Go Legend

   Chapter 136 Aunt Meizawa

  The time came to April 2002. On the first weekend of this month, Li Xiangping and other members of the Chinese delegation went to Tokyo, Japan to participate in the 15th "Fujitsu Cup".

The "Fujitsu Cup" is the oldest professional Go world competition. However, in this competition, the performance of Chinese players is not very good. So far, only Ma Xiaofei has won the championship once, even in real history, until The competition was suspended, and only Gu Dali and Kong Erjie won the championship respectively. Therefore, among all the Go competitions, Chinese players may have the worst results in the "Fujitsu Cup".

   In the last competition, the performance of Chinese players was also not good, so this time only 5 players went to Japan to participate in the competition. In addition to Li Xiangping, the other 4 players were Kong Erjie, Zhou Heyang, Gu Dali and Chang Hao.

Among them, Kong Erjie and Zhou Heyang were the champion and runner-up of the national individual competition last year. This competition is actually a selection competition for the "Fujitsu Cup". Li Xiangping was exempted from the world championship. Chang Hao ranked first and became the national seed. It is a trial held by the top 16 players who have passed the ranking.

   The one who led the team to Japan to compete this time was the national team leader Hua. When everyone gathered at the airport to wait for the flight, Hua Lao and Li Xiangping joked:

   "Li Xiangping, this nerve knife of yours, you shouldn't be nervous when you get to the international arena."

  Li Xiangping was a little embarrassed when he heard it, but the other chess players laughed when they heard it.

  Li Xiangping won the title of "Neural Knife", and it has to start with the opening of this year's armor. More than a week ago, this year's Weijia officially opened. In the first few rounds after the opening of the Weijia, the normal home and away system is usually not implemented, but the game system is implemented.

   That is to say, when the Weijia is just opened, all the teams gather together and focus on the next few rounds.

  Li Xiangping now thinks that he is mainly to blame Lao Cai for the title of "Nervous Knife". When he delivered a speech at the opening ceremony, he was very high-profile, and he declared in high spirits that because of the joining of Li Xiangping, the strength of their team has greatly increased, so what is the goal of this year's team?

   So, Li Xiangping was tragic. You must know that his strength is not good. As the main general of the armor, it is purely to drive ducks to the shelves. In addition, the armor has just started. Since it has just started, most chess players must be full of energy and want to come first. "A good start" to say.

  These factors plus Lao Cai's bragging, then when other chess players face Li Xiangping, the "world champion", especially the main-level chess players in the Weijia, aren't all of them excited?

This round of siege first went on for 4 rounds. Li Xiangping came up with a three-game losing streak. The opponents were Chang Hao, Yu Bin and Wang Lei. These Nima are currently the top 5 masters in the domestic ranking. Li Xiangping lost. No temper at all.

Although such things as grade points may not reflect the absolute strength of a chess player, for example, in real history, since the implementation of the grade point system, for more than half of the time, the first person in the grade point may not necessarily be the first person recognized by everyone. master.

  However, there is a characteristic of grade points. If a chess player has a high grade point for a certain period of time, it means that he has been in good condition recently and can often win games, because only by winning chess can the grade point increase.

  Li Xiangping's absolute strength is not as good as others, but the opponent's state is still very good, so it is completely understandable that Li Xiangping's loss is actually reasonable.

However, Li Xiangping himself thinks it is reasonable, but others don't see it that way. The dignified world champion, who was able to win the big chess game last year, did not say that the Korean Xiao Li, who was in the limelight recently, was still sacked by him. , and judging from the chess game of the 'Chunlan Cup', Li Shishi was a standard complete defeat.

   But with such a character who punched Li and kicked Xiao Li, how could he be so weak as soon as he entered the domestic arena?

Someone with a heart made statistics, plus last year's National Individual Tournament and the "Tianyuan Battle" at the beginning of the year, and then to this 3-game losing streak, Li Xiangping's total record in the domestic arena is 7 wins and 12 losses, and the winning rate is less than 40% in a row. , which is in stark contrast to his impressive record in the international arena.

   So that's it, while everyone was puzzled, the saying "this is a nerve knife" also spread like wildfire in the perimeter.

Because of Li Xiangping's three-game losing streak and the incompetence of other teammates, after the 3 rounds of competition, Li Xiangping's team ranked first from the bottom of the 12 participating teams, firmly holding the position of deputy squad leader. It embarrassed the high-profile Lao Cai before the game.

   But fortunately, in the fourth round, which is the last round of the armor before coming to Japan this time, Li Xiangping's "nerve knife" attribute attacked again. In this round, they met the Shancheng team that temporarily led the points in the first three rounds. This was the battle between the leader and the deputy team leader, while Li Xiangping faced Gu Dali in the position of the main general, but he finally won the battle.

While Li Xiangping ushered in the first victory of the Weijia, his team also relied on this precious "main general victory" and finally defeated the Shancheng team. Although the points are still at the bottom, they have not been pulled away by other weak teams for the time being. A lot, so it can't be said that it has fallen into the quagmire of relegation.

  After boarding the flight, everyone started talking about the chess game between Li Xiangping and Gu Dali. Chang Hao was the first to say with a smile:

"Dali, they all say that Xiangping is a nerve knife. I think you are insane, right? I took a look at it in the middle of the game. With such a big victory, there are at least more than 100 ways to win, I really can't figure it out. How can you output this kind of chess?"

   "Hey hey." Li Xiangping listened and laughed.

  This game of chess is indeed like what Chang Hao said, when he reached the middle game, his chess was actually no longer good, and the reason why he was able to win in the end was actually a simple sentence: 'Gu Dali killed and collapsed'.

   It is clear that it is easy to set the shape and close the gap and you can win the chess, but Gu Dali does not do it like this. He has to play the most ruthless with himself in the back, and wants to kill himself with a piece of chess.

In the situation where he was bound to lose, Li Xiangping let it go. After letting go, he really seized the opportunity in the chaos. He made a few steps behind him, especially at the last moment. His cold "top nose" method should have been ignored by Gu Dali. It is precisely because of this method that Gu Dali finally collapsed, so that Li Xiangping finally opened up in the Weijia arena.

   Just when everyone was talking about this game of chess Li Xiangping won a fluke and Gu Dali lost a pity, Gu Dali himself said:

"It can't be said that people win by luck, ah! The master of the art is still very powerful, at least in the game, I didn't count the several moves including the "top nose" move, since people counted you didn't count If the chess arrives, then the chess will not be unjustly lost."

"Ha ha."

After everyone was joking for a while, the team leader Hua finally concluded: "Okay, okay, I don't care whether the two of you are insane or insane, in short, after arriving in Japan this time, you all cheered me up, "Fujitsu Cup" This is the 15th time, we have only won one championship in the previous 14 competitions, this result is too shabby, I hope you all do your best, and we will strive to change this situation.”

   Everyone chatted like this, and the flight arrived at Tokyo Haneda Airport soon. This is the first time for Li Xiangping to come to Tokyo, but the "Fujitsu Cup" is after all the world competition with the longest history. There are many things that have become routines, and although the Japanese Go has been declining, they also have an advantage. , that is, no matter what you do, it seems that they can do it with a sense of ceremony.

  Other things are like this, and Go is naturally the same. Therefore, after Li Xiangping arrived in Japan, he didn’t worry about other things. The organizer and the team leader Hua arranged all the food, drink and Lazarus. He just waited for the draw and then participated in the competition.

   This time, the Chinese delegation came earlier and arrived at the stadium 2 days in advance. In Japan, the lottery ceremony is called the "Eve Festival", which is held the night before the official competition. Therefore, on the day of his arrival in Japan, Li Xiangping was ready to recharge his batteries and let Lao Shi correct his name.

  Unfortunately, things backfired. Not long after Li Xiangping arrived in Japan, Team Leader Hua, who had been busy outside, came back and said to him:

   "Xiang Ping told you something. A friend in the Japanese Go industry told me just now that Japan's NHK TV station wants to conduct an exclusive interview with you. Would you like it?"

   "Interview me? What do I mean by a good interview?"

"How not?"

Team Leader Hua smiled and said to Li Xiangping: "You, the youngest world champion in the world, who plays chess like a nerve knife, are not only interested in domestic chess fans, but also in the Japanese Go world, and you are very similar to the Korean Go world. Compared, you have played fewer times with Japanese players, and you have never had any discussions or exchanges before, so in their eyes, you are a mysterious figure. Isn't this your first time to play in Japan, so they I just wanted to take this opportunity to interview you, and it can be regarded as an official introduction to Japanese chess fans."

   What else can Li Xiangping say? Looking at the appearance of Team Leader Hua, I know that he has promised others, so Li Xiangping asked:

   "When and where?"

   "Tomorrow at 10:00 am at the Nippon Chess Institute."

   After answering the question, Team Leader Hua explained: "The reason why it is set in the morning is because the TV program still needs post-production. They are going to broadcast your exclusive interview together with the news of the opening of this "Fujitsu Cup" in the evening."

   Li Xiangping is of course indispensable to this, he nodded and agreed:

   "Okay, by the way, Mr. Hua, if I accept this interview, do you need to do anything to prepare?"

   "You don't need to do any special preparations. Anyway, the TV station is responsible for the costumes and makeup. You only need to answer the host's questions."

   Speaking of this team leader Hua, he added another word: "Xiang Ping, let me tell you, the person who will interview you tomorrow is a beautiful woman in the Go world. He is Yukari Umezawa, who is known as the number one beauty in the chess world."

  Li Xiangping was stunned: "Aunt Mei Meize."

   (end of this chapter)