The night before the game, Li Xiangping prepared to go to the Chinese Chess Academy to participate in the opening ceremony of the main match, and it was also the draw ceremony for the first round of the top 32.

"Xiangping, don't bother, the lottery ceremony started at 7 o'clock in the evening, and now it's more than 6 o'clock, and you also know the road conditions in the capital at this time....."

"Okay, right away."

Li Yuanhu is urging Li Xiangping, but Li Xiangping is urging his plug-in:

"Okay, Brother Ding'an, don't watch this person's chess today, you've been watching it for more than a month, haven't you seen enough now? By the way, this person is the defending champion of the tournament and the No. 1 seed in the tournament, so you will find out what kind of person he is. ”

Li Xiangping is funny when he thinks about it, since the last time he was interviewed by reporter Zhang Da and came up with a "Li Xiangping version of the weapon spectrum", Lao Shi has been worried about Li Canghao. As if trying to figure out why he can be ranked in front of him, in the past month or so, Shi Da Chess Sage mainly watched Da Li's chess, and he asked Li Xiangping to find Li Canghao's large number of chess games, and studied there day and night.

But he studied it, what he gained, or what he learned and didn't want to say, and he also played a mystery with Li Xiangping, so that now even Li Xiangping doesn't know the specific situation of his plug-in.

However, although I don't know how far my plug-in has grown, Li Xiangping still has a cautious and optimistic attitude towards the next game.

Because Li Xiangping can be sure of two things now: the first is that he ranked Da Li in front of him, although Shi Da Qisheng didn't say it, Li Xiangping could feel his dissatisfaction, at the very least, he must be holding back a lot of strength now.

The second thing is that in the last month of training, Lao Shi has shown excellent condition, after all, even breaking the five masters of the national team, that is not everyone can do it casually, and Lao Shi actually only played these 5 games of chess last month, and the other 25 games were all played by Li Xiangping himself.

Regarding his shaved head, Li Xiangping didn't pay much attention to it. He knows his own family affairs, and he knows his current true level, which is actually the level before the crossing. In other words, that is actually the level of Li Xiangping when he was 31 years old.

And the 31-year-old Li Xiangping, that is definitely no more than Li Xiangping when he was 13 years old, which is often said in the Go world, not to mention anything else, just a proficiency problem, so that the current Li Xiangping, and Li Xiangping when he rushed to the stage, is at least half a level apart, Li Xiangping is naturally aware of this, so he didn't take these defeats to heart.

And the reason why he went up to practice with great interest this time was first because of his feelings, after all, when he was rushing to the section, Li Xiangping also had such a dream, dreaming that he would one day sit in the Chinese Chess Academy to train, and this past month can be regarded as fulfilling his wish.

Second, after defeating Kobayashi Koichi in the final round of the qualifiers, Li Xiangping swelled a little, he mistakenly thought that he was really like that, but the past month has made him completely sober, Li Xiangping now knows deeply that with the true level of his own deity, he may barely be considered a karma 6 now, but even in the karma 6 group, he may be the one who is more rookie.

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 games.

"Xiangping, Lao Li, let's go."

When the father and son just went out, it was Lao Cai who deliberately ran up to pick them up, 7 points and 10 points, and the three of them came to the Chinese Chess Academy and appeared at the draw for the top 32 of the 5th "Samsung Cup".

After arriving at the venue, Li Xiangping immediately separated from the two, after all, he was a contestant and had to sit with the contestants.

Li Xiangping sat down next to Gu Dali, in this Samsung Cup, China has a total of 9 chess players into the main competition, including Li Xiangping, Gu Dali, Kong Erjie and other 6 chess players who passed the qualifiers, in addition to Chang Hao, Wang Lei, Yu Bin three national seed players.

Among them, it is worth mentioning that Ma Xiaofei, the runner-up of the last session, was also eligible to be exempted, but because of the small actions of the Korean side in the last finals, this arrogant genius was a little annoyed, and he gave up this competition as soon as he was annoyed.

After looking at the Chinese delegation, Li Xiangping couldn't help but look in the direction of the South Korean delegation. Today's Korean Go, that is the heyday of the game.

Cao Xunxuan, Xu Bong-so Baodao is not old, Li Canghao, Liu Chonghe is in his prime, Lee Sedol, and Cui Zhehan are emerging. When Li Xiangping saw Lee Sedol, he remembered that it seemed that this year, Lee Sedol defeated Liu Chonghe in the final of the "Fujitsu Cup" and had officially entered the world championship club.

South Korea's "Four Heavenly Kings" plus Xiao Li, these five are all world champions, compared to their such a prosperous lineup, whether it is the Chinese delegation or the Japanese delegation, it will be much shabby.

After seeing the South Korean delegation, Li Xiangping's eyes swept to the Japanese delegation, compared to China and South Korea, the Japanese delegation has the smallest number of players, only 6 players entered the top 32 this time, in fact, compared to China, the number of their seeded players is the same, but the declining Japanese Go is not good in the qualifiers, and often can't grab a few tickets.

"This is Lao Zhao, this is Kato, this is Yitian, this is Kobayashi Jue, this is Mr. Wang Licheng.... Well? This is ......."

Among the 6 Japanese chess players who participated, the other 5 were quickly recognized by Li Xiangping, but the last one, Li Xiangping couldn't remember his name.

Fortunately, Li Xiangping saw it, he saw the prompt sign next to him with 5 words written "Yamada Guisansheng", and after seeing this name, Li Xiangping couldn't help but look at the chess player a few more times.

Because if he remembers correctly, this "Samsung Cup" was the player's crowning moment, as he finished runner-up in this tournament, his only world runner-up, and even his only World Series semi-final.

Seeing the runner-up, he naturally thinks of the championship, Li Xiangping remembers that in real history, the championship of this competition seems to have been won by Liu Chonghe, from 98 to 03, it is the peak of this chess player, in the past few years, he has won a total of 5 of his total 6 championships,

Just as Li Xiangping looked at Liu Chonghe again, his looking around was interrupted by Gu Dali:

"Don't look at it randomly, you have a bit of style, get ready, you may be the first to draw lots this time."

"Oh?"

Because he won another game of Gu Dali last month, plus the previous game of chess between Xiuqin VS Xiu, Gu Dali now jokingly calls Li Xiangping a "master".

Gu Dali leaned in front of Li Xiangping and laughed in a low voice: "Who made you the youngest among the top 32, the rules were announced just now, and this draw will start from the younger ones." ”

Hearing this, Li Xiangping focused his attention, because he knew that a draw like this was more complicated, and two principles needed to be taken into account, one of which was the well-known principle of "national chess players do not meet in advance" in Go competitions, and the second principle was that in the first round of the game, "seeded players did not meet in advance", that is, the first round of the game was fought by 16 seeded players and 16 players who played in the qualifiers.

It is precisely because of the complexity of the rules, coupled with a variety of "leaders' speeches" and so on, that the official lottery will not start until around 7:40. However, Li Xiangping was not the first to go up to draw lots, you must know that there were two women's groups in the qualifiers, and in line with the principle of ladies first, the first to draw lots were two female chess players.

The two female chess players are one of the Chinese Rui Weiwei and the other is the Korean Park Ji-eun, but unfortunately now both are representing South Korea, and not long ago, "Brother Xia" just became a guest chess player of the Korean Chess Academy.

The luck of the two female chess players is still "good", Park Ji-eun is the first to play, and she is the first to draw Chang Hao, and the first person in the current Chinese Go rating has been drawn. When Rui Xiaowei came on the field, she drew the old Japanese super-first-class master Zhao Zhao Zhixun.

Finally, it was Li Xiangping's turn to play, and when he unfolded the small note in his hand, even he laughed.

It's Lao Cao!

In the first round, Shi Daqisheng's first opponent will be South Korea's Cho Hoon Hyun 9 Dan.