lowered his head and extended his hand.
“Resign.”
I took his hand graciously.
“Good game.”
As I released his grip, he couldn’t hide a note of disappointment in his tone.
“With strength like this, how are you still unrated?”
His pronunciation was slightly off, and the sentence was longer than I could easily follow.
Kang Seung-hu translated in a low voice, careful not to disturb the other games nearby.
“He’s wondering why you still have no rating with skill like that.”
“That’s because……”
As I opened my mouth to answer, a memory surfaced suddenly.
The Ciel Bank World Masters Combined Preliminaries, where I’d entered as an amateur.
I’d been asked that exact question once before—by a Professional Baduk Player who’d lost to me.
Back then, I’d given this answer:
“I started chess too late.”

* * *
After the first day of the tournament, I returned to the hotel in Barbara.
Kang Seung-hu, Sara Linova, and I sat in a pub, sipping beer and talking.
“Tomorrow’s match against Jakub will essentially be the finals, I’m told. Whoever wins that match takes the championship.”
I nodded at Kang Seung-hu’s translation.
Three wins in three games.
Currently tied for first place with Jakub Hromadko at 3 points.
Setting aside his warped character, with its streak of racist remarks, his skill was undeniably formidable.
Ultimately, it was likely that tomorrow one of us would become the master of this tournament.
At that moment, Sara Linova added something with a meaningful look.
“There are times you meet players whose strength is way above their official rating. From what I noticed, Jakub is one of them. Watch out.”
I nodded quietly.
I had already gleaned as much from watching the games.
And if a Grandmaster like her thought it necessary to warn me, there was no doubt about it.
Just then, Lee Ha-yul, an assistant director from <Checkmate>, approached.
“Kim In-ha. We’d like to do a personal interview with you.”
“Of course.”
I excused myself to the two of them and rose from my seat.
As we walked, I felt Lee Ha-yul’s gaze flitting toward me—perhaps checking to see if I was following along, or perhaps trying to get a better look.
‘What is it? Do I have something on my face?’
In the hotel room we were led to, lighting and cameras were already set up, with a single chair positioned in the center.
“Welcome, Kim In-ha. Please, make yourself comfortable.”
The moment I sat where director Oh Hyeon-mu indicated, the interview began.
The first question was light.
“This is your first chess tournament—you weren’t nervous?”
“More excited than nervous. It’s a chance to show my chess in the very heartland of the game.”
Most of the questions stayed with my impressions of the day.
How I felt sitting before the chessboard, the atmosphere distinctive to Eastern Europe, the impression left by the participants’ gazes.
Even the answers felt light enough that I myself began to find them a little dull.
Then, abruptly, a sharp question emerged.
“GM Sara Linova warned you. She said there’s a participant in this tournament whose strength far exceeds their rating. What do you make of that?”
I smiled first.
Contrary to what director Oh Hyeon-mu intended with his question, I felt not a trace of tension or anxiety.
“Is that a problem? By that logic, I have no rating at all.”
Leaning back comfortably in the chair, I looked directly at the camera.
My breathing easy.
My gaze steady.
And above all, I spoke with quiet confidence.
“My job is to win. It doesn’t matter who my opponent is or what their rating might be. Whether it’s Baduk or chess, there’s no difference.”
Finally, I tilted my head slightly and smiled with knowing intent.
“Let’s see what happens tomorrow.”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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