At the end of the last world championship in '98, Li Xiaoqiang won his 8th world championship.

Regarding the results of this "Samsung Cup", the reactions of the major media after the game were surprisingly unanimous:

The dust has settled on the 2nd "Samsung Cup", and Li Xiaoqiang is in the world! (Japanese "Kido" magazine)

"It has been exactly 10 years since the birth of the first Go World Championship in 1988. After 10 years of scuffle and competition, the world chess world has finally ushered in a new king! He is China's Li Xiaoqiang. (Go World Magazine, China)

"In this year's four world competitions, Li Xiaoqiang won three out of four, and Li Xiaoqiang showed amazing dominance. In the competition of all professional chess players, Li Xiaoqiang has been unbeatable. Although I am very reluctant to say it, I must admit it now: the era of Li Xiaoqiang may have officially come. (Korea TV Professional Go Channel)

What's even more rare is that the "News Network" of the Imperial Court Channel, which has not reported Go news for several years, also broadcast the news of Li Xiaoqiang's victory in the "Samsung Cup" this time, and it seems that the time taken is not short.

The reason why this situation occurs is that everyone values the significance of Li Xiaoqiang's championship this time:

After this battle, the entire world chess community finally began to recognize Li Xiaoqiang's status!

Among them, there are not only Li Xiaoqiang's own reasons, but also the reasons of his opponent Mr. Zhao Zhixun. It is precisely because of Mr. Zhao Zhixun's outstanding performance that he added a lot of color to this final, and also made Li Xiaoqiang full of gold to win the championship.

In this five-way chess final, Zhao Zhixun impressed many people with his unyielding fighting spirit, superb chess skills, and the spirit of chess displayed in this competition, and he also gave this final extraordinary significance with his wonderful performance.

"I was impressed by the performance of "Zhao Mingming", I think that if anyone comes out, it is impossible to do better than Zhao Zhixun this time, but even so, the final championship still belongs to Li Xiaoqiang. You can imagine how terrifying he is now. Of course, this is not the most surprising to me, Zhao Zhixun's loss to Li Xiaoqiang is not unexpected. What really shocked me was: in this Samsung Cup final, I clearly saw another Li Xiaoqiang! Having reached such a high level, it seems that his skills continue to improve! It's a shocking thing. I can only say now that I am in the same era as Li Xiaoqiang, which is not only the misfortune of all our professional chess players, but also our luck, and I really want to know where Li Xiaoqiang's limit is. ”

As soon as the competition ended, Cao Yanzi made her own comments on the finals. It must be admitted that Lao Cao's words actually represent the true thoughts of many professional chess players.

In the past few years, the world chess world has not been without kings. For example, Ma Xiaofei in 95 and Li Shifo in 96, but no matter who they are, they can't convince everyone like Li Xiaoqiang.

Ma Xiaofei was quickly kicked down after only sitting for a year, and Li Shifo, even if he was in the most glorious 96 years, there were many professional chess players who were not convinced by him. The reason for this is very simple, because many people look down on Li Shifo's stoic chess style, such as Zhao Zhixun, such as Yitian Jiji and others, do you want them to be convinced by Li Shifo? That, of course, is impossible.

But now Li Xiaoqiang is different, whether it is his achievements or the level of skills he is currently showing, the current Li Xiaoqiang can be convincing.

When Li Xiaoqiang won the "Asian Cup" for the first time last year, everyone was still talking about Li Xiaoqiang's "personal 20 crowns". Now in just over a year, Li Xiaoqiang has blossomed inside and out, and the total number of championships he has won is now about to exceed 30.

There is nothing to say about the results, and the level of skill he is showing now is also speechless.

"Can anyone else tell me what Li Xiaoqiang's weaknesses are......"

"Looking at the chess that Li Xiaoqiang is playing now, he seems to be ahead of our era ......"

During the final of the "Samsung Cup", especially after the fourth game, comments like this were heard endlessly, filling the entire world chess world.

Therefore, the significance of this "Samsung Cup" is that Li Xiaoqiang's status in the world chess world has been confirmed, and he is now recognized as the first person in the world chess world.

The smoke of the "Samsung Cup" dissipated, but the topic of Li Xiaoqiang did not dissipate so easily. Not long after the match with Zhao Zhixun ended, two other topics soon appeared: the first is how long can the "Li Xiaoqiang era" last? The second is that Li Xiaoqiang is indeed the number one player in the world chess world now, but judging from the level of skills he is showing now, how big is the gap between him and others?

It should be said that the first question is not really of much interest to many people, because it is not worth discussing.

Want to know how long the "Li Xiaoqiang era" can last? Is it 5 years? Is it 10 years? Or is it only 1 year like Ma Xiaofei and Li Shifo? Everyone only needs to look at Li Xiaoqiang's performance behind him, and it is something related to the future, can this be discussed?

There is not much to say about the first topic, but for the second topic, everyone showed a lot of interest.

In fact, this is also the common feature of all competitive sports, Pele and Maradona are the kings of football, Jordan is the "god of basketball" in the basketball world, so everyone always likes to compare those stars in later generations with them. No matter how you compare, you can't really compare it to the reason, but people always enjoy it. Football basketball is still a group sport, and everyone likes to compare individuals in group events, so for individual events like Go, similar comparisons are inevitable.

Of course, everyone compares and compares, but there are not many examples of Li Xiaoqiang coming to compare with senior chess players.

The reason for this is very simple, because today, there are not many senior chess players who are qualified to compare with Li Xiaoqiang! Even if Li Xiaoqiang retires today, his achievements should be above the "six supers", because the number of world championships won by Li Xiaoqiang alone has exceeded the sum of the "six supers".

Li Xiaoqiang's champions were all won in direct competition with the "Six Supers". As a whole, they can't compare to Li Xiaoqiang, so if you take out any of the "six supers" alone, of course everyone is embarrassed to make such a comparison.

"Six Supers" doesn't work, and the "Razor Sakata" and "Gorgeous Show" that go a little further don't seem to work either.

Although due to the different eras, many things cannot be directly compared. For example, Mr. Sakata, he has won more than 60 championships so far, Li Xiaoqiang only has 30 titles, and Sakata is stronger in terms of the number of championships, which of course does not make any sense, and no one makes such a comparison. But what about the other way around? Do you dare to say now that Li Xiaoqiang must be stronger than Sakata? This also seems to be a bit inappropriate, to take an extreme example, what if Li Xiaoqiang starts to fall next year, just like Yoshio Ishida, he can't win the next championship?

What is it better than in this case? That's certainly better than anything else. For example, the reason why everyone thinks that "Razor Sakata" and "Gorgeous Xiuxing" should not be as good as Li Xiaoqiang in the world chess world in the future is because these two senior chess players have their own flaws.

Needless to say, why is Mr. Sakata not as good as Li Xiaoqiang? Because there are "bitter hands" in his career. If he has a "hard hand", it means that he still has defects in Go technology, and he has not reached perfection in his skills.

On the other hand, Li Xiaoqiang does not have this situation, although he does not dare to say that he is perfect now, but at least with the overall level of the current world chess world, no one can find Li Xiaoqiang's weaknesses.

This time Zhao Zhixun has done his best, but he still failed to defeat Li Xiaoqiang.

Therefore, everyone compares and compares, except for those "chess saints" in the "ancient era", that is, Mr. Wu Qingyuan and Li Xiaoqiang are compared the most.

Everyone compared and found that Li Xiaoqiang and Mr. Wu Qingyuan are really a little similar, both of them became famous as teenagers, and they have shown extraordinary talent for Go since they were children, and they are famous for their titles of "prodigy". At the same time, their chess style, their dedication to chess, their obsession and love for chess, and even their creativity on the chessboard and their contribution to Go technology are very similar.

Through comparison, everyone even came to such a conclusion:

"At least when Mr. Wu is 23 years old, he should not be at the current level of Li Xiaoqiang."

Some good people even passed on this comparison to Mr. Wu Qingyuan, and Mr. Wu happily admitted this conclusion:

"I believe that Xiaoqiang will definitely be better than me in the future, because when I am his age, I will definitely not have the same level as him. Let's hope he will continue to focus and love the game, as long as he does that, I believe he will be able to achieve even higher achievements......"

For such a comparison, Li Xiaoqiang himself is, of course, sincerely afraid. Why does Mr. Wu Qingyuan have such a high status in the world chess world? His achievements are actually secondary, the most important thing is his innovation, his contribution to the technique of Go. Who is Li Xiaoqiang? He certainly knows what his "creativity" is all about. If I can compare with Mr. Wu in other places. So in this regard, I am still far from Mr. Wu.

Therefore, Li Xiaoqiang hurriedly issued a statement:

"It's an honor for everyone to compare me with Mr. Wu, but as Li Shifo said, even behind my back, I don't dare to compare myself with Mr. Wu, because in terms of innovation in Go, in terms of Go's thinking and realm, I am still far from Mr. Wu......"

It must be pointed out that this is actually Li Xiaoqiang's true words. But because of Li Xiaoqiang's words, a positive image of a new generation of chess kings who is not arrogant or impatient, well-informed, modest and cautious appeared in front of everyone.

After comparing with the senior chess players, everyone's discussion is left with the last part:

"How big is the gap between the others and Li Xiaoqiang?"

It should be said that this is the part that everyone is most interested in.

Because this situation is not very common, such a topic only makes sense if there is a world chess scene, or if there is an absolute king.

For example, the just-concluded "Six Super Era", such a topic is not talked about. Because everyone's level is about the same, all of them are half a catty, so in this case, what is the problem of not disparity?

Such a topic is only meaningful if there is an absolute king.

In the Chinese chess world hundreds of years ago, when Huang Longshi was outstanding, except for him, everyone else could be considered to be the second grade. But through the "Blood and Tears", everyone knows that the gap between the first grade and the second grade is so big.

In the era of Mr. Wu Qingyuan's total victory, on the surface, he seemed to be similar to other top chess players, but through the brutal "Shiban chess" promotion, everyone clearly saw the gap between others and him.

Even if you don't talk about these "ancient times" in the Japanese chess world more than 10 years ago, Mr. Zhao Zhixun before the car accident, when he just showed the clues of dominating the chess world, through the lifting match with Hiroshi Yamashiro, Kobayashi Jue, Wang Licheng and others, everyone found that the young chess players at that time were so far away from him.

"If only there was a competition like this."

Reporter Zhang Da smiled at Xiaoqiang.

Li Xiaoqiang just smiled after hearing this, and did not take reporter Zhang Da's words to heart. Today's times have long been different, and the overall environment of the world chess world has also changed, and the legendary lifting tournament is just a thought.

However, what Li Xiaoqiang didn't expect was that under the matchmaking of reporter Zhang Da, he was really matched into a new competition.

When the time came to January 1999, a new world championship debuted, that is, the first "Qiu Ju Cup". Although it was a few months later than expected, China finally had its own Go World Championship. For this result, everyone in the Go world is very happy. Li Xiaoqiang was also very happy. Although he is not satisfied with many details in the operation of the "Qiu Ju Cup", as a professional chess player, Li Xiaoqiang is definitely welcome to the emergence of new competitions.

What's more, taking the notorious "Qiu Ju Clause" as an example, dissatisfaction can only be dissatisfaction with the management of Chinese Go. If you think about it differently and look at the problem from the perspective of Qiuju Company, it can be considered a quite successful case.

Those who are really dissatisfied with the appearance of the "Qiu Ju Cup" may only be our President Hu Yi and Hu.

"Alas, they finally got the first shot."

In the opening ceremony of the first "Qiu Ju Cup", Hu Yi also attended, watching the organizers make enthusiastic speeches. Hu Yi said to Li Xiaoqiang a little depressed.

Li Xiaoqiang smiled and expressed his understanding. What kind of person is Hu Yi now, he is a well-known local tyrant. Don't look at the name of the local tyrant is a bit ugly, but everyone who can become a local tyrant often has a commonality, that is, "unwilling to be left behind." ”

So Li Xiaoqiang still understands his uncle's mood very well.

At this time, reporter Zhang Da came up:

"I said Mr. Hu, since you want to hold a competition so much, why don't you hold an alternative competition to practice your hands before your "Uncle Cup"? ”

"Huh? Alternative Tournament ......" (To be continued.) )