Chapter 56: Chess that Amateur 5th Dan Can't Understand
The final day of the Samsung Cup qualifiers, in Beijing.
Near noon, Li Yuanhu, who had been busy all morning, called Lin Yiran into his office:
"Still, still."
Lin Yiran came in: "What's the matter, Yuanhu?"
"Nothing important planned this afternoon?"
Lin Yiran smiled when she heard that. She knew that today was the match between Li Xiangping and Kobayashi Koichi. Li Yuanhu was going to watch the live broadcast, but now it was just the preliminaries, so it would not be broadcast on TV, but on the Internet.
"There's nothing important to do this afternoon, but I just received a notice from the Municipal Construction Committee that the city will organize a major safety and quality inspection soon."
Li Yuanhu thought for a moment and said, "Okay, forward the notice first. Tomorrow... not tonight, notify the project leaders to come back for a meeting at 8 pm to make arrangements for the city's inspection."
"OK."
When Li Yuanhu had arranged his work and was ready to watch the game, his phone rang: "Lao Li, where are you now?"
"I'm at the company, what's up, Mr. Cai?"
"Ha, nothing else, I just want to treat you, Lao Li, to a drink."
"Why are you drinking so late in the afternoon? Are you okay, Mr. Cai?"
"Stop talking nonsense. I'm in the chess and card room now. Let's watch the chess while discussing the next arrangements for your kid. Come over quickly."
"What can I do for my kid? When he comes back from Korea, won't he continue to study in his hometown?"
"Haha, Lao Li, stop being so hypocritical with me. In other words, are you coming over here or not?"
Li Yuanhu was happy: "Okay, okay, I'll be right over..."
If you cannot even pass the qualifying round of a world championship, you will completely give up on your career as a professional Go player. This was what Li Xiangping and his father Li Yuanhu agreed to before going to Korea to participate in the competition.
And this agreement was not a secret, at least not to Old Cai. Because if Li Xiangping really wanted to pursue a career in Go, then Li Yuanhu would need Old Cai's help with a lot of trivial matters such as his next training and daily studies. So he did not hide it from Cai Zhixiong at the beginning. Before Li Xiangping went to South Korea, he told Old Cai about the agreement between father and son.
It was for this reason that Old Cai said he was being hypocritical. Therefore, Li Yuanhu's words just now seemed to be saying that Li Xiangping would definitely lose today.
"Is it really possible that this guy can even defeat Xiao Lin today..."
Li Yuanhu was thinking about this question as he drove out. As he thought about it, he didn't want to think about it anymore. A smile appeared on the corner of his mouth, a very satisfied smile.
Yes, Li Yuanhu is indeed very satisfied now.
You know, although Mr. Kobayashi Koichi is no longer at his peak, for chess fans of Li Yuanhu's generation, Old Nie, "Six Supers", and the challenge match are simply their feelings. What about Choi Myeong-hoon 8th dan, what about Kim Sung-ryong 7th dan? Although Li Xiangping has defeated several Korean stalwarts, to be honest, for chess fans of Li Yuanhu and Cai Zhixiong's age, these people combined are not as important as Kobayashi Koichi.
They soon arrived at the Fangyuan chess and card room. Cai Zhixiong came out to greet them warmly. He first congratulated Li Yuanhu in an exaggerated manner, and then said to Li Yuanhu:
"Old Li, I've already contacted the school for you. When your kid comes back, he can report there right away."
Li Yuanhu was concerned when he heard what Old Cai said. Old Cai was not talking about a Go school, but an ordinary school. After all, even if Li Xiangping wanted to pursue a career in Go, he still had to go to school at his age, right? In this day and age, no, it should be said that in any year, it is not easy to transfer a foreign student to Beijing to study. Therefore, Li Yuanhu had been worrying about this matter for a long time. He also asked some friends for help, and Old Cai was one of them.
"Oh, so soon, which school?"
"Haha, that's the school my daughter is attending now."
When he heard that it was the school where Cai Shanshan attended, Li Yuanhu hesitated. He hesitated not because the school was bad, and certainly not because of Cai Shanshan, but mainly because the school was a so-called "aristocratic school", and although Li Yuanhu was a rich man, he was not very willing to let his children go to such a school.
"Haha, Mr. Cai is very thoughtful. Thank you very much. However, let's talk about the child's education after he comes back."
After hearing what Li Yuanhu said, Cai Zhixiong did not insist, because he knew that the person in front of him might not be as rich as he was now, but in terms of relationships and connections in Beijing, they were much deeper than his own. If he was really willing to use his connections to do favors, he could even get into a school like Beijing No. 4 Middle School.
"Haha, let's not talk about it. Let's just wait for your kid to come back. I didn't expect it to be Kobayashi Koichi today. Come on, Lao Li, come in. Let's drink while we watch how your kid deals with Kobayashi Koichi."
Li Yuanhu smiled, and then walked into the Fangyuan chess and card room with Cai Zhixiong. Of course, he had no mood to drink wine, and after a few bites of food, Li Yuanhu immediately found a computer to go online and prepare to watch Li Xiangping's game.
Internet live streaming was not as common back then as it is now, especially for qualifying matches like this. Domestic websites would not broadcast all chess games live. For example, the qualifying matches had already reached the last round, and Li Yuanhu had not even seen Li Xiangping's previous game.
However, there is no need to worry about today's game, because the website has already made a preview, especially Qingfeng.com, their preview says this:
In the final of Group F of the Samsung Cup qualifiers, Qingfeng.com's top player "Jueyi" will VS Japan's Kobayashi Koichi 9th dan. Please pay attention.
It was because of this live broadcast preview that the identity of "Jueyi" was officially revealed to the world. At the same time, because of this preview, the traffic of Qingfeng.com increased greatly today. Li Yuanhu started to log in at around 1 pm, but he was sweating profusely and couldn't log in.
"Fuck, what a broken net..."
"Ha, I'm here. Come on, Lao Li, come over here and watch the game."
Li Yuanhu didn't care about that anymore and watched the chess game with Lao Cai on the computer at the same time.
The live broadcast on the website started at 1 p.m., which was actually 2 p.m. Korean time. The game had already been going on for three hours, so the progress was very fast.
"Ha, this game is your kid playing with white pieces, and Xiaolin is using his unchanging 'Xiaolin Style'..."
When the live broadcast and the actual combat process were synchronized, there were more than 60 moves in the whole process. After watching the actual combat process, Li Yuanhu and Lao Cai looked at each other in bewilderment. The two amateur masters with professional level 5 looked at each other in bewilderment.
Seeing Li Yuanhu's extremely ugly expression, Lao Cai even whispered to comfort him:
"Don't be like this, Old Li. The kid is still young after all. Besides, his opponent is Kobayashi, the so-called subway-style Kobayashi Koichi..."
What did the two see? They saw that Li Xiangping had killed a big dragon in more than 60 moves.
It was a real big dragon! A big dragon with more than ten pieces.
You should know that there are only more than 60 moves in the game, which means that each person has only made more than 30 moves. But now, among the more than 30 moves made by Li Xiangping, more than 10 of them are dead pieces.
Seeing this situation, the two top 5 experts certainly looked unhappy.
"Alas! This game is almost over."
When Li Yuanhu said this in a depressed tone, Lao Cai did not respond, because he felt that if he said anything else, he would appear too hypocritical.
What the two did not expect was that the game ended very quickly, but the result was far beyond their expectations.
It was less than 2 o'clock in the afternoon, which was less than 3 o'clock in the afternoon Korean time. It was the 98th move in the game. Because Li Xiangping played with white in this game , he made this move.
After this move was made, there was no movement in the live broadcast. After a long time, the website displayed the words "White wins in the game".
Li Yuanhu rubbed his eyes and stared at the computer screen in disbelief:
"What's going on! Could the website have made a mistake?"
Not only him, there are many people on Qingfeng.com who are asking the same questions and saying the same things.
However, the website was not wrong. In faraway South Korea, facing Mr. Kobayashi who had just given up, Li Xiangping could not suppress the joy in his heart. He pretended to be calm and smiled and nodded to Mr. Kobayashi:
"Thank you."
