In the capital, in the Fangyuan chess and card room, on a non-rest night, Li Xiangping was playing training chess with the future "Chinese hero" Hu Yaoyu, and "Brother Niu" Qiu Jun.

Since returning to the capital, Lao Cai's "Fangyuan chess and card room" has become Li Xiangping's main training base. There are two main reasons why they are here, the first is that when the "Longyi Research Association" was founded, Lao Cai took the initiative to provide this activity venue.

The second and most important reason is that compared with the Chinese Chess Academy, the hardware conditions here seem to be a little better, not only have food and drink, but also not so restrained, where is it like the Chinese Chess Academy, this winter, sometimes even the heating is insufficient.

I believe that many senior chess fans have seen a photo of an important domestic game held in the chess academy, which was the challenger decision of a news chess battle, but it is such a heavy game, and that photo is simply impossible to look at:

The two players stared intently at the board, both dressed very thickly, one of them wearing a leather jacket and the other simply wearing a leather hat, both of them wearing a basket, and one of them even had his hands in his sleeves......

This looks like some kind of Go game, no matter how you look at it, it looks like two people shivering in the cold wind.

It is precisely for this reason that not only Li Xiangping loves to come here, but also those young chess players who have joined the "Longyi Research Association".

Li Xiangping has now returned from Yangcheng for nearly one month, and these days, he is mainly training to play chess with Hu Yaoyu, Qiu Jun and others. In fact, there is no way to do this, as long as you pay attention to the current situation of the domestic chess world.

"Seven Little Dragons" They are all post-70s, after them are more prominent chess players in China, that is, Gu Dali Kong Erjie's group, most of this group were born in the early 80s, 82, 83 majority, and after this batch is more prominent, that is actually the post-90s, such as the future "leopard head" Chen Yaoyue, although he is 89 years old, but he was born in December 89, it is not an exaggeration to say that he is a post-90s generation.

It is precisely for this reason that Li Xiangping, who was born in 87, does not seem to be able to find a suitable opponent in the same age group, and because he now has the aura of a world champion, it seems that it is not suitable to train with Chen Yaoyue, a group of young chess players. Therefore, through the arrangement of Lao Nie, Ma Xiao and others, Gu Dali Kong Erjie became the first choice.

In fact, this is the case, in the past month or so, although Li Xiangping has played chess with other age groups, the most important thing is mainly the chess players of the national youth team.

To put it bluntly, Li Xiangping is very satisfied with the arrangement of Lao Nie and others, and the most satisfying sparring partner is none other than "Brother Niu" Qiu Jun, who is currently playing chess with him.

To say that "Brother Niu" is not outstanding in Go, although he is still outstanding in the "Little Tiger Generation", he is by no means the top, and his highest achievement in real history is only 3 world runners-up.

However, as a sparring partner, especially as Li Xiangping's "sparring partner" at this stage, "Brother Niu" is simply more suitable, even if Li Xiangping wants to break the sky, he can't think of other more suitable candidates.

You have to know what Li Xiangping lacks the most now? In what areas does he need to improve? Of course, that is the basic skills, and his most important task now is to lay a solid foundation for himself as soon as possible and make up for the basic skills.

So at this stage, in fact, there is no need for any whimsy, and there is no need for those talented genius chess players to act as sparring partners, anyway, in Li Xiangping's view, no matter how 'talented' the chess players of this era are, they must be more than the chess games from the later generations of Go AI that he remembers.

In contrast, on the contrary, those players who have an unpretentious style and are preferably a little 'tendon' are most suitable for their current self.

And what are the characteristics of "Brother Niu"? Of course, it is "a tendon", he is not only "a tendon", he is also an honest child, he is not only an honest child, but also very obsessed with chess, no matter what chess he is willing to play, no matter who he is willing to play, and he is still on call......

There is no need to go on, in short, "Brother Niu", who has so many advantages in one, is simply too much of an appetite for Li Xiangping, and he is the kind of opponent he needs most at this stage.

In fact, in this month, Li Xiangping played a large number of training games, and in so many training games, more than one-third of the total number was played with "Brother Niu".

So after training for this period of time, what is the effect of training?

Well, Li Xiangping feels that the effect is good, which is manifested in his own understanding of some basic chess shapes, his speed is faster and more accurate when judging the value of officials, and he has corrected some plausible or even completely wrong understandings in the past.

Especially the last point, Li Xiangping thinks that this point is particularly important to him, because compared with other people, his situation is similar to "sandwich rice", and "sandwich rice" is more difficult to cook, which is common knowledge that everyone knows, in fact, the learning and improvement of Go is the same reason.

Now Li Xiangping wants to improve, in addition to mastering new knowledge, he also has to eliminate some wrong knowledge in his mind, so compared with others, Li Xiangping needs to do more, and the difficulty is actually greater.

Li Xiangping has a clear understanding of this, so although he feels good about himself, he thinks that after a month of training, his level should improve.

But to what extent? Or is this just an illusion of his own, Li Xiangping doesn't know anything now, after all, the progress and improvement of Go, this is definitely a painstaking and long process, eating an elixir or Zhu Guo's skills will advance by leaps and bounds, that is something that only happens in the fantasy world or the Xianxia world, in the world of Go, this kind of thing can never happen.

Even if Li Xiangping is a time-traveler, and he is still a time-traveler with a golden finger, he knows that there can be no such good thing.

"Suddenly I really want to play the official game."

After playing training chess with "Brother Niu" on this day, Li Xiangping suddenly came to such an emotion.

It should be said that his feelings are normal, in fact, not only him, I believe that most chess fans should have such an experience, no matter what kind of chess fan is a chess fan, even if it is a low K level, as long as he feels that his chess ability has grown, then he must want to play chess very much, and have the urge to find a place to verify.

When Li Xiangping expressed his feelings, the time had already come to December 2001, so he himself knew that it was time to plan for next year's competition.

It's December now, and in this month, Li Xiangping has no suitable games to participate in, but in January it's different, in the next month, there are two very important games about to start, and these are also two games that Li Xiangping values very much.

These two competitions are the domestic "Tianyuan War" and the domestic world competition "Chunlan Cup".

Let's talk about the situation of the "Chunlan Cup" first, why does Li Xiangping attach so much importance to this competition? This is actually related to Lao Shi's 15-game limit.

Because Li Xiangping can participate in as many as 6 World Series next year, so many games, the "quota" of 15 rounds is definitely not enough, Li Xiangping knows that in the case of his own strength is not enough, then in so many games, he must make some trade-offs.

After some thought, Li Xiangping decided to focus on the two world series. One of the two competitions is the "Chunlan Cup" and the other is the "Fujitsu Cup" held in Japan.

Li Xiangping's decision to focus on breaking through the "Chunlan Cup" is of course very understandable, after all, this is the only Go World Championship held in the mainland at present, and it is also a world championship that mainland chess players have not yet touched, and it is also the first world championship to start next year.

These factors add up, and it is natural for Li Xiangping to choose this event to make a major breakthrough.

As for the other one, why is it the "Fujitsu Cup"?

Of course, this is not because this is the oldest professional Go World Championship, nor because of how generous the prize money is, and it is even less likely that Li Xiangping has a special affection for the competitions held by the Japanese.

The most important reason is because of the single-elimination system of the "Fujitsu Cup". This is what distinguishes the Fujitsu Cup from other world competitions.

A player can win the championship with a maximum of 5 games or even 4 games. Then it is completely conceivable how tempting this match is for Li Xiangping, considering the unfortunate 15-round limit.

Of course, this is just Li Xiangping's preliminary idea, or just his current idea, after all, he knows Lao Shi's strength, and knows that his plug-in does not have the strength to crush everything, not that he can break through if he wants to, and he can win the championship if he wants to.

If Lao Shi is eliminated in these two competitions, then Li Xiangping will of course have the idea of playing other events.

After talking about the international competition, of course, it is easy to understand that the domestic competition selects the "Tianyuan Battle", after all, before his own strength is improved, the international competition is mainly reserved for Lao Shi, and the domestic competition is Li Xiangping's own main battlefield.

"Tianyuan War" is also the earliest competition in China every year, so when he feels that his chess strength seems to have improved, Li Xiangping certainly has expectations for this game.

In December 2001, when Li Xiangping made a preliminary plan for the coming year, to be honest, he couldn't wait.

Because he looks back at the world chess scene in real history in 2002, there is a name that can't be avoided, this person is South Korea's Xiao Li, the so-called Lee Sedol.

To be honest, although in the traditional sense, everyone has always regarded the period from '96 to '05 as the "era of Li Canghao", but this division is not very accurate.

In the real history of 2002, that is the year of Lee Sedol's birth, is the year of the take-off of the "Bird Island Boy", strictly speaking, from 2002 to 2005, it is actually the era of South Korea's two Lee and Lee competing for hegemony.

"Hey, hey, it seems that my surname is Li, Li Canghao's age is a little older, so the name of 'Da Li' must be fighting for him not to win, but this "Xiao Li" is ......"