Chapter 48 Only One Chance
It was mid-October 2000, and the preliminaries for the Samsung Cup were about to begin. On this day, Li Xiangping was going to Seoul, South Korea with more than 20 other Chinese chess players to participate in the competition. This day was exactly two months after Li Xiangping's time travel.
This year marks the 5th "Samsung Cup". In this competition, the performance of Chinese chess players has not been very good. In the first four competitions, except for the first championship which was won by Japanese chess player Noriyuki Iida, the other three championships were all won by Korean players, and were won by Lee Chang-ho, 9th dan, alone.
In other words, "Stone Buddha" Li Canghao has just achieved three consecutive championships in this competition!
This is also the first time since the establishment of the World Go Championship that a player has won three consecutive championships in the same competition.
Among the previous competitions, the one that impressed Chinese chess fans the most, or made everyone feel the most regretful, was the just-concluded 4th "Samsung Cup" final.
The final was between Chinese chess players Ma Xiaofei and Li Canghao. When people first saw this final combination, almost no one was optimistic about Ma.
After all, Li Canghao is Ma's nemesis. Ever since the two met for the first time in the final of the world championship in 1996, when Li Canghao won the "Toyo Securities Cup" that year with a score of 3 to 1, Ma Xiaofei has been basically suppressed by him. In the next few years, Li Canghao even achieved a 10-game winning streak against Ma Xiaofei, which made Chinese chess fans extremely depressed.
However, in this year's "Samsung Cup", Ma Jiudan showed great fighting power with high morale - in hindsight, Li Xiangping even believed that this was the last highlight moment of a generation of Chinese Go genius in the international arena.
In the first three games of the five-game match, Ma Xiaofei led 2-1. Not only did he lead in the score, but also from the content of the game, Ma Jiudan played very well. But just when Chinese chess fans were excited, the Korean side arbitrarily changed the schedule and postponed the last two games of the final...
This little move by the Korean had a great impact on the sensitive Ma Xiaofei. He seemed to be deflated and lost the last two games in the final, allowing Li Canghao to win three consecutive championships.
This year's Samsung Cup started in this context. Normally, the Chinese delegation should have had a bit of a "tragic" atmosphere at this time, but there wasn't. When Li Xiangping boarded the plane with the main group, he didn't feel any "tragic" feeling, only relaxation.
Li Xiangping thought about it and it made sense. A Chinese player hasn't won the world championship for five years. So Ma Xiaofei's runner-up title last year was already the best result for Chinese Go in recent years. What's more, it's only the preliminaries now and it's still a long way to go before the championship. Therefore, how could everyone be so "tragic" at this time?
"Jueyi, come on, let's chat. Hey! Why do you look a little nervous? Haha, why are you so nervous? If you ask me, with a chess master like you participating in this competition, it should be others who are nervous. Don't you think so?"
It was Gu Dali who made such a joke with Li Xiangping. Among the more than 20 chess players who went to Korea to compete, Li Xiangping was undoubtedly the most eye-catching one. First of all, he was young, the second youngest in the Chinese delegation besides Chen Yaoyue, and secondly, he was an amateur chess player, the only amateur chess player among all the participating chess players.
Of course, the real reason why he has attracted so much attention is that everyone now knows that he is "Jueyi", the "Jueyi" who has maintained an undefeated record on Qingfeng.net, has defeated national team masters many times, and has a unique style of play, novel moves, and an endless stream of new players and new techniques.
Now that such a person appears in the Chinese delegation, it is of course hard 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 care so much. After all, these people are only 3 to 5 years older than Li Xiangping on average. When everyone got on the plane, this group of people surrounded Li Xiangping.
No, to be precise, they surrounded Li Xiangping and Chen Yaoyue, because ever since they met Chen Yaoyue in the "Fangyuan Chess and Card Room" that day, the two of them have been hanging out together every day for the past few days, and the future " Leopard Head" has now almost become Li Xiangping's little follower.
"I'm not nervous. I was just... just thinking about other things."
When he first got on the plane, Li Xiangping was only communicating with Lao Shi in his body, so he might have seemed a little absent-minded to outsiders. Now that he heard Gu Dali talking to him, he could only pause communicating with his external plug-in.
"What are you thinking about? Haha, you play chess so strangely, are you thinking of some weird moves again?"
Li Xiangping knew that Gu Dali was joking, but he followed suit and responded in a joking tone:
"Ah! Brother Gu is amazing. You figured this out. I saw that even a plane ticket is so expensive. I was just thinking of some new ways to make back the money I spent on the ticket."
Hearing Li Xiangping say this, everyone burst into laughter. Of course, no one would believe that he was really thinking of some "weird tricks" at this time. Instead, Li Xiangping's words brought out a new topic among the chess players, which was about "earning money for air tickets . "
Because the Samsung Cup adopts the "open tournament" system, which is a pioneering innovation in the Go world in those days, and is different from previous world championships, the Samsung Cup is characterized by "high prize money, low match fees." Take the preliminaries that are about to begin as an example. Although there are match fees in the preliminaries, the match fees are extremely low.
Some chess players have calculated that only by winning four games in the preliminaries can they barely earn back the money for their round-trip airfare, and only by winning five games can they earn back the accommodation and food expenses during their stay in Korea.
Since the entire qualifiers usually only last for 5 rounds, and in rare cases, it will go to the 6th round. In other words, only if you can make it through the qualifiers can you ensure that you don't have to pay for the trip to Korea.
It is for this reason that Li Xiangping's words resonate with chess players. Because most professional chess players these days are not wealthy, and only the top players can earn high prize money. So under this competition system, many chess players will really think carefully when considering whether to participate in this competition.
Of course, chess players who can board the plane today basically don’t have to consider this issue. Some of these chess players are confident in their own abilities and believe they can pass the preliminaries, while some chess players can be considered to be "career-minded" and want to make a difference in the professional chess world, so they are unwilling to miss any competition opportunities.
As for some other chess players, for example Chen Yaoyue who is participating in the competition this time, he is unanimously favored by everyone because of his chess talent. He is one of the key players to be trained in the country, so his club pays for him to go to Korea to participate in the competition and train.
"Haha, kid, you've figured out how to earn back the money for your plane ticket so early. It seems like you're very confident that you'll qualify."
"Haha, nonsense, how can I have any confidence? Isn't it because I have no desires and no demands that I can say this all the time? But I see that you, Brother Gu, must have been holding back a lot of energy to make a breakthrough, right?"
As soon as Li Xiangping said this, everyone burst into laughter. Gu Dali's face turned slightly red because of what Li Xiangping said. He smiled awkwardly:
"You kid..."
Li Xiangping chuckled and thought to himself, "Gu Yiluan", this time Gu Dali is still "Gu Yiluan", his words just now hit the nail on the head.
Amid the laughter of the crowd, they soon arrived in Korea. After a short rest, when Li Xiangping was the only one left, he took a deep breath and said to his external plug-in:
"Brother Ding'an, please be prepared. You just heard that others still have many chances, but we only have this one chance!"
