The person who called us together today to discuss matters is none other than Lao Chen, the current president of the Chinese Chess Academy and chairman of the Chinese Chess Association. In later generations, Lao Chen's reputation seems to be not very good, and many people have said a lot of bad things about him. However, to be honest, there is really no need to take many of the bad things about him too seriously.
It can be said that Lao Chen is quite unlucky. The Chinese Chess Academy was actually born out of the Sino-Japanese Go Challenge Tournament. During the period when Lao Chen served as the director, Chinese Go was at a low point. Or maybe the truth was that it was not really a low point, but the victories in the previous challenge tournaments seemed to have given the Chinese people a shot of chicken blood. Compared with the state of chicken blood, the current situation in the chess world in recent years seems to be at a low ebb.
Secondly , during the years that Lao Chen was in office, he happened to coincide with the "Olympic Gold Medal Plan". So one can imagine how difficult it was for non-Olympic events like Go, especially non-Olympic events where the results were not that good.
Look at those people who scold Lao Chen or have opinions about Lao Chen. In fact, most of them are local chess players or old chess players who have passed their prime. They are the "victims" of the reform and the ones who need to endure the "pain". So of course, many of their words do not need to be taken too seriously.
Seeing that no one responded to his question, Lao Chen gave his advice:
"Old Nie, what do you think we should do about this?"
Strictly speaking, Lao Nie, who has now stepped down as the head coach of the national team, no longer belongs to the management. However, everyone knows that in the domestic Go community, Lao Nie has an exclusive status. He is not in the management but is better than the management. It is normal for him to be in such occasions.
"Ah? It's not appropriate! Li Xiangping has been learning Go formally, and he doesn't even seem to be a professional 6, right? It's really not appropriate for him to participate in the world championship finals with the title of amateur 5th dan and compete with the number one professional Go champion. But I think this is easy to handle, just give him a reward! He should be rewarded for achieving such a good result. This is a fine tradition of our Go team. There was a precedent in the challenge match, so I really don't think there is anything to discuss."
What Lao Nie said is correct. There is indeed a tradition of "awarding dan" in China. For example, Jiang Zhujiu and Liu Xiaoguang in the second session both received the reward of "skipping dan" because of their consecutive victories in the competition. Even Lao Nie's "chess saint" can be considered a similar reward strictly speaking, but because he was already a ninth dan at the time and there was no room for him to be promoted any further, so between the two titles of "great master" and "chess saint", everyone finally chose the title of "chess saint".
It is precisely because there is such a tradition in the country that when Lao Nie brought it up, everyone naturally had no objection.
The key question now is: How much should this "reward" be? Or simply put, what level should be awarded to Li Xiangping?
This has no precedent in China, so when Lao Nie finished speaking, although everyone agreed to "reward", but how exactly should the "reward" be? Everyone remained silent.
Seeing that everyone was silent again, Lao Chen called again: "Lao Wang, tell me what you think."
The "Old Wang" that Lao Chen mentioned is the current vice president of the Chinese Chess Academy, and he will take over Lao Chen's position as the second president of the Chinese Chess Academy this year, so Lao Chen let him speak.
"Everyone has heard the rumors in South Korea, right? They are said to be holding a hearing to discuss how to reward Xiao Li."
"Oh? You're planning to let Xiao Li advance to the ninth dan, right? Are the results out?"
When everyone heard Lao Wang suddenly bring up this, the atmosphere finally became more lively, and some people started to ask questions. What Lao Wang was talking about was actually the reform of the Korean Chess Institute's rank system, and the reason or cause of their reform was actually because of their little Lee Sedol.
After being promoted to the third dan, Xiao Li announced that he would not participate in the promotion tournament because he was dissatisfied with the lack of prize money. Therefore, when he conquered cities and strongholds in the country to become a local lord, and even won the first world championship in his career, he was actually a professional third dan. This even included Liu Changhe. Liu Changhe was an amateur-turned-professional chess player. He obtained the Korean professional first dan status at the age of 18. Therefore, when he won the world championship for the first time, he was actually a professional third dan.
Therefore, up to now, the Korean Chess Institute is planning reforms and is preparing to make all world champions ninth dan.
Team leader Hua, who had just returned from South Korea, spoke up at this time: "The results are out, and their chess players have unanimously approved it. In fact, if you think about it, you will know that no one will object to this. First, the current 9th dan is not worth much, and whether Xiao Li is promoted to 9th dan or not will not harm everyone's interests. Second, who would be so stupid to object? Aren't they afraid that Xiao Li will shout out that he is not convinced and come to fight?"
When they heard the words "Come and fight if you don't agree", all the participants laughed, and as everyone laughed, the first resolution of the meeting was passed tacitly by everyone.
The resolution is: If Li Xiangping can win the championship this time, the Chinese Go Association will award him the title of professional ninth dan.
Seeing that the meeting had achieved initial results, Lao Chen seemed very happy:
"Okay, okay, it would be the best if we could win the championship. Then no one would mind giving him a 9th dan. But now I'm afraid that I can't get it. After all, my opponent this time is Li Xiangping, and the final is a five-game match. It seems that Li Xiangping has never lost to a foreign player in a five-game match so far, right? Let's discuss the runner-up now. First, if Li Xiangping wins the runner-up this time, what dan should we give him? Second, should we give him this award before or after the final?"
There was no controversy about Lao Chen's second question. Everyone agreed that it was best to award it after the game. After all, if it was awarded before the game, no matter what rank he was awarded, what if he really won the championship? Wouldn't it mean that he would have to be awarded again after the game? That would be like slapping himself in the face.
However, there are still some controversies about the first question. Some people, taking into account Li Xiangping's current age , think that they should follow the convention of the challenge match and reward him with a third or fifth dan, for example, let Li Xiangping become "Li Third Dan" or "Li Fifth Dan" after the finals.
Some people also think that such a reward may be too low. After all, Li Xiangping has achieved an impressive 10-game winning streak since the preliminaries. Among them are world-class masters, from Kobayashi Koichi in the preliminaries to Lao Cao, Kato, and Liu Da in this stage. There are as many as 4 recognized top-notch masters.
With such an outstanding record, it is obviously too low to award him a low professional rank. He should at least start at the seventh rank. He should choose between the seventh rank or the eighth rank.
Gradually, the latter opinion prevailed.
"If you ask me, it's not easy to be the world runner-up. Think about it, so far, besides Ma Xiao and the other two world champions, only Lao Nie, Yu Tou and Xiao Chang have participated in the world championship finals. Therefore, the achievements that Li Xiangping has made so far can actually rank among the top five in the country."
This is what another senior member of the management team, Luo Yonghao, said at the end of the meeting, and this sentence actually concluded the entire meeting:
If he wins the runner-up, Li Xiangping will be awarded the title of professional eighth dan.
"Hahaha, I think this is a good idea. This is a good idea. The champion will be the ninth dan, and the runner-up will be the eighth dan..." After the result was discussed, Old Nie's big mouth spoke again:
"What did I say just now? This problem should n't be difficult to solve, right? Come to think of it, even Korean Xiao Li can jump to nine directly, so what's so great about our Xiao Li giving eight or nine?"
To be honest, what Old Nie said was purely unintentional, but his words aroused the interest of others.
"Oh? Then Old Nie, who do you think is better, our Xiao Li or the Korean Xiao Li?"
"Hey! That Korean player Xiao Li..." It must be admitted that Xiao Li's chess at this time was not up to Old Nie's standards:
"Well, he is the world champion after all, so I can't just say nonsense and say that our Xiao Li is better than him now. But to be honest, I think our Xiao Li has much more potential than him..."
"Huh?! Old Nie, are you so optimistic about Xiang Ping?"
"Of course..." Some time ago, Li Xiangping was very humble and treated him as a disciple. Everyone knew that with Old Nie's character, he would brag when else:
"Korean Li Xiao and Gu Dali are the same age, and Xiang Ping is a few years younger than him. Let's not talk about other things, just the few years younger should be able to exchange for a lot of potential. Even if we don't mention these, just talking about the rationality of chess, then Korean Li Xiao can't be compared with our Li Xiao. I'm not talking about comparing them with the same age, but I think Korean Li Xiao, who is now a world champion, is not as good as Xiang Ping now."
"Haha, such a high evaluation?"
Regarding what Old Nie said, except for Team Leader Hua who just echoed him, everyone else knew his temper, so they just smiled and said nothing.
"Hehe, it seems that no one believes me, right? Then I'll leave it at that. Not to mention their Little Li, even their Big Li, I think Li Xiangping has the ability to make a push. Take this final for example. I know that everyone is not optimistic about Xiangping, but I think the gap is definitely not as big as everyone imagines, and it is even less likely to be one-sided..."
Lao Wang suddenly interrupted: "What do you think, Lao Nie, will the final be like? 37 or 46?"
"What's 37? What's 46? I can't tell the final result now, but I think it should be 50-50 this time, about 49 to 51. The reason why I am slightly optimistic about the Korean big Li is that he is more experienced. From a purely technical point of view, I think our Xiang Ping is not bad at all. Even if he almost lost this time, I still say that the person who shakes the Li Canghao Dynasty must be our Li Xiang Ping!"
"Haha, that's good, that's good..."
It was obvious that everyone didn't want to listen to Lao Nie's chatter anymore, so Lao Chen interrupted him:
"Then Old Nie will have to worry more about the preparations during this period of time."
Old Nie was totally unaware, he patted his chest loudly:
"No problem, leave it to me."