In October 1993, Changsha, Hunan Province, the venue of this year's National Go Individual Competition.

"Xiaoqiang, you haven't participated in individual competitions for several years. Welcome, welcome ......"

The last time Li Xiaoqiang participated in the national individual competition was in 1990, and after 3 years, he finally appeared on this field again.

The reason why Li Xiaoqiang came to participate in the competition was that there was no way. As a result, he now has no chess to play, as he has been eliminated in other title fights. Now Li Xiaoqiang has a lot of free time. Second, to participate in the national individual competition, of course, is to qualify for the international competition next year.

When Li Xiaoqiang won the 3rd "Toyo Securities Cup", although most of the competitions were completed in '91. However, the time when he won the championship was in January 92. The Chinese Chess Association has a rule that as long as you win the world championship, you will automatically qualify for all world championships in the second year.

Li Xiaoqiang took advantage of this, so he was exempted from the World Series in the past two years. But now, Li Xiaoqiang's old book seems to have been eaten, and he must fight again for qualification.

You must know that in this year's "Fujitsu Cup", the results of Chinese chess players are not good, and no one can enter the top 4. As a result, the Chinese team will not be seeded for the tournament, and the number of participants will be reduced to five.

Since Nie Whirlwind won the "Ying's Cup" this year, then he automatically got 1 entry place. In addition, the individual champion and runner-up accounted for two, and the women's champion accounted for one. There is the last mobile quota left, and it should be given to Ma Xiaofei, who is currently in excellent condition, if nothing else.

Because he has to participate in the Sino-Japanese Go "celebrity" competition and the Sino-Japanese Go "Tianyuan" competition in a row. These two competitions and the national individual competition conflicted in time, so Ma Xiaofei did not come to Changsha this time.

Nie Whirlwind is absent, Ma Xiaofei is absent, so naturally, Li Xiaoqiang has become the most "big" chess player in this individual competition. From the moment he stepped onto the Circle, he was in the limelight.

"Xiaoqiang is a rare guest in the national individual competition, since he is here to participate. Then he is a strong candidate for the title. In fact, I think he is a favorite to win the championship at any level. Don't look at him a lot of losses lately, but his level is there, and he is even better than ever...... Attention, this is not what I said, I have heard many national team chess players tell me that Xiaoqiang's current chess is becoming more and more difficult to figure out. Therefore, one of the highlights of this individual competition is to see if those chess players can cause trouble for Xiaoqiang......"

Before the game started. Team leader Hua, who came to the stadium with the national team members, was interviewed by local media. He said this to the outside world. Li Xiaoqiang privately guessed that this kind of hateful practice was definitely deliberate by Team Leader Hua. With his words, he will definitely become the "public enemy" of the entire arena.

Things did not surprise Li Xiaoqiang, the game officially started, almost from the first round, Li Xiaoqiang was the focus of the whole competition. As long as it is his game, he is always surrounded by the most chess players and reporters. The individual competition is a big tournament, except for the players of the national team. There are also many local chess players among them. Chess players usually don't have much contact, and now it's rare to have such an opportunity, so many people want to see Li Xiaoqiang's current chess. What kind of "inscrutable" method is it?

The individual competition will be held in a large round-robin format by random draw. With a total of 11 rounds, the schedule was arduous and long. According to past experience, if you want to win the championship and runner-up in this kind of competition, you can only lose two games at most. If you lose 3 games. Then it is still possible to fight for the runner-up, but it is absolutely impossible to win the championship.

Another feature of this schedule is that the start is particularly important. If you lose two sets in a row, you're almost certainly not going to end up doing well. Because losing in the first move will affect your score. In a race like this, the final seats are often arranged with small points.

"This Li Xiaoqiang, he usually doesn't feel much when he plays his chess games, and he only feels his pressure when he sits across from him. The gap is too big! The gap is too big...... I really don't know, but I don't know that it's so far away. Many of his tricks are something I haven't thought of before. But when I listened to his review, I found that there was more to it than that, and he thought more carefully about the game. He said to me that if I respond in this way, he will do what he is going to do, and if I answer in that way, he will be prepared to do what he is going to do. Shame, shame. To be honest, I didn't think of the coping methods he talked about when I was competing......"

"You lost to Li Xiaoqiang, can you still be miserable with me? In the last round, I faced the Luo Shen Pig, and I lost so much breath. Leaving no obvious opportunity in sight, I got into the last countdown early. But when you look at your opponent, he still has a lot of fixed time. It felt like he was playing and he was going to win me. Let's talk about it, how else can this game be played......"

After a few rounds, the atmosphere in the arena began to show a polarizing trend. Players who have achieved good results in the previous rounds are still playing chess diligently. Players who quit the competition early are completely relaxed at this time, and they are thoroughly enjoying the fun of playing chess.

At the end of the first 5 rounds, an unexpected situation emerged. Among them, Li Xiaoqiang's performance did not surprise everyone, he has now won all 5 games without losing a game, and is one of only 2 players who have maintained a full victory. And the other one is Chang Rensheng.

Not only that, in addition to Chang Rensheng, several other players in the national youth team also performed well, such as Zhou Dayang, Luo Shenzhu and Wang Sanshi followed with a record of 4 wins and 1 loss. What's more, none of them have fought against Li Xiaoqiang yet, and if this trend continues, they are very likely to meet in the future.

"It seems that the task of blocking Li Xiaoqiang is going to be handed over to his peers. Will they be able to accomplish this task? ”

After so many years, in the face of Li Xiaoqiang's overwhelming ride, Chang Rensheng and the others could only catch up in the back. They didn't even have much chance of going head-to-head with Li Xiaoqiang. But today, in this national individual competition, they seem to have finally waited for this opportunity.

After 5 rounds, there is a rest day in between.

"I said that you brothers, you are all muttering something there, so no one will accompany me to Orange Island to relax?"

Shao Weigang, Zhou Dayang and others made no secret of it: "If you want to go alone, we are going to plan for Chang Rensheng today and come up with a way to deal with you." ”

"Hahahaha......" Li Xiaoqiang patted Chang Rensheng's shoulder: "Relax, the most important thing is to relax......"

In the 6th round of the individual competition, Li Xiaoqiang VS Chang Rensheng. This is naturally the focus of this individual competition. Whoever wins this game will be able to take a solid step towards the final championship.

The game was eye-catching enough, but the whole process was uneventful. At around 5 o'clock in the afternoon, Chang Rensheng walked off the field with a blue face.

"Rensheng, how do you feel about fighting the boss this time?"

Chang Rensheng shook his head, with a deep feeling, but also a palpitation:

"Crash! As soon as I entered the mid-game, I had a feeling that I was going to collapse at any moment! It's a strange feeling. To be honest, I have also played chess with Mr. Nie and Mr. Ma, and I don't feel such a strong oppressive force on them. Now it seems that the gap between me and the boss is still quite large. It's not a notch at all. His current chess, like, like ......"

"Like what?"

"The boss's chess is like an invisible hand, which unconsciously pulls your rhythm away, so that you only have the ability to parry, so that you can only play according to his intentions, so that the situation will fall behind unconsciously."

"How so?"

"The boss also helped me review the plate just now, and I didn't have any problems with my specific moves. The boss pointed out: The key is the flow of chess, and I moved in the opposite direction in several places, that is, I made a mistake in the general direction, which unconsciously fell into his control. ”

"Oh? What is the "flow of chess" really? Is that the one that the boss has been talking about a lot lately? ”

"Yes, the boss has been studying Master Wu's chess recently. He repeatedly emphasized that Mr. Wu's specific methods, as well as some specific judgments he gave, are actually very easy to understand. Everyone can do the same. He said that what Master Wu is really good about is his grasp of the flow of chess games. These things hidden under the chessboard are the essence of Master Wu's Go. If you can't learn this, you won't be able to understand how to play "21st Century Go". ”

"The boss has something to learn now?"

"No, the boss himself thinks that his understanding of this new method is no more than 30% at most. How so? Just like the "invisible hand" I just described, the boss said that if he faced the top super-first-class master, his "invisible hand" was likely to be cut off by people in various ways. It's just a word against us......"

Speaking of which, Chang Rensheng smiled bitterly at his friends:

"If it's going to deal with us, he thinks this level is enough now. If you don't believe me, there will be a chance later, so go up and try it yourself......"

The individual competition is still going on, and the others naturally want to go up and try it. Half a month later, this year's National Go Individual Tournament ended. Li Xiaoqiang won the championship with an 11-0 record. This is the second time that someone has won the championship with an undefeated record after Ma Xiaofei many years ago.

After the individual competition, it was the 5th Toyo Securities Cup, the last world tournament of the year.

Li Xiaoqiang, the "invisible hand", is about to usher in the review of international masters. (To be continued......)