In the first stage of the just-concluded "Nongshim Cup", Li Xiangping won 6 consecutive victories that he didn't even expect, which had a great impact on the entire chess world. From the end of this winning streak to the start of the semi-finals of the "LG Cup", almost everyone was talking about it.

It's a pity that there doesn't seem to be a "hot search" at this time, so Li Xiangping will definitely be on the hot search. Because during this period, from experts to chess fans, from within the Go world to other circles of society, almost everyone was talking about Li Xiangping and his brilliant achievements.

Thinking about this, of course, is normal, you must know that the format of the ring match is like this, and these 6 games are still played together, so the impact of this streak is obviously a little greater.

In addition to this reason, the more important thing is that everyone has never seen Li Xiangping like this. To say that in the Go world, there is never a shortage of "geniuses" and "prodigies", but looking at those geniuses who have appeared in the Go world, even if they are as strong as Mr. Wu Qingyuan and Li Canghao, when they were Li Xiangping's age, at most, they only showed his talent to the world, his impact power, and it usually takes a long time for the real chess skills to mature or achieve great skills, and it takes a lot of tempering and even setbacks.

Who has ever seen Li Xiangping like this, everyone often says that debut is the peak, this word was originally a bit derogatory, meaning the kind of "meteor" that only has one highlight moment in his life. However, the words used by this word on Li Xiangping, so far there is no derogatory meaning, he is indeed the peak of his debut, but his "peak" is different from others, to put it mildly, Li Xiangping's peak is like the surging river that stretches endlessly, and it has lasted for more than 2 years now, and after now, it has the potential to sweep the world and dominate the chess world.

"I don't want to talk about Li Xiangping's other issues now, I don't want to talk about whether he is a genius? Don't want to talk about whether he happens once in a hundred years or once in fifty years? I don't want to talk about how high his level is? I don't want to talk about the boring question of whether he is a super-first-class now, I just want to discuss with you now: When do you think our mastery boss will be able to dominate the chess world? ”

About a week before Li Xiangping went to South Korea to participate in the semi-finals of the "LG Cup", such a so-called "questionnaire" post appeared on the Qingfeng Go forum, and as soon as this post appeared, it instantly became a hot post on the entire forum.

Well, this post also pretends to offer 4 options; A within two years, B within five years, C after five years, D never.

Among the choices of chess fans, not only more than half of them chose "A", but only a few 0.0% chose "D", and even quite a few people were not satisfied with these four options.

Many people think that there is an option that needs to be added, and that is "within half a year", more precisely, at the end of the "LG Cup" final in February next year-----

This is the latest final of the four world championships this year, and everyone thinks that if Li Xiangping can win four championships at the same time this year, it will be equivalent to a tennis player winning four Grand Slams in one year, which can of course be regarded as a domination of the chess world.

It was in this atmosphere that Li Xiangping went to South Korea to participate in the semifinals of this year's "LG Cup".

This semi-final is a standard confrontation between China and South Korea, except for Li Xiangping against Lao Cao again, and Yu Bin against Li Canghao on the other side. Due to Li Xiangping's topic, due to the heat brought by Li Xiangping, the mood of the domestic media was high, and a large number of reporters watching the war accompanied him this time. Not only has Li Xiangping never seen so many reporters, but even the elder Nie, the head of the Chinese delegation, said: Even when he played the Sino-Japanese Go tournament back then, he never saw so many accompanying reporters.

"It's normal, hahahaha......." Li Xiangping, who was in a good mood, joked with Lao Nie:

"Teacher Nie, you don't want to think about it, what era did you get off the ring? And now, in the era of more than ten years ago, I am afraid that even the central media did not have much money to let reporters go abroad to watch the war. ”

Not to mention, this time there are really central-level "mass daily" reporters to watch the game, the "mass daily" is actually related to the Go world, and there may be many people who do not know that the organizer of the "celebrity battle" of domestic Go has always been the overseas version of the "mass daily", so it is not surprising that they sent reporters.

This time, the reporter sent by the "People's Daily" is surnamed Hu, and this is an old reporter, and he is precisely one of the reporters who put forward the idea of "celebrity war" back then, and he is a senior chess fan.

Seeing that Lao Nie and Li Xiangping were chatting happily, reporter Hu and reporter Zhang Da of the "Go World" and others came over to join in the fun, reporter Hu recalled the grand occasion of the ring match back then, and pointed out that the current popularity of Go is really nothing.

Reporter Hu said to Li Xiangping: "Xiangping, you may not know that after your teacher Nie helped the Chinese team win three consecutive victories in the ring competition, he sometimes went to some cities to participate in activities, which may require police cars to open the way, now it depends on whether you can do it in the future." ”

Everyone laughed when they heard it, although everyone encouraged Li Xiangping to have that day, but in fact, everyone knew in their hearts that the things unique to that special era were long gone.

This time, the Chinese delegation came relatively early, and arrived in Seoul, South Korea two days before the official competition. This time, because there are many reporters, and the group of reporters, of course, it is impossible to be so peaceful.

On the morning of the second day after arriving in South Korea, that is, the day before the first game of trilogy, reporter Zhang Da and several others rushed to find Li Xiangping, and reporter Zhang Da Yang Yang had a large stack of newspapers in his hand, which was full of Korean that Li Xiangping could not understand:

"Xiangping, you are now a celebrity in South Korea, you see, so many newspapers are introducing your situation."

"Oh?"

At this time, it may be regarded as the heyday of Korean Go, with more than 10 news chess battles in China, claiming that one in every 3 Koreans can play Go, so in this atmosphere, it is of course very normal for reports on Li Xiangping to appear before the competition.

Reporter Zhang Da didn't seem to notice Li Xiangping's carelessness, and he continued to gush:

"Look, you see, there is also an interview with Lao Cao here, which has his evaluation of you and his outlook for the game......."

"Oh?" Li Xiangping was a little interested now: "What did Lao Cao say?" ”

Of course, reporter Zhang Da didn't understand Korean, so the accompanying interpreter came up with a smile:

"Lao Cao said, if your strength increases by one point, then his belief in the decisive battle with them will also increase by one point."

After saying this, the accompanying translator briefly described the content of Lao Cao's interview to Li Xiangping, and the general meaning is like this: first of all, Lao Cao admitted that Li Xiangping is very strong and is a rare Go genius, but after saying this, Lao Cao began to speak hard, he said that although he lost in the last game, he found that Li Xiangping was not without weaknesses through the chess, and the weaknesses were still very big, so after passing the chess, he was still very confident in the next game.

In the next words, there is nothing new in Lao Cao's words, which are nothing more than some unique rhetoric of Koreans, such as "As the world's strongest Go country, he will defend the honor of Korean Go this time", "Bet his Go life, this time he will fight to the death with Chinese geniuses" and so on.

Li Xiangping laughed after listening to it. It must be pointed out that Li Xiangping's laughter certainly did not mean to ridicule Lao Cao, in fact, he also believed that what Lao Cao said was true, after all, the chess game was completely played by himself, so as a master of Lao Cao's level, it was of course very normal for him to find his weaknesses.

He just laughed at Lao Cao, he would never know, he was the one who opened the hanging, and his opponent tomorrow would be Lao Shi, so what weaknesses he found were actually not effective at all for the next game.

Of course, it was not without purpose for reporter Zhang Da and others to come over, and when Li Xiangping finished laughing, reporter Zhang Da asked on behalf of everyone:

"Xiangping, do you have anything to say about Lao Cao's attitude?"

Li Xiangping smiled, and said in his heart, don't you reporters just want me to have a war of words with Lao Cao, then good, I will fulfill you:

"Cao Xunxuan Jiudan is a senior chess player I respect very much, and what I admire most about him is that he can maintain his peak for so long, I really hope that I can maintain such a high level and state at his age......."

After saying this, Li Xiangping took advantage of something to slip away, and everyone didn't care about his departure, and happily remembered it in the notebook one by one.

Among them, only one rookie reporter did not know why, so he humbly asked the reporter Hu of the "Mass Daily" for advice:

"Teacher Hu, Li Xiangping's words ......"

Reporter Hu Da took a picture of the rookie reporter:

"Stupid, Li Xiangping's words have a special meaning in the Go world, alas, look down on old comrades, Li Xiangping is obviously looking down on other people's old comrades, and is ready to bully others at this point......"

Of course, reporter Hu Da's words are not wrong, although it can't be said that he really wants to bully Lao Cao is already old, but Li Xiangping's implication of not wanting to show weakness is obvious. Thinking about it, how could Li Xiangping be willing to show weakness at this time, thinking that even he could cut Lao Cao's game, so for the next Lao Shi's shot, of course Li Xiangping was full of confidence in his plug-in, and he would not hesitate to vote for Shi Da Qisheng.

However, it turns out that Li Xiangping is a little overconfident this time, in the first game of the three-way chess, Lao Shi defeated Lao Cao with great difficulty after a hard battle, but at this time, Li Xiangping did not care too much about Lao Shi's hard battle, Lao Shi's continuous victory made him blindly confident in his own plug-in, and he was ready to meet the feat of reaching the finals of all 4 major competitions.

However, in the second game, Lao Cao played at a very high level, and he played his "soft wind and fast gun" characteristics to the fullest.

1 to 1, the two sides are back on the same running line!

This is the first game that Lao Shi lost this year, and it is also the second person to defeat Lao Shi after losing to Li Canghao.

At the same time, in the semi-finals on the other side, Li Canghao successfully defeated Yu Bin, and he broke into the second World Series final this year after the "Toyota Cup".

Who will be Lee Cang-ho's opponent in the final? On the second day after the end of the second game, the tiebreaker between Lao Shi and Lao Cao started immediately.