When Sophia got home, she saw that Kate had been waiting up for her. She couldn't go to bed or relax until her daughter was under her roof again.
It was late. Sophia got ready for bed and then turned her computer on to practice with a few more games of chess. She really wanted to get the Excellence Award. After all, her family's financial situation was not stable yet. She wanted to use it all the time before the tournament started to practice and improve her confidence.
If this were her previous life, she would not have to worry about money. She could just take on various well-paid projects. There were always lots of people in her area wanting to work with her. She had never needed to accept any of them.
But now, as a high school student, she had little chance of making money. Things that were easily done before were now completely impossible.
She wondered if she could find a tutoring job once the chess tournament was over. She could earn some money and lighten Kate's burden. She knew the family was not well off. Almost all the savings had been spent on her treatment.
After logging into her account, Sophia clicked "Start". The system automatically paired her to an opponent, and the game began.
"They're online!" Toby Damon stared at the user icon of "Knowing A Person" as it lit up on the screen. Immediately, he picked up the phone and dialed a number, "Hey, man. The account I was telling you about just got online! Check it out, and you'll see I'm not lying. I'm sure it's chess programming playing automatically. It's such a dirty thing to do. Why don't you try it, man?"
"Yeah. I'm getting online now. But come on, you're not stupid, are you? If they had this program, the company would be so excited to promote it. Why do they cheat in secret? What's good for them? How much do you think it costs to develop a program like this? And then cheat, for three thousand dollars? As if."
Kip Strong hung up the phone. He was logged in. Searching through the list of players, he found the account "Knowing A Person." He didn't really believe Toby's paranoid words. He thought he was probably making excuses for losing.
The game showed that the account was playing chess at table twenty-seven. He found the table and went in to watch and wait.
During the game, other players could enter the 'room' to watch at any time. If either of them left, the watching player could click "start" to join the table to play.
He watched for a while, and couldn't understand the way" Knowing A Person" played. Just as Toby said, it was quite strange, and there didn't seem to be any learned strategy. Every step confounded his expectation, and he could not guess where the player would go next.
Generally speaking, only a novice who had not learned the strategy of the game would play so irregularly. But each step KAP took was so effective, and in less than two minutes, KAP had checkmated its opponent.
The opponent sent a message, "I'm done. I'm going to sleep. You're good. Are you a professional chess player?"
"No." KAP replied.
It did not say anything else.
As soon as the player who played with KAP left, Kip immediately clicked "Start". Soon, the opposition clicked "Start" and the game began.
***
When Sophia played the second set, she quickly realized it would be much harder. Her opponent was really good at chess, every step unlocking an impressive sequence. She had to concentrate on defense, so each step took time. It took her more than half an hour to checkmate her opponent.
She was unsure about this Excellence Award. Making money online was not proving easy. She had already met two strong opponents, and there were most likely lots more opponents at the same level as these two and probably even a lot better than them.
She thought she should consider the tutoring job. After all, it was more reliable.
She turned off the computer with some frustration and went to bed.
Kip was sweaty all over. He hadn't met such a strong opponent for a long time and only in international competitions where that happened.
Even then, Bruce, the world number one player, had taken forty minutes to checkmate him, while this KAP had just checkmated him in less than thirty minutes. It was just horrible.
He was half-persuaded that this KAP might be a computer program. Could there really be such a tough chess player in the world?
But on the other hand, he felt instinctive that KAP's strange way of playing was nothing like a mechanized procedure.
He was also good at Go. He had once seen the match between the Go programming against the world champion, and the machine had behaved like the most flawless player, completely in accordance with the normal strategy.
This KAP didn't act like a computer program at all.
But if it was a real person, Kip had no idea who they were.
Kip ranked sixteenth in the world. He had studied the chess play of all those above him, but KAP's chess methods were completely unfamiliar to him. He was sure, and this person was definitely not anyone among the top fifteen in the world.
So, who was this KAP?
He had recorded the match on his computer, and he studied it all night, with no luck.
After a lot of thought, he finally dialed a number.
"Mitch, I've met a very tough opponent, and I've sent the video to your inbox. Have a look when you're free."
"Tough opponent? Who? How tough?" Mitch laughed.
"He or she can checkmate me in thirty minutes."
Mitch couldn't laugh. He knew what that meant.
"I'll watch it right now. Give me a moment." He hung up the phone and went straight to his emails.
An hour later, Kip got a call from Mitch.
"Next time this person gets online, please be sure to tell me."