Today was a different day for him. He was playing for a regional chess tournament in Japan. He has been trying to win a big tournament during weekends. The weekends are always the hardest time for him because the best of the best competitors were there. He has been playing in these tournaments ever since he was invited to a discord server. Each season a national tournament would be hosted, while he does go to the national’s due to winning the weekday tournaments he wishes to test his skills and win the weekend tournament. If you win first place during the weekend tournament then you receive the invite immediately without needing to play during the weekday tournaments. He set himself a goal, earn the best placement you get in the tournament and during the next weekend tournament earn a better placement. If he won the second round and he was eliminated during the third round then he would attempt to get past the third round next week. He has been trying to reach nationals by weekend tournaments for four seasons. As a new month enters, so does a new season. It was November. He was getting serious about winning a weekend tournament. He would ask people from the discord to play practice games against him and he would even record his games to look for mistakes. From time to time he would even make notes about what not to do during certain situations. It was week one November, while he was topping during the weekday tournaments it was the weekend tournaments he was worried about. Week one was not the best week, he was eliminated in round two. During Sunday’s tournament he advanced to round three but he was eliminated during that round. After those losses he would relax and repeat the process during the next week. Week two arrived and he managed to reach top sixteen during the weekend. That week gave him hope, and it was a sign telling him that he does have what it takes to reach first place. The third week was here and as he played his games on Saturday he managed to reach top 8 and on Sunday he managed to reach the semi-finals. Just when he had hoped his next opponent was one of the best players in the discord server and that person was known for reaching the semi-finals during the weekends. He was taking his time against the best player. As he had little resources to use against his opponent, his fighting spirit would not weaver. The moves that underdog was making was good and maybe even better than that pro. It was almost as if that underdog was playing on another level. He won and made his way to the finals for the first time. It looked like he was nervous but the way he was playing said otherwise. Before you know he actually won. For four seasons he has so much struggle and he finally won his first weekend tournament. As the people celebrated their new champion of a regional tournament the only thing he was typing the discord was a crying emoji and thanking everyone.