Chapter 53: Anecdotes of Yilin
After the draw, Li Xiangping was laughing foolishly. When others asked him why he was laughing, he pretended not to say anything. When he was preparing for the next day's game with Lao Shi in the evening, even his cheater noticed that he was different:
"My dear friend Xiang Ping, what are you so happy about?"
"Haha, nothing much. It's just that after I drew my opponent for tomorrow, it reminded me of two anecdotes from Yilin, so I just wanted to laugh."
"Anecdotes from the chess world? How can my friend Xiang Ping have the time to think about anecdotes from the chess world at this moment? You must know that tomorrow's competition will be held at..."
"Brother Ding'an, don't worry. One of the two anecdotes I thought of is related to tomorrow's opponent. I even think that as long as we hear his story, we can have a general understanding of his chess style. Do you want to listen, Brother Ding'an?"
"Oh?" From Lao Shi's tone, it was obvious that he was half-believing and half-doubting, but he still said:
"Then let's hear it for now."
Li Xiangping smiled slightly and said, "Before I tell you these two anecdotes about Yilin, I would like to ask Brother Ding'an a question first."
"But do you have any other questions for me? Tell me."
"Let me ask you, when playing chess, Brother Ding'an, can you accurately predict the final outcome after more than 70 moves?"
" This..." The great chess master Shi hesitated for a moment:
"After more than 70 moves, Ding'an may be able to roughly tell which moves are good and which are bad, but he definitely does not have the ability to accurately judge the final result."
Li Xiangping continued to laugh, and laughed even more happily: "Brother Ding'an, you should know that there are mountains outside the mountains. You can't do it, but there have been people who claimed that they can do it."
"Ah! There really is such a divine person. Ding An is fascinated by him. Could this person... be the younger generation of Wu Quan you mentioned before?"
Li Xiangping suppressed his laughter and said, "This time it's not your junior Wu Quan, but a Japanese chess player named Jōwa. His age... seems to be a little younger than Brother Ding'an. Well, to be honest, his status in the Japanese chess world is somewhat similar to Brother Ding'an. He was once called the 'later saint' by the Japanese chess world to distinguish him from their 'former saint' Dao Ce Ye."
Hearing that he was from the same generation as himself, the chess master Shi became interested. He did not want to study tomorrow's opponent for the time being: "Can I see the chess this person plays?"
"Let me look for it."
This search took Li Xiangping quite a while. It was not that he did not find any records of Jōwa, but as a historical chess player, Li Xiangping wanted to find his masterpiece. As the ancient Japanese chess master, Jōwa, his first masterpiece was of course the one in which he played the "Three Wonderful Moves of Jōwa" , especially one of the wonderful moves, which was even called "the most wonderful move in history". His second masterpiece was actually the one in which he could know the end of the game in more than 70 moves.
It was a pity that Li Xiangping could not find either of these two chess games, so he had to settle for the next best thing and found the "handicap 2 pieces and 10 points" between Jōwa and Shinomiya Mizo and showed it to Lao Shi.
Of course, Old Shi knew what was good. After he finished watching the 10 games, he said to Li Xiangping:
"Friend Xiangping is here to tease me. Can this man predict the outcome after more than 70 moves? Ding'an doesn't believe it."
Li Xiangping smiled and said, "I don't believe it either. It's just that someone in Japan once said so seriously to deceive ignorant people. By the way, Brother Ding'an, have you watched these ten games? What do you think of this person's level?"
This time, Old Shi did not answer directly: "Xian Ping, you don't know that these 10 games are 2-piece games. It is difficult to judge your level if you only look at the 2-piece games."
"Oh? If you can't tell the top move, then tell me the bottom move. What do you think of Shigong Mizo's bottom move?"
Old Shi also did not give a direct answer: "Haha, from what I've seen, this guy's chess style is quite similar to that of Brother Zhaolin. His chess ability should be about the same as Brother Zhaolin's, but in terms of chess talent, this guy is far inferior to Brother Zhaolin."
"Brother Zhaolin? Could it be that Brother Ding'an is talking about your other good friend, the Yangzhou salt merchant Hu Tietou?"
"Yes, that's the person."
"You still think that this Shigong Mizo's chess talent is not as good as Hu Tietou's?"
"That's right. If Brother Zhaolin and this guy play ten points first, I will definitely bet on Brother Zhaolin to win."
Li Xiangping smiled and stopped asking questions. Shinomiya Mizo was a famous amateur chess player in ancient Japan, and later he was awarded the "exemption certificate" of the third dan. He played a 10-game match with a handicap of 2 stones against Shokawa, and in the end Shokawa won 5-4-1, barely winning.
As for our Hu Tietou, he was rated as "second-hand" in medieval chess, but a relatively weak "second-hand". He was still a little better when Lao Shi gave him 2 stones, and he could barely win a few games. However, facing another great player of the same era, Fan Xiping, "Hu Tietou" basically had difficulty in winning.
This is what Li Xiangping meant by the smile on his face. He didn't expect that the great chess master Shi was actually such a reserved person.
Jōwa gave 2 stones to be on par with Shigong Mizang, and he himself gave 2 stones to easily beat Hu Tietou, but now he said that Shigong Mizang was definitely not a match for Hu Tietou... What does this mean? Of course, what he meant was that the Japanese "later saint" Jōwa was not a match for him, the great chess master Shi.
So having said this, Li Xiangping was of course too embarrassed to continue asking further questions.
However, what Li Xiangping didn't expect was that when he didn't plan to continue asking, Old Shi took the initiative to talk to him:
"Friend Xiangping, I see that although this Japanese 'later saint' is quite skilled in chess, he may not be better than Ding'an. But why did the Japanese chess world make up the lie that 'the end of the game can be known in more than 70 moves'?"
Li Xiangping smiled and said, "Brother Ding'an, your question hits the nail on the head. This is because of their 'Imperial Chess City' system back then."
"The 'Imperial Chess City' system?"
"That's right. It's because of the 'Imperial Chess City' that I even think that the Japanese chess players are used to laying the floor and playing chess in a gentle manner. This has a lot to do with the system of the 'Imperial Chess City'..."
In the following period of time, Li Xiangping naturally explained to Lao Shiko what "Imperial Chess City" was. There was actually nothing much to say about it. Most chess fans knew that it was nothing more than an "official competition" in ancient Japan.
At that time, there were four major chess schools in Japan, namely "Honinbo", "Inoue", "Yasui" and "Hayashi", which were similar to the four major schools in the Go world. In order to appease these four schools, the Japanese government at that time organized a competition called "Gojo" to allow the four major schools to compete for Japan's "Go Hall" through this competition.
Many people in later generations believed that this "Imperial Go Castle" was crucial to the development of Japanese Go. It was precisely because Japan had this official competition very early on that it promoted the formalization and professionalization of Japanese Go, and made a qualitative leap in the level of Japanese Go.
However, Li Xiangping thinks that this evaluation may be a bit exaggerated. Although formalization and specialization must be acknowledged, an official competition can greatly promote the improvement of standards. This is really overestimating the power of the word "official".
Li Xiangping even believed that this "Imperial Chess City" might very well hinder the healthy development of Japanese Go. From the perspective of later generations, the reason why the "Japanese Style" has such great limitations is that many of its problems were developed during the "Imperial Chess City" era.
How should I put it? To make an inappropriate analogy, just like our country's martial arts, since there have been official competitions, then "martial arts" has become "dance", and Japan's "Go Castle" actually has the same problem.
Li Xiangping is not making this up. You should know that there were actually quite a lot of fake games in the "Royal Chess City" competition in Japan. Especially the first game of the "Royal Chess City" competition every year, because this game was attended by "leaders" and had a strong nature of a show game. According to the Japanese concept at that time, if the first game could end in a draw, it would be the most ideal result. It was for this reason that the first game of the "Royal Chess City" competition every year was almost all fake games. This is basically an open secret in the Japanese Go community.
Li Xiangping believes that it is the Japanese habit of pursuing a draw that has led to the later "Japanese style" of liking to "lay the floor".
As we all know, if you want to fake a draw in a game of Go, it is definitely not easy to do it like in medieval Go by using a lot of hacking and killing. This method is extremely difficult to fake. The best way is of course to lay the floor. But because there are leaders watching from above, the game cannot be played too ugly. What to do?
Of course, he can only show off his little tricks in the second half, showing a few little tricks in the endgame or even the small endgame, and then pretend that the game "just happens" to end in a draw, making those who don't know what's so impressive seem unfathomable.
Li Xiangping told the story of "Imperial Chess City" and Old Shi laughed:
"Haha, I get it, I get it. I guess this '70+ moves to know the end' is just the Japanese people's habit of being mysterious, right?"
Li Xiangping laughed when he heard this. It was true that Lao Shi's words "habitually mystifying" really hit the nail on the head.
"Friend Xiang Ping, this is the anecdote about Yilin that you mentioned, right? Our opponent tomorrow..."
Li Xiangping smiled slightly: "Brother Ding'an, don't worry. The anecdote of our opponent tomorrow is similar to the story just now."
"oh?"
Li Xiangping began to tell Lao Shi the story of Jin Chenglong, 7th dan. This story is even simpler, that is, this Jin, 7th dan, later became a "famous mouthpiece" in the Korean Go world, a TV celebrity, and made a name for himself in another field.
Later, a reporter interviewed him and asked him why he gave up the pursuit of chess and instead focused his main energy on TV commentary. This 7th Dan Jin said something that seemed very self-aware:
"Because I know my own talent, and I know that even if I spend my entire life, I will never be able to reach the level of Li Canghao, so there is no other way. I can only find a way to create a world of my own in other fields."
Wow, when Li Xiangping first saw this interview, he felt that this 7th-dan player Jin was really a wise man, very self-aware, and had a clear plan for his life.
But then the reporter asked again: "How big do you think the gap is between you and Li Canghao 9th Dan? Will Li Canghao 9th Dan let you go first?"
Jin Qidan was furious: "How can there be such a big gap? Although I admit that I will never catch up with him, the gap between me and him is only 2 points at most."
"2 points?"
Jin Qidan said confidently: "That's right, the difference between me and Li Jiudan is at most 2 points. You are not a professional chess player, so you don't know how big the difference of 2 points is. For example, you just mentioned giving the first move. This is probably the difference between the chess god and Li Jiudan..."
"Haha, did this person really say that?"
Li Xiangping smiled slightly: "Of course, Brother Ding'an, after hearing this man's story, I think you should have a rough idea of how to play the game tomorrow."
"It's definitely a bottom."
