In 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 Championship, but in this competition, the results of Chinese chess players are not good, so far, only Ma Xiaofei has won the championship once, and even in real history, until this competition was suspended, only Gu Dali and Kong Erjie won the championship of this cup respectively. Therefore, among all the Go competitions, Chinese players may have the worst results in the "Fujitsu Cup".

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

Among them, Kong Erjie and Zhou Heyang were the champions and runners-up of last year's national individual competition, this competition is actually the "Fujitsu Cup" selection competition, Li Xiangping is exempted from the selection of world champions, Chang Hao ranks first and becomes the national seed, and Gu Dali is through the selection of the top 16 chess players in the rating.

This time, it was Hua Leader of the national team who led the team to Japan to compete, and when everyone gathered at the airport to wait for the flight, Hua Lao and Li Xiangping joked:

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

Li Xiangping was slightly embarrassed when he heard this, while the other chess players laughed when they heard it.

Li Xiangping won the title of "nerve knife", and it started with the opening of this year's armor. A little more than a week ago, this year's Wai Jia was officially opened. In the first few rounds of matches after the opening of the tournament, the normal home-and-away system will not be implemented, but the competition system will be realized.

That is to say, when the siege is just opened, all the teams will get together and focus on the next few rounds of competition.

Li Xiangping now feels that he has now won the title of "Nerve Knife", mainly to blame Lao Cai. In his speech at the opening ceremony, he was very high-profile, and he proudly declared that because of the joining of Li Xiangping, their team strength has increased greatly, so what is the goal of the team this year......

So in this way, Li Xiangping was tragic. You must know that his strength is not good, serving as the main general of the Weijia is purely to catch ducks on the shelf, and the Weijia is now just starting the game, since it has just started, the vast majority of chess players must be holding back a lot of energy, and want to have a "good start" first.

These factors coupled with Lao Cai's bragging, so when other chess players face Li Xiangping, the "world champion", especially those chess players at the main general level in the Weijia, aren't they all energetic?

This time, the first 4 rounds of Weijia were carried out, and Li Xiangping came up with three consecutive defeats, the opponents were Chang Hao, Yu Bin and Wang Lei, this Nima is currently the top 5 masters in the domestic rating score, Li Xiangping lost no temper at all.

For example, in real history, since the implementation of the rating system, more than half of the time, the first person in the rating may not be recognized as the number one master.

However, there is a peculiarity of ratings, if a player has a high rating for a certain period of time, it means that he has been in good form lately and can often win games, because only by winning can he increase his rating.

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 thinks that it is reasonable, but others don't see it that way, the dignified world champion, who was able to win the big Li in the chess tournament last year, not to mention, the recent South Korean Xiao Li who has been in the limelight was still cut down by him, and judging from the game of chess in the 'Chunlan Cup', Lee Sedol was a standard complete defeat, and he seemed to be pressed and beaten by Li Xiangping in the whole game of chess.

But such a character who punched Da Li and kicked Xiao Li, why was he so weak when he arrived in the domestic arena?

Someone with a heart counted it, plus last year's national individual competition and the "Tianyuan War" at the beginning of the year, and then to this 3 consecutive defeats, Li Xiangping's overall record in the domestic arena is 7 wins and 12 losses, and the winning rate is less than 40%, which is in stark contrast to his highlight record in the international arena.

So in this way, everyone was puzzled, and the statement that "this is a nerve knife" also spread in the armor arena.

Because of Li Xiangping's three consecutive defeats, coupled with the lack of strength of other teammates, after the end of the three rounds of games, Li Xiangping's team directly ranked first from the bottom of the 12 participating teams, firmly holding the position of deputy squad leader, which made the high-profile Lao Cai extremely embarrassed before the game.

But fortunately, when it came to the 4th round, that 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, which was temporarily leading in the first three rounds, which was a battle between the leader and the deputy leader, while Li Xiangping faced Gu Dali in the main position, but in the end he won.

At the same time that Li Xiangping ushered in the first victory of the Weijia, his team also relied on this precious "home win" to defeat the Shancheng team, although the points are still at the bottom, but for the time being, they have not been pulled away too much by other weak teams, so it cannot be said that they have fallen into the quagmire of relegation.

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

"Dali, they all say that Xiangping is a nerve knife, I think your plate is a nerve, right? At that time, I also took a look at it in the middle of the game, such a big win, at least more than 100 ways to win, I really can't figure out how you can export this kind of chess? ”

"Hey, hey." Li Xiangping listened to silly music on the side.

This game of chess is indeed as Chang Hao said, when he reaches the middle game, his own chess is actually not good, and the reason why he can win in the end is actually a simple sentence: 'Gu Dali has collapsed'.

Obviously, it is a chess game that can be won by simply setting the type and closing the short, but Gu Dali does not come like this, he has to play the most ruthless with himself in the back, and wants to play a killer game against himself.

In the situation of losing and losing, Li Xiangping let go, and after letting go, he really grabbed the fighter in a mess, and he made a few clever moves behind him, especially at the last moment, his very 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 his beard in the armor arena.

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

"It can't be said that people win luck, alas! The masterful boss is still powerful, at least in the game, I didn't count several moves, including the "top nose", since people counted the chess you didn't count, then this chess will not be unjust. ”

"Huh."

After everyone laughed for a while, Team Leader Hua finally concluded; "Okay, okay, I don't care whether you two are nervous or nervous, in short, after arriving in Japan this time, you will cheer me up, "Fujitsu Cup" This is the 15th, we have only won one championship in the previous 14 competitions, this result is too shabby, I hope you all work hard, let's strive to change this status quo. ”

Everyone chatted like this, and the flight soon arrived at Tokyo's Haneda Airport. This is Li Xiangping's first time in Tokyo, but after all, the "Fujitsu Cup" is the oldest world competition, and there are many things that have become conventional, and although Japanese Go has been in decline, they also have an advantage, that is, no matter what they do, they seem to be able to do a little sense of ceremony.

Other things are like this, and Go is naturally like this, so after Li Xiangping arrived in Japan, he didn't worry about other things, eating, drinking, and Lazar were arranged by the organizer and Team Leader Hua, and he waited for the draw and then participated in the competition.

This time, the Chinese delegation arrived relatively early, arriving at the venue two days in advance. In Japan, the draw ceremony is known as the "Eve Festival", which is held on the night of the first night of the official competition, so on the day he arrived in Japan, Li Xiangping was ready to recharge his energy and then let Lao Shi correct his name.

It's a pity that it backfired, not long after Li Xiangping arrived in Japan, the team leader Hua, who had been busy outside, came back and said to him:

"Xiangping told you something, just now a friend in the Japanese Go world told me that Japan's NHK TV station wants to conduct an exclusive interview with you and ask you if you would like to?"

"Interview me? What do I mean about a good interview? ”

"Why not?"

Team Leader Hua smiled and said to Li Xiangping: "You, the youngest world champion in the world, play chess like a nerve knife, that is not only interesting to domestic chess fans, but also very interested in the Japanese Go community, and compared with the Korean Go world, you have played against Japanese chess players less times, and there has never been any discussion and communication before, so in their eyes, you are a mysterious person, isn't this your first time playing in Japan, so they want to take this opportunity to interview you. I would like to introduce you to Japanese chess fans. ”

What else can Li Xiangping say, looking at Team Leader Hua's appearance, he knows that he has already promised others, so Li Xiangping asked:

"When, and where?"

"Tomorrow at 10 a.m., the venue will be at the Japan Chess Academy."

After answering the question, Team Leader Hua explained: "The reason why it is scheduled for the morning is because the TV program still needs post-production, and they are going to broadcast your interview in the evening along with the news of the opening of this year's Fujitsu Cup." ”

Of course, Li Xiangping has nothing to do with this, and he nodded in agreement:

"Okay, by the way, Mr. Hua, then you said that if I accept this interview, do you want to make any preparations?"

"You don't need to do any special preparation, anyway, the TV station is responsible for the costumes and makeup, you just need to answer the host's questions."

Speaking of this, Team Leader Hua has one more sentence: "Xiangping, let me tell you, the one who will interview you tomorrow is a big beauty in the Go world, and he is Yukari Umezawa, who is known as the first beauty in the chess world." ”

Li Xiangping was stunned: "Mei ...... Aunt Umezawa. ”