Jinling, China. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 infoThe scene of the draw ceremony for the semi-finals of the first "Qiu Ju Cup".

Li Xiaoqiang held Li Shifo's hand and smiled:

"You should let me win this time...

Hearing Li Xiaoqiang's words, the whole venue erupted in laughter, and Li Shifo also smiled bitterly, but his answer was also refreshing:

"Okay, it's no problem for you to win this time, but you let me win in the next final, whether you agree to this quid pro quo...

Li Xiaoqiang and Li Shifo have played each other 20 times before, and the next semi-final of the "Qiu Ju Cup" will be the 21st meeting between the two. A very strange phenomenon, Li Xiaoqiang remained undefeated against Li Shifo in the final.

Whether it is the 2 "Toyo Securities Cup" championships, or the decisive game of the Three Kingdoms Tournament and the confrontation between China and South Korea, this should be regarded as a final. But in the knockout stage of the World Series, that is, in the non-final games, Li Xiaoqiang did not win Li Shifo once. Among them, especially in 97 years, Li Shifo's 2 attempts at Li Xiaoqiang in the World Series are still fresh in everyone's memory.

It is for this reason that when the results of this draw first came out, Li Xiaoqiang shouted to "break the curse". Of course, this is just a joke told by Li Xiaoqiang to enliven the atmosphere of the scene, and no one cares about such a "curse". In fact, in the entire lottery ceremony, the re-encounter between Li Xiaoqiang and Li Shifo was not the most concerned.

Everyone is more concerned about the other semi-final pair, they are Ma Xiaofei and Cao Yanzi.

"Ma Xiao and Lao Cao, it seems that they haven't fought each other for several years, right?"

Looking at Ma Xiaofei and Cao Yanzi's hands holding together on the stage, Zhang Da reporter in the audience said with emotion. Team Leader Hua on the side echoed: "Yes, Ma Xiao can recover strongly this time, Xiaoqiang also has a lot of credit, since last year's "Celebrity War" finals, Ma Xiao doesn't seem to have lost chess, right?" ”

"Lost a set... Reporter Zhang Da reminded Team Leader Hua: "... Ma Xiao accidentally missed Luo Shen Pig in the "Tianyuan War", which was the only game he lost after the celebrity battle... ”

Crediting Li Xiaoqiang for Ma Xiaofei's recovery sounds a bit far-fetched. But that's what professional Go is all about, an important game, sometimes it can really change a lot of things. It is common in the Go world to lose a major game that leads to a long period of sluggish form, or because of a key game win that leads to a burst of form.

Ma Xiaofei seems to be in this situation at present, after he defended the title of "celebrity" last year, in addition to missing in the "Tianyuan Battle", he also won this year's "Top Ten Battle" championship. The momentum of the strong recovery is very clear to everyone.

Of course, Ma Xiaofei did not defeat Li Xiaoqiang to win the "Top Ten Battle" crown, Li Xiaoqiang lost a game to Zhou Dayang in the group stage of the "Top Ten Battle" some time ago because he focused on the lifting match with new chess players, and finally failed to win the first place in the group, thus losing the right to the final.

The reason why Ma Xiaofei and Cao Yanzi attracted more attention this time is also related to the just-concluded top 8 battle. In the just-concluded top 8 match, Li Xiaoqiang defeated South Korean chess player Choi Myung-hoon to advance, and Li Shifo defeated Japanese chess player Yamada Kimiyoshi to advance, and these two games naturally did not attract much attention.

But Ma Xiaofei and Cao Yanzi are different, Lao Cao, who was still shouting for "retirement" yesterday, defeated Zhao Zhixun and advanced.

In the "Samsung Cup" final that just ended, although Zhao Zhixun lost to Li Xiaoqiang with a score of 1-3, his performance was praised by everyone, and he has been showing a good competitive state since then. However, in today's match, it was clear that Cao Yanzi played better, and he almost used overwhelming posture to score a beautiful victory.

After losing the game, Lao Zhao was obviously a little depressed, he called Lao Cao after the game, he said that Lao Cao said to himself yesterday "retirement", and he was stupid at the time to believe it.

Compared with Cao Yanzi, Ma Xiaofei's performance this time was also unacceptable, and he defeated Liu Changhe in the top 8 to advance.

As early as 4 or 5 years ago, because the competition was just beginning, there was not much gap between everyone. Therefore, there was a saying in the world chess world at that time that there was a "four-strong competition".

The "top four" that everyone is talking about happen to be the chess players who entered the top 4 of the "Qiu Ju Cup" this time.

However, in the last 1 or 2 years, Liu Changhe has risen to prominence, not only gradually replacing Ma Xiaofei and Cao Yanzi, but even better than Li Shifo in the international arena.

Today's game of Ma Xiaofei and Liu Changhe is also the last game of all games. Ma Xiaofei was once in an unfavorable situation, and when everyone was talking about whether Li Xiaoqiang was going to face the "encirclement and suppression" of South Korea's three top masters, Ma Xiaofei played perfectly in the second half of the game, and he defeated Liu Changhe beautifully to advance.

"It seems to go back to 4 or 5 years ago, Ma Xiao and Lao Cao have been resurrected with full blood, by the way, there is also Li Shifo, Li Shifo seems to have completely gotten rid of the shadow of being reversed by Xiaoqiang last year, and this year's world competition is interesting."

Regarding reporter Zhang Da's words, Team Leader Hua basically agreed. Reporter Zhang Da is not only referring to the "Qiu Ju Cup", but also the first two rounds of the "Fujitsu Cup" that just ended at the beginning of this month.

The top 4 players in the "Autumn Cup" this time also all broke into the top 8 in this year's "Fujitsu Cup".

Although these 4 are all the top players in today's chess world, breaking into the top 8, the top 4 is not a matter for these people at all, but such a large area of collective breakthrough, which is really rare in the past two years.

Looking at the four chess players standing on the stage, reporter Zhang suddenly remembered an interesting question:

"At present, Xiaoqiang has 8 individual championships, and the other 3 chess players combined are exactly 8 championships. Now I don't know which direction the scales will tilt after this competition. ”

Team Leader Hua smiled when he heard this, and the situation that reporter Zhang Da said basically reflected the current pattern of the entire world chess world. Chess players all over the world are aiming at Li Xiaoqiang, and Li Xiaoqiang is fighting against the whole world chess world.

"Xiaoqiang is still the biggest favorite to win the championship, but overall, this time it is more difficult than before."

Regarding the view of Hua Leader, reporter Zhang Da basically agreed. The reason why Team Leader Hua said this is very simple, in today's world chess world, Ma Xiaofei and Li Shifo are the two players closest to Li Xiaoqiang in terms of relative performance. For example, comparing Ma Xiaofei and Liu Changhe, it is difficult for you to tell which of them is stronger or weaker now? But when it comes to Li Xiaoqiang, it is obvious that Ma Xiaofei is a greater threat. That's what Team Leader Hua meant when he said this.

However, it is obvious that even if Team Leader Hua said this himself, he didn't take it to heart. "Qiu Ju Cup" is the first world competition held in China, and Hua Ling is quite satisfied with the current process. No matter from any point of view, the current Li Xiaoqiang is flawless, and everyone is full of confidence in Li Xiaoqiang.

"The main battlefield is now over for the time being, now let's wait to see another good show."

After the end of the top 8 of the first "Qiuju Cup", Team Leader Hua said happily.

Indeed, when today's tournament is over, the mainstream international chess tournament has also come to an end for the time being. The semi-finals of the "Qiu Ju Cup" will not be held until the second half of the year, and the "Samsung Cup" and "LG Cup" will not start until the second half of the year. The first Fujitsu Cup quarterfinals will not start until June.

Then in the next period of time, the match between Li Xiaoqiang vs Li Shi has become the focus of the entire world chess world. Almost everyone was talking about the game, and everyone was staring at the outcome of the game.

Especially with Lee's winning streak continuing. Every time he wins a set in a row, he makes everyone's enthusiasm increase by one point and increases the heat of the game by one point.

Just when Li Xiaoqiang broke into the top 4 of the first "Qiu Ju Cup", Li Shishi continued to win chess in the domestic chess world, winning 33 in a row, winning 34 in a row, and winning 35 in a row...

In late April, Lee defeated Seo Bong-so in a domestic rapid chess tournament and achieved an incredible 36-game winning streak, which also brought the heat of the game to its peak.

This is the last game of Li Shishi's official game before the match with Li Xiaoqiang. He will face Li Xiaoqiang with a 36-game winning streak. Will "Crazy Stone" continue to be staged? Can Li Xiaoqiang stop Li Shishi's winning streak? That's what everyone wants to know right now.

Just before Li Shishi was about to leave for China to compete, he was interviewed by media reporters:

"Let's stick 4 moves backwards first, which is equivalent to making 10 moves, and I don't think anyone else in this world can make me 10 moves. I need to make a special note that although I respect Li Xiaoqiang, I don't think he can either! So I ask you not to take the outcome of this game so seriously, because this is a game without suspense... ”

Xiao Li is Xiao Li after all, even if he is young now, he still seems so unruly and so maverick.

“。。。 Hehe, I heard that Li Shishi is known as the Korean Li Xiaoqiang, so let the horse come over and let me teach you how to play chess... ”

Everyone's remarks about Li Shishi are not surprising, because he has been this character since he was a child. What is strange to everyone is Li Xiaoqiang's remarks. Because this doesn't look like Li Xiaoqiang's style. Li Xiaoqiang has always appeared in front of everyone as a humble gentleman. Such a heavy smell of gunpowder, and it is to treat a junior chess player, is this from Li Xiaoqiang's mouth?

Only Li Shifo, who knew Li Xiaoqiang best, laughed: "Is this strange? This just shows that the stone is valued by Li Xiaoqiang, if Li Xiaoqiang didn't see the special thing in the stone Go, how could he say this... ”

Of course, Li Xiaoqiang values Li Shishi very much!

This is Xiao Li! He is a new generation of world chess leaders in real history after Li Shifo.

Regarding Li Shishi's contribution to the world chess world, Li Xiaoqiang has always had a point of view: if the emergence of Li Shifo promoted the development of Go middle and back game technology, then Li Shishi, he has established a style, a "Li Shishi style" with very distinctive characteristics.

This style had a great influence on later generations, and in later generations, more than half of the chess players were actually playing chess in his style.

Li Xiaoqiang can only sigh at the wonder of life sometimes, when he was reborn, he happened to be reborn after watching Li Shishi win a game of chess, and Li Xiaoqiang did not think about the situation of playing against Li Shishi.

But he never thought that the first time he and Li Shishi fought would appear under such circumstances.

Of course, Li Xiaoqiang is looking forward to this game!

In late April 1999, Li Shishi arrived in Shencheng.

The first collision between Li Xiaoqiang and Li Shishi is about to begin. (To be continued.) )