In early September, Jinling. The annual National Go Group B Team Tournament is about to start here.

It's autumn now, but it's still as hot as summer. Jinling City was originally a famous "furnace". The fireball sun scorched the earth, the trees drooped their heads, the dogs lay in the shade and spit out their red tongues, and the cicadas neighed desperately in the trees. In the past, the Group B team competition has not received much attention, and it belongs to the kind that grandma doesn't love and uncle doesn't love. But this year things are different. This year's Group B team competition is as hot as the weather in Jinling City today.

The Group B team competition is a tournament format where teams compete in 7 rounds. Eventually, 2 teams will be promoted to the first division. If you look closely, you will find that there are many more teams participating in this year's Group B team competition than in previous years. Not only that, but the media who came to cover this competition, there seemed to be countless times more reporters shuttling back and forth in the arena than in previous years.

There are two main reasons for this situation: First, the Chinese Go team competition is facing restructuring, and the news that the Go League will be launched next year is no longer a secret. What about the second one? That's naturally because Li Xiaoqiang appeared in this arena.

......As the host of this tournament, Shao Zhenzhong, who has become the president of the Suzhou Provincial Chess Academy, is now indignant, and he said to the coaches or leaders of the other teams around him:

"The Chess Association has taken too good care of Ganyuan Province, even if Xiaoqiang is allowed to participate in this level of competition, we can also tolerate the green light for Qian Da's transfer all the way, but the revised competition system is only beneficial to them. How else can you play this game? If you want me to say, since the Chess Association wants the Ganyuan team to be promoted to the first division, then it can simply be sent directly. Let's fight for the only spot. ”

Although there is a danger of becoming the target of public criticism, Xiong Guotao, who is the leader of the Ganyuan team, does not have the slightest consciousness of wanting to keep a low profile. He even smiled proudly at Shao Zhenzhong, who was trying to "sow discord":

"I said Xiao Shao, it's not kind for you to do this, you obviously want to pull hatred for our team. Oh. You want everybody to point the finger at us, and in the end you're going to make a profit. Do you think I can't see that little bit of your thoughts? I can tell you unequivocally, it's useless! Who made Xiaoqiang from our Ganyuan......"

Su Province is an economically developed province, and the historical Go background is not bad. However, in recent years, it has been a bit of a lush. They just dropped from Division A to Division B last year. Of course, not in the first division, but they are naturally a strong team in the second division. Moreover, Shao Zhenzhong has just taken office, and he is ambitious. This year, under the leadership of Shao Zhenzhong, they are one of the most popular teams in this "Chongjia".

But now Xiong Guotao still dares to be a high-profile man, and his biggest reliance is naturally because the Ganyuan team has a Li Xiaoqiang. In fact, what Shao Zhenzhong said is not bad. At least on the surface, it seems that the Ganyuan team has indeed been taken care of this time. In recent years, it is difficult for a chess player to "change his court", as long as it is a person in this circle, everyone can feel it. In fact, at the beginning of Shao Zhenzhong's tenure, he also wanted to poach a chess player from the Shencheng team, but unfortunately he did not succeed. Only Qian Yuping's transfer to Ganyuan went unusually well. Anyone with a discerning eye can see that if it were not for the vigorous promotion of the Chess Association, this matter would not have been done so quickly.

Well, even if Qian Yuping's situation is special. And he has a great friendship with Li Xiaoqiang - after Li Xiaoqiang entered the professional chess world. He didn't formally worship his teacher like the Constant Saints. He's always been alone. For example, he called Nie Whirlwind, Ma Xiaofei, and they were all "Teacher So-and-so". But many people in the chess world know that Li Xiaoqiang will only call him "master" when facing Qian Yuping. This is no secret in the Chinese chess world.

Of course. This is not the most important thing, what really makes everyone entangled is the reform of the competition system of this Group B team competition.

If Li Xiaoqiang looks at it, this kind of competition system is actually very ordinary. It is the so-called "three, two" that is most commonly used by the Chinese Go League in later generations. One, zero" competition system.

Each team has 4 games, in which there is a main player. If it's 4 to 0 or 3 to 1. This is called a "straight win". 3 points for the winner and 0 points for the loser. If the score is 2 to 2, it depends on the main general, and the winner of the main general gets 2 points, and the main general loser gets 1 point. This is called "the Lord will win".

This format was common in later generations. But what age is it? It's only 1994. You know, even the "3-point system" has just emerged. The cause of the "3-point system" should be the Italian football "World Cup" in the 90s. That World Cup is said to have set a new low in the average number of goals scored. Therefore, in order to encourage goals and prevent too many draws, the idea of a "3-point system" was proposed. To this day, the "three-point system" has not yet been fully rolled out in international football. Now China's Go League has begun to adopt the "3-point system", which can be regarded as leading the trend.

The "3-point system" has little impact on everyone, and what really makes everyone tangled is actually the newly launched "home win" method. Just think about it, and in this format, the role of a master is crucial. The main player wins 1 game of chess, and basically wins 1 and a half games against other players. So in this kind of second-class arena, the Ganyuan team with Li Xiaoqiang ......

It is rumored that such a competition system is exactly what Li Xiaoqiang strongly recommended to the management. Therefore, to say that the Ganyuan team was not taken care of, not to mention that others did not believe it, even Xiong Guotao himself did not believe it.

"Our team has Li Xiaoqiang, let's think about it, next year's Go League is about to start, can you still bear to let Li Xiaoqiang mess around in the low-level league?"

That's right, this is not only Xiong Guotao's idea, but also represents the idea of most people in the chess world.

"He is a treasure of the Chinese chess world, and because of his appearance, even the entire industry will benefit from him. I remember saying something like this when I first met him. To this day, I want to repeat this phrase again. ”

This is a passage that Fujisawa Hideyuki's old god stick said in an interview a few days ago:

"Professional chess players seem to be divided into two types, one is like Kobayashi Koji, and the other is Masaki Takemiya. The former is sought after by professional chess players, while the latter is even more popular with ordinary chess fans. But to be able to have both, to make the victory and defeat of Go and the art of the game so perfect, now only China has Li Xiaoqiang. ”

Considering that Hideyuki Fujisawa is a staunch brain fan of Li Xiaoqiang. Naturally, he couldn't fully believe what he praised Li Xiaoqiang. What is the "perfect combination of art and winning and losing" is still debatable. But no one objects to saying that Li Xiaoqiang is currently the most popular star chess player in the world chess world.

In the entire world chess world, many chess players are seriously studying Li Xiaoqiang's chess. Although Li Xiaoqiang's chess is admittedly difficult to figure out, this does not hinder everyone's enthusiasm. Everyone imitated his moves, figured out his ideas, and studied his chess under the microscope......

Not only that, Li Xiaoqiang's chess is also sought after by many amateurs. Even many chess fans of average level, when they sometimes play a few inexplicable moves and then win the game inexplicably, they are likely to be proud of the sentence:

"Luke, don't you have a bit of a "chessboard wizard" charm in those few moves I made just now......

The Ganyuan team has such a Li Xiaoqiang, so Xiong Guotao is not worried about Shao Zhenzhong's "sowing discord" at all.

"Master, you haven't participated in the competition for a while, so I'll be the main player in the first few rounds. You start by looking for a feeling and play a few games of rapid chess first. After a few games, we will adjust it according to the specific situation. By the way, Xiao Yu Xiaoyu, you don't have to be so nervous when you get to the official competition. Everyone must believe in their own strength, and believe that we will definitely be able to rush to the first class this time......"

After arriving at the arena, Li Xiaoqiang began to fulfill his duties as the "main general". Especially for Qian Yuping, Li Xiaoqiang paid more attention. Because Qian Yuping was brought by himself, it would be bad if something went wrong in the game. Fortunately, Qian Yuping's condition seems to be good, and there should be no problem in dealing with a few games of rapid chess.

The "Xiao Yu Xiaoyu" in Li Xiaoqiang's mouth are his two teammates in this team competition. They are all local chess players in Ganyuan Province. One is from the provincial capital of Hongcheng and the other is from the porcelain capital.

Li Xiaoqiang called him "Xiao Yu Xiaoyu", but in fact, the two of them are about the same age as Li Xiaoqiang. However, Li Xiaoqiang called it like this, and it would not make people feel disobedient.

In 1994, the Group B team competition of Chinese Go began. When the competition officially started, Li Xiaoqiang found that there was still a difference between the team competition and the individual competition. Due to the distraction of paying attention to the situation of his teammates, this game is still quite tiring.

In this team competition, when other opponents deal with the Ganyuan team, they are also divided into 2 situations. One is a team with ideas, they want to use their brains in the arrangement of troops when they meet the Ganyuan team, hoping to deal with the Ganyuan team in the way of "Tianji horse racing". The other is the team that has no desire this time, when this kind of team meets the Ganyuan team, it is the opportunity for all the players to compete with the world champion.

Therefore, the team competition is an interesting phenomenon, when encountering a strong team, Li Xiaoqiang played more easily, because the opponent usually sent the weakest one to play chess with him. encountered a weak team, but Li Xiaoqiang encountered some trouble.

Fortunately, Li Xiaoqiang is more conscientious than the competition. After 4 rounds of games, the Ganyuan team won all 4 games, including 3 sets of "straight wins" and 1 set of "home wins". With 11 points, he leads all the participating teams, and the "Rushing Armor Situation" is very good.

There is a gap between the four rounds. On this rest day, when Li Xiaoqiang was dismantling chess with everyone.

"I also said that Jinling was coming to see us, so it's not a matter of words. Don't apologize to our beauties yet. ”

Li Xiaoqiang looked back and saw that it was Yan Qing and other college classmates from his previous life, who were currently interning in Jinling.

Not far from them, Lin Mengyu was looking at herself with a smile. (To be continued......)