On August 28, the semi-finals of the 5th "Ying's Cup" were decided.

When the time came around 4 p.m., the two sets that were played at the same time today were about to be decided.

In the on-site viewing room, there are really a lot of professional chess players present today, such as Yu Bin, Luo Xihe, Gu Dali, Wang Lei and other national team chess players who just participated in the "Evening Cup" professional and amateur confrontation yesterday.

However, by this time, most people were paying attention to the battle of Da Li VS Cui Poison, and Li Xiangping VS Chang Hao was snubbed-------

It's not that the civil war between the Chinese players has ended, or even that the suspense has been lost now, but in the eyes of these national team players, the civil war between the Chinese players is really boring.

Everyone didn't see anything new, the actual combat process is like a script copied from a fixed routine, Li Xiangping's winning script for most of the games in the last one or two years:

After a sudden "change of tone" in the second game, he seemed to be back to normal today, and he began to show his unique understanding of the game again, and from the very beginning of the game, he came up with all kinds of new moves.

Of course, in fact, by now, most of Li Xiangping's novel moves are not new, at least not so new in the eyes of national team players.

However, there is no way, I don't feel new to a single move, but I can't stand the arrangement and combination of these novel moves.

For example, today's game of chess, in fact, if you really want to strictly say it, everyone knows every move of Li Xiangping, and the latest "novice" he played was already a "novice" more than half a year ago, and he also wrote an article to introduce that move in a magazine.

But what kind of means, under Li Xiangping's conception, he organically combined these means through permutations and combinations, resulting in the game just over 60 hands, and everyone thought that he had "successfully opened up the situation".

Especially when the overall situation was about 80 hands, Chang Hao's nine-step inadvertent slowing hand was caught by Li Xiangping at that time.

The consequence of being caught by Li Xiangping was that he soon established a more obvious advantage.

Needless to say, similar to the same routine, everyone has really seen a lot recently, not to mention the whole big routine, and even some details in the whole routine seem to be exactly the same as before-------

For example, Chang Jiuduan's "inadvertent slowdown" today, in fact, when everyone first saw that move, no one thought it was a slow move, and they all thought it was a normal response.

Only after watching Li Xiangping's follow-up play and seeing how he held him accountable for that move did everyone realize that Chang Hao's move might be a problem move, and the worst move was also a "slow move", and that move was the root cause of the obvious backwardness of the overall situation.

Since the small details in this big routine are so similar to before, then for these players of the national team, this chess is of course boring to watch, and everyone feels that it is not interesting at all.

Especially now that this game of chess has passed 150 hands, everyone counted the number of meshes and found that Chang Hao, who was in black, was only 4 to 5 meshes ahead at most, and it was the kind of 5 meshes that seemed to be difficult to break through no matter how he struggled and how he caught up-------

In the special rules of "Ying's Cup", in fact, there is another meaning of "holding 5 meshes on the black plate": this means that even if people overtime once, even if they are penalized by 2 points, but in the end, they will win half of your eyes.

In the previous spectators, everyone found that Li Xiangping had been in good control, he really achieved "safe operation", and the lead of 4 moves was still negotiable, but he never let the number of black pieces lead more than 5 moves.

In this case, for the national team players, of course, this game of civil war is not interesting, and it is better to watch this game than to watch another game of the Korean civil war.

Of course, after 4 o'clock in the afternoon, this game of chess is not completely unattended, for example, in the corner of the on-site viewing room, there are now 3 people sitting, they are Dean Wang, Team Leader Hua, and Zhang Xuan Baduan, the chessboard in front of them is still the actual combat process of Li Xiangping VS Chang Hao.

"How? Wang Laohua, what do you think of this chess......"

Team Leader Hua glanced up at Zhang Xuan, but found that she was still patrolling the chessboard, and what she said just now was more like an unconscious mutter.

Seeing her like this, Team Leader Hua suddenly felt a little emotional.

As a senior in the chess world, Team Leader Hua can actually understand Zhang Xuan's eight paragraphs very well. You must know that Zhang Xuan is 8 years older than Chang Hao, so when she married Chang Hao, she not only had to bear the pressure, but even a few years ago, she also endured some infamy, and she endured some infamy for Chang Jiuduan.

You have to know who Chang Jiuduan is? Although there is no such thing as "crown prince" in China, but the title is different, but the nature is the same, in fact, for a long time, Chang Jiuduan can also be regarded as the "crown prince" of the Chinese chess world.

Since the day of his debut, Chang Hao has been carefully cared for and trained by the domestic chess community, the best famous teacher, the best chess learning environment, and the most opportunities to play...... This is really cultivated according to the specifications of the "crown prince".

It's a pity that the reality is always unsatisfactory compared with the ideal, and the flowers cultivated in the greenhouse are even more difficult to stand proudly in the snow.

Originally, in real history, if Li Xiangping had not appeared, Chang Jiuduan would not be a "Ming Jun" with great talent, but as a "master of success", he was still qualified.

Not only did he win 3 world championships in his career, but he also won the title of "Tough Saint" after repeated defeats, which helped him win a reputation as a "tough saint", and he was as gentle as jade in the ninth section, and he was the kind of humble gentleman who couldn't be more standard.

Together, these two items make Chang Jiuduan's reputation and image very good among chess fans.

However, with the emergence of Li Xiangping, all this is likely to change.

Chang Jiuduan, who was born in 76, is now close to his age, but now he not only has not passed the level of his peer chess player Li Canghao, but what is even more terrifying is that he may not even have a chance to pass the test in the future.

Because up to now, not only has Li Xiangping like a mountain in front of him, but even in the competition with his fellow disciple Gu Dali, Chang Jiuduan has already shown a decline, and he has been robbed of the domestic title by Gu Dali in the past two years, and his rating has retreated to the fourth place in China.

Originally, he was favored by all kinds of people, and he was originally regarded as the future leader, but the new king had not yet ascended the throne, but he found that this was just an illusion, and there was no possibility at all.

So at this moment, as an old-timer in the chess world and as the leader of the national team, Team Leader Hua can certainly understand Zhang Xuan's current mood.

It's a pity that professional Go can't change anyone's mood, at 4:40 p.m., this game was played to more than 220 hands, and seeing that the gap could not be narrowed, Chang Jiuduan no longer insisted.

When Li Xiangping fell to the 226th hand in the overall situation, Chang Jiuduan was very graceful and conceded defeat.

After all, it was a civil war, so after the game, Li Xiangping didn't show his happiness, let alone any excitement-------

In fact, this three-way chess gave Li Xiangping his own feelings: he thinks that Chang Jiuduan is worthy of the name of "tenacious saint", and he is 28 years old and still has not given up, and is still actively moving closer to the dog.

The problem he is facing now is actually similar to Kong Erjie's situation, he has not yet passed the stage of "breaking and then standing", and because of his age, it is actually more difficult for him to "break" than Kong Erjie, and it is not so easy to "stand".

Whether Chang Jiuduan can "stand up" or not, Li Xiangping is still uncertain.

Of course, although he can't be sure, he won't deny it at this time.

After all, in real history, this "Ying's Cup" is Chang Jiuduan's first world champion, and there are several more behind him, if you count the finals of the World Series, his peak is still N years.

It is precisely because there are examples like Chang Jiudan that Li Xiangping insists that in fact, for a project like Go, it is really no problem to be in your 30s, or even in your 40s.

The premise of all this is that you can't give up in your own heart.

If you give up first in your own heart, it will be a big problem even if you are only in your teens or twenties.

After calmly resuming the game with Chang Jiudan, Li Xiangping also got up to pay attention to another game of the Korean Civil War.

After coming to the viewing room, Li Xiangping found that the progress of this game was slower, it seemed that it had not reached 200 hands, and it looked quite complicated.

Li Xiangping didn't have time to observe the situation by himself, so he first asked Gu Dali beside him:

"Brother Gu, how is this chess now?"

The others had been watching it for a while, so Gu Dali smiled and said:

"I'm strange, Da Li is a person who even dares to cut you, but why can't he play chess when he meets the old man, no, you see, he has been entangled in this game of chess again."

Li Xiangping smiled and didn't squeak, and after looking at the chess game a few more times, he found that it was difficult to see clearly, so he simply found an empty chessboard and put the previous process again.

After putting it down, I have a little bottom in my heart: although under the influence of "dog moves", Li Xiangping thinks that Da Li's chess has also made great progress, but this progress is relative.

Other chess players, including Choi, are also being nurtured, so they are also improving.

For example, in the game of chess in front of him, before 100 moves, Li Xiangping did judge that Da Li's situation was superior, but the advantage was extremely limited, not to mention that it reached the level of a dog crushing humans, and even his advantage over Chang Jiuduan just now was not as good.

Then in this case, the original chess style of the two may play a leading role again, and they should still fight each other.

The game of chess in front of him is an example, the two of them played about 120 hands, it may be that Da Li judged that he had the advantage of the situation, and he subconsciously began to exert his "control flow" again.

It's a pity that his control flow is good for others, and it seems that it is really difficult to deal with Cui Poison, and he was quickly entangled by Cui Poison, and he was directly dragged into the quagmire like that, and he has not escaped yet.

Li Xiangping continued to watch the game in the viewing room, at half past five in the afternoon, when the game was close to 300 moves, Li Canghao's hand of chess made Li Xiangping shake his head secretly------ This is an obvious mistake, and it is the kind of mistake that is easy to occur when he is in a hurry.

Cui Poison didn't let go of this opportunity, and as soon as the 300 hands passed, Li Xiangping felt in his heart that the opponent in this final should not be Da Li.

After a few more minutes, news came out from the game room that Da Li had already taken two penalties in overtime, and although Cui Poison had taken one penalty, it was still 15 minutes before the second penalty.

Li Xiangping decided not to watch it, and was going to shake hands with Cui Poison at night.

The ending was not beyond Li Xiangping's expectations, at 8 o'clock in the evening, he really shook hands with Cui Poison, and after shaking hands, Mr. Xiao Ying also announced the schedule of the final five-game chess:

The first two games of the final will be held in Hangzhou in late December this year.

At the strong request of the South Korean side, the last three games will be moved to Seoul, South Korea, after New Year's Day next year, and if the five games can be played, they will end on January 8.

Of course, Li Xiangping has no personal opinions on the schedule and the arrangement of the competition venue, but when he was about to return to the capital, Li Xiangping remembered another thing:

"Hehe, Brother Ding'an, don't you really want to meet your Wuquan junior, in a few months, you will be able to meet him."

"Oh, what do you mean by that?"

"Therefore, in this event, your junior Wu Quan is the chief referee, and he has been hired as the chief referee of this event since the first competition......."

Li Xiangping explained to Lao Shi that although Mr. Wu Qingyuan has been serving as the chief referee of the "Ying's Cup", when he is now old, he basically won't show up, but when it comes to the finals, he insists on attending, such as the finals in real history, Mr. Wu attended, and personally witnessed Chang Hao helping the Chinese team win the "Ying's Cup" for the first time.

After returning to the capital, Li Xiangping first calculated some games in September.

By next month, the "LG Cup" and "Toyota Cup" will follow one after another, which is also the most important task for Li Xiangping next month.

Of course, considering that Weijia is in the middle of winning the championship, so for the last two rounds of the game, Li Xiangping thinks that he can't relax, after all, Weijia is a team competition, even if Li Xiangping doesn't think about himself, he has to think about his teammates who fight side by side.

In addition to Go, there is another thing waiting for him, that is, September is the day the school opens, Li Xiangping will be promoted to the third year this semester, so why should he go to the school to see.

And when he thinks of the school, he immediately thinks of the Athens Olympics, which ended today, because the middle school he is currently studying in is actually the counterpart of the General Administration of Sports Training, which is filled with a large number of young athletes.

“....... Yo, although most of the athletes are scumbags, but the results of this year's Olympics are so good, it is better to go to the school to inquire first, no one should rob my philosophy department, right? ....... Well, probably not, except for board games, how can other athletes go to any philosophy department......"

Because he was still worried about his philosophy department, Li Xiangping decided that he needed to go to the school to inquire at this time.

As soon as Li Xiangping went out, he immediately received a call from Zhao Daokai.

"Ha Zhao Great Painter, you came just in time, come quickly....."