Chapter 63: First Round Opponent
It was early December, and the 5th "Samsung Cup" competition was about to begin. The night before the competition, Li Xiangping was going to the Chinese Chess Institute to attend the opening ceremony of the competition, which was also the draw ceremony for the first round of 32 players.
"Xiang Ping, don't dawdle. The lottery ceremony starts at 7pm. It's already past 6pm. You know the traffic conditions in Beijing at this time..."
"Okay, I'll be right there."
Li Yuanhu was urging Li Xiangping, but Li Xiangping was urging his own plug-in:
"Alright, Brother Ding'an, don't watch this guy's chess today. You've been watching for more than a month. Aren't you tired of it? By the way, this guy is the defending champion of this competition and the No. 1 seed of the tournament. You'll know what kind of person ."
Li Xiangping himself found it funny. Ever since he accepted an exclusive interview with Zhang Da and published a "Li Xiangping version of the weapon list", Old Shi has been thinking about Li Canghao. As if he wanted to find out why he was ranked ahead of him, in the past month or so, the chess master Shi mainly watched the chess of the elder Li. He asked Li Xiangping to find a large number of Li Canghao's chess records and studied them day and night.
But he just did his research, and refused to tell anyone about his gains or experiences. He also played a mysterious role to Li Xiangping, so that now even Li Xiangping doesn't know the details of his plug-in.
However, although he didn't know to what extent his plug-in had grown, Li Xiangping still held a cautiously optimistic attitude towards the upcoming games.
Because Li Xiangping can now be sure of two things: the first is that although the great chess master Shi did not say it, Li Xiangping could feel that he was not convinced that he had ranked the big Li ahead of him. At the very least, he must be holding back a lot of energy now.
The second thing is that in the past month of training, Lao Shi showed excellent form. After all, defeating the five top players of the national team is not something that everyone can do easily. In fact, Lao Shi only played these five games last month. The other 25 games were played by Li Xiangping himself.
Li Xiangping didn't really care about having his head shaved. He knew his own business and knew his current level, which was actually the level before he traveled through time. In other words, that was actually the level when Li Xiangping was 31 years old.
The 31-year-old Li Xiangping is definitely not as good as the 13-year-old Li Xiangping. This is a common saying in the Go community. Apart from other things, the proficiency issue alone makes the current Li Xiangping at least half a level behind the Li Xiangping who was trying to become a professional Go player. Li Xiangping is naturally well aware of this, so he didn't take these defeats to heart.
The reason why he was so enthusiastic about practicing this time was, first of all, his emotions were at work. After all, when he was trying to become a professional chess player, Li Xiangping also had such a dream. He dreamed that one day he would sit in the Chinese Chess Academy for training, and the past month had fulfilled his wish.
Secondly, after defeating Kobayashi Koichi in the last round of the preliminaries, Li Xiangping became a little inflated. He mistakenly thought that he was really that capable. However, the past month has made him completely sober. Li Xiangping now knows deeply that with his true level, he might barely be considered an expert at the top level, but even among the experts at the top level, he might still be the weaker one.
But fortunately, he now has a plug-in, a plug-in that can rank in the top 5 in history and seems to be able to continue to improve, which makes him look forward to the next game.
"Xiangping, Lao Li is gone."
When the father and son just went out, it was Lao Cai who ran up to pick them up. At 10 minutes to 7, the three of them arrived at the Chinese Chess Institute on time and appeared at the draw site for the top 32 of the 5th "Samsung Cup".
After arriving at the venue, Li Xiangping immediately separated from the two of them. After all, he was a contestant and had to sit with the other contestants.
Li Xiangping sat next to Gu Dali. In this Samsung Cup, a total of 9 Chinese chess players entered the main competition, including Li Xiangping, Gu Dali, Kong Erjie and other 6 players who passed the preliminaries, as well as three national seeded players Chang Hao, Wang Lei and Yu Bin.
It is worth mentioning that Ma Xiaofei, the runner-up of the previous session, was also eligible for exemption from the selection. However, the small action of the South Korean side in the last final made this arrogant genius a little annoyed, so he gave up this competition. Li Xiangping looked around in the crowd, and indeed did not see the figure of China's "Ma Demon Sword" today.
After looking at the Chinese delegation, Li Xiangping couldn't help but look in the direction of the Korean delegation. Today's Korean Go is definitely at its peak.
Cho Hoon-hyun and Seo Bong-joo are still sharp, Lee Chang-ho and Yoo Chang-hyuk are in their prime, and Lee Sedol and Choi Cheol-han are emerging. When Li Xiangping saw Lee Sedol, he remembered that it was this year that Lee Sedol defeated Yoo Chang-hyuk in the final of the Fujitsu Cup and officially entered the world champion club.
South Korea's "Four Heavenly Kings" plus Lee, all five of them are world champions. Compared to their strong lineup, both the Chinese and Japanese delegations appear much more shabby.
After looking at the South Korean delegation, Li Xiangping's eyes swept to the Japanese delegation. Compared with China and South Korea, the Japanese delegation has the smallest number of people, with only 6 players entering the top 32. In fact, compared with China, their number of seeded players is the same, but the increasingly declining Japanese Go is not doing well in the qualifiers and often cannot grab a few tickets.
"This is Lao Zhao, this is Kato, this is Iida, this is Kobayashi Akira, this is Mr. Wang Licheng... Hmm? This is..."
Among the six Japanese chess players participating in the competition, Li Xiangping quickly recognized the other five, but as for the last one, Li Xiangping couldn't remember the name of him.
Fortunately, Li Xiangping saw it. He saw the sign next to him with the five words "Yamada Kissou" written on it. After seeing this name, Li Xiangping couldn't help but look at the chess player a few more times.
Because if he remembered correctly, this "Samsung Cup" was the most glorious moment for this chess player. He won the runner-up in this competition. This was also his only world runner-up and even his only time to reach the semi-finals of a world championship.
Seeing the runner-up naturally reminds one of the champion. Li Xiangping remembered that in real history, the champion of this competition seemed to be won by Liu Changhe. From 1998 to 2003, this chess player was at his peak. During these few years, he won 5 out of his total 6 championships.
Just as Li Xiangping looked at Liu Changhe again, his gaze was interrupted by Gu Dali:
"Master, stop looking around. As a master, you should show some demeanor. Be prepared. You may be the first to draw the lottery this time."
"oh?"
Because he won another game against Gu Dali last month, and because of the previous game between Xiuqin and Xiudou, Gu Dali now jokingly calls Li Xiangping a "master".
Gu Dali came close to Li Xiangping and laughed softly, "You are the youngest among the top 32. I just announced the rules. The draw will start with the youngest."
Hearing this, Li Xiangping concentrated his attention, because he knew that a draw like this was rather complicated and required consideration of two principles. One of the principles was the well-known principle in Go competitions that "players from the same country do not meet in advance". The second principle was that in the first round, "seed players do not meet in advance". In other words, the first round would be a battle between 16 seeded players and 16 players from the qualifiers.
Because the rules were complicated and there were various "leader speeches", the official draw did not start until around 7:40. However, Li Xiangping was not the first to draw lots. You should know that there were two women's groups in the preliminaries. In line with the principle of women first, the first two women players to draw lots were on the stage.
One of the two female chess players is Chinese Rui Niwei and the other is Korean Park Ji-eun. It's a pity that both of them are now representing South Korea in the competition. Not long ago, "Brother Ni" just became a guest .
The two female players had good luck. Park Ji-eun was the first to play, and she drew Chang Hao, the current top Chinese Go player. When Rui Niwei played, she drew the Japanese veteran top player, Zhao Zhixun.
Finally it was Li Xiangping's turn. When he unfolded the small note , even he laughed.
It’s Lao Cao!
In the first round, the first opponent of the chess master Shi will be Cho Xunxuan, a 9th dan from South Korea.
