Go Legend

   Chapter 48 Only one chance

   The time has come to mid-October 2000, and this year's "Samsung Cup" qualifiers are about to start. On this day, Li Xiangping was going to join more than 20 other Chinese chess players to go to Seoul, South Korea to participate in this competition, and on this day, Li Xiangping had traveled for two full months.

This year, the "Samsung Cup" has been held for the 5th time. In this competition, the performance of Chinese players has not been very good. In the first 4 competitions, except for the first championship, which was taken away by the Japanese player Kiki Ida. , In fact, the 3-time champions were all taken away by Korean players without exception, and were taken away by Li Changhao's 9th dan alone.

   That is to say, "Stone Buddha" Li Canghao just won three consecutive championships in this competition!

   This is also the first time that a player has won three consecutive championships in the same competition since the establishment of the World Go Championship.

   In the previous competitions, what impressed Chinese chess fans the most, or what made everyone feel the most regrettable, was the just-concluded 4th "Samsung Cup" final.

   This final is between Chinese chess players Ma Xiaofei Jiuduan and Li Canghao. When I first saw this final combination, almost no one was optimistic about Ma Jiuduan.

After all, Li Canghao is a super tough player of Ma Jiudan. Since the two met for the first time in the World Championship final in 1996, after Li Canghao won the "Tongyang Securities Cup" that year with a score of 3-1, Ma Xiaofei was basically suppressed by him. In the next few years, Li Canghao even achieved a 10-game winning streak against Ma Xiaofei that made Chinese chess fans extremely depressed.

However, in this year's "Samsung Cup", Ma Jiuduan burst out with high fighting spirit and strong fighting power. Interpretation of addiction

   In the first 3 games of Wufan chess, Ma Xiaofei led 2 to 1. He not only got the lead in the score, but also from the content of chess, Ma Jiuduan also played very fulfilling. But just when the Chinese chess fans were invigorated, the Korean side modified the schedule without authorization and postponed the last two games of the final.

   This little move by the Korean greatly affected the sensitive Ma Xiaofei. He seemed to be discouraged. He lost the last two games in the final, and Li Canghao won three consecutive championships.

This year's Samsung Cup started under this background. According to common sense, the Chinese delegation at this time should have a "tragic" atmosphere, but it didn't. When Li Xiangping boarded the plane with the big team, He didn't feel any "tragic", some just relaxed.

Li Xiangping thinks about it too, Chinese chess players have not won the world championship for 5 years, so the runner-up that Ma Xiaofei won last year is already the best result of China's Go in recent years, not to mention that it is a qualifier now. The championship is still very early, so how can everyone be "tragic" at this time.

"Jieyi, come and let's chat, hey! Why do you look a little nervous? Hehe, I said what are you nervous about, let me tell you, with a high-level chess like you participating in this competition, others should be nervous. , do you say so?"

   It was Gu Dali who was joking with Li Xiangping. To say that among the more than 20 chess players who went to Korea to compete this time, Li Xiangping is undoubtedly the most eye-catching one. First of all, because of his young age, he is the second youngest member of the Chinese delegation except Chen Yaoyue, and secondly because of his status as an amateur chess player, he is the only amateur chess player among all the participating players.

Of course, what really made him attract so much attention is because now everyone knows that this is the "excellent art", the one who has maintained a complete victory in Qingfeng.com, has defeated the national team masters repeatedly, and has a unique style of chess, novel moves, and new types of novice players. An endless stream of "excellent art".

Now that such a person appears in the Chinese delegation, it is of course difficult not to attract attention. Those older chess players may be more reserved, but the members of the national youth team headed by Gu Dali can't control it. There are so many. After all, this group of people is only 3 to 5 years older than Li Xiangping on average. When everyone just got on the plane, this group of people surrounded Li Xiangping.

No, to be precise, they surrounded Li Xiangping and Chen Yaoyue, because since they met Chen Yaoyue in the "Fangyuan Chess and Cards Room" that day, the two have been mixing together every day for the past few days, and the future "Leopard Head" has almost become Li now. Xiang Ping's valet.

   "I'm not nervous, I was just thinking about other things."

When he first got on the plane, Li Xiangping was just communicating with Lao Shi in his body, so he might seem a little absent-minded to outsiders. Now that he hears Gu Dali talking to himself, he can only suspend his plug-in. comminicate.

   "What are you thinking? Haha you are playing chess so strangely, aren't you thinking about some weird tricks?"

  Li Xiangping of course knew that Gu Dali was joking, but he also responded in a joking tone:

   "Yeah! Brother Gu is amazing, you've seen it all. I see that even a plane ticket is so expensive, and I'm trying to figure out some new tricks to earn the money back."

Hearing Li Xiangping say this, everyone laughed. Of course, at this time, no one would believe that he was really pondering some "strange tricks", but Li Xiangping's words led to a new topic among the chess players, which was about "earning air tickets". money" thing.

Because the Samsung Cup adopts the "Open Tournament" competition system, which is considered a pioneering game in the Go world these days. Different from the previous world competitions, the Samsung Cup is characterized by "high prize money, low game fee". For the qualifiers that will start soon, although there are game fees in the qualifiers, the game fees are extremely low.

  Some chess players have calculated that only by winning 4 games of chess in the preliminaries can they barely earn the round-trip airfare money, and only by winning 5 games of chess can they earn back the accommodation and food expenses during their stay in Korea.

   Since the entire qualifier is usually only next 5 rounds, it will be down to the 6th round in rare cases. So in other words, you can only ensure that you don't have to pay for yourself to go to Korea this time if you can make sure you qualify in the qualifiers.

   It is also for this reason that Li Xiangping's words resonated with all chess players. Because most of the professional chess players these days are not rich, only the top players can really earn high bonuses. Well, under this competition system, when many chess players are considering whether or not to participate in this competition, they will really weigh it in their hearts.

Of course, the chess players who can board the plane today basically don't need to think about this issue. Some of these chess players have confidence in their own strength and believe that they are sure to pass the pre-selection. He wants to make a difference in the professional chess world, so he doesn't want to miss any opportunity to play.

But there are still some chess players, such as Chen Yaoyue, who went to the competition this time, but he is unanimously favored by everyone because of his chess talent. He belongs to the domestic focus on training opponents. Therefore, his club will pay and send him to South Korea to participate in the training. .

   "Haha, boy, you've been thinking about earning money back for air tickets so early, you seem to be very confident in qualifying yourself?"

"Hehe, nonsense, how can I have any confidence, isn't it because I have no desires and no desires, so I can talk about this, but I see you, Gu Ge, you must be holding back a lot of energy to think that there are Breakthrough?"

   When Li Xiangping said this, everyone laughed, and Gu Dali was even more reddened by Li Xiangping's words, and he smiled awkwardly:

   "You boy"

  Li Xiangping laughed and said in his heart "Ancient Round", Gu Dali this year is still "Ancient Round", and what he said just now is considered to be pointing to his acupoint.

   In the laughter of everyone, Korea is coming soon. After a short rest, when only Li Xiangping was left, he took a deep breath and said to his plug-in:

   "Brother Ding'an, please be prepared. You heard it just now. If there are many opportunities for others, we only have this chance!"

   (end of this chapter)