"I can't play it, I can't play this chess game at all! I've already entered the countdown, and my opponent still has a lot of time, but I'm still slow to kill in the end......"

In the "Samsung Cup" qualifiers, reporter Zhang Da can hear similar voices at any time. Naturally, these are some adult high-level chess players, and the impact of young people is beyond everyone's imagination.

The "Main Tournament" of the "Samsung Cup" consists of 32 players, of which 16 are seeded players or special players, and the other 16 places need to be determined through the qualifiers.

Those who can become seeded players are, of course, the most active group of people in the world today. The Four Heavenly Kings of Korea and the title holder of Japan. China's exemptions this time are Li Xiaoqiang, Ma Xiaofei, Chang Rensheng and Yu Bin.

Among them, Li Xiaoqiang was the champion of the previous session and automatically qualified for the competition. The other three happen to be ranked 2 or 4 in China. In addition to these 4 seeded players, there is also Chen Chaoyue Jiudan who has been specially invited. The first "Samsung Cup" was invited by Mr. Cho Nam-chul, a Korean Go bracker, and this time they invited Chen Chaoyue. In this way, five Chinese players are confirmed to enter the "tournament", and the others must first pass the qualifiers if they want to participate in the World Championship.

In total, more than 300 players participated in the "Samsung Cup" qualifiers. More than 300 people are divided into 16 groups, and among these 16 groups, there is also an amateur group, two women's groups, and an international group. With so many people competing for 16 qualifying places, which is almost a 20-to-1 qualifying rate, the competition is actually quite fierce.

Among the more than 300 chess players, there are more than 200 Korean chess players, accounting for more than two-thirds of the total number. China and Japan, on the other hand, each had only a few dozen players to participate in the qualifiers.

Since this is the first time that such a large-scale anticipation tournament has been held in the world chess world, Li Xiaoqiang, who stayed in China, is also very concerned about this competition. Li Xiaoqiang remembers that in real history, as long as such a large-scale qualifier is held, "China-South Korea confrontation" is the mainstream of the event. Although the number of the Chinese team is small, they basically do not fall behind every time they play against South Korea, and they often get more qualifying places than the South Korean team.

It's normal to think about this situation, because Korean players are fighting on home soil anyway, so the vast majority of players will participate. The Chinese team is different, and even in such a qualifier, the participating players are carefully selected. For example, the chess players who played this time were led by Li Xiaoqiang's peers such as Zhou Dayang and Luo Shenzhu, supplemented by experienced battlefield veterans such as Liu Dazhui and Cao Dafang, and finally carefully selected several of the best young chess players of the national junior team and some local backbones. Such a lineup is of course very competitive in this kind of qualifier.

The reason why the number of participants in China is so low is not because people are reluctant to participate. One of the main difficulties is, to put it bluntly, money trouble. At this time, the qualifiers are better than the later generations, and there is a little game fee for each round, unlike the later generations who need to participate completely at their own expense, but the game fee for the qualifiers is really pitiful.

Someone once calculated that if you can't qualify in the qualifiers, you will basically have to pay for it yourself, and the pitiful match fee will definitely not be enough to pay for the round-trip air ticket, accommodation and food in South Korea. In these days, ordinary chess players are not financially wealthy, and if they need to pay for the competition, unless they specifically want to participate, many people may need to weigh it carefully.

In recent years, most Chinese chess players have not had the habit of "subsidizing money to participate", so when organizing chess players to participate in this kind of qualifier, the Chinese Chess Association will also carefully select the participating lineups. The selection criteria are also very simple, one is a chess player who has the strength to get the right to qualify, such as Liu Dazhu, Luo Shenzhu and others, and the other is the key training objects in China, such as Gu Dali, Kong Erjie and others, which is equivalent to the state spending money to let them see the world.

This is basically the situation of the Chinese team, and what really surprised Li Xiaoqiang this time was the Japanese team's lineup. This time, more than 60 Japanese chess players went to South Korea to participate in the "Samsung Cup" qualifiers, and the number of participants was more than that of the Chinese team, and the lineup of the Japanese team also included Hero Otake, Masao Kato, Masaki Takemiya and other famous veteran super first-class chess players. This is what makes Li Xiaoqiang see a big difference from his previous life.

"It's really strange, how can they put it off the shelf so much this time?" Li Xiaoqiang asked the team leader Hua who was following the game with him.

"Xiaoqiang, you don't know, it's all related to a proposal from Mr. Kato......"

After Team Leader Hua's explanation, Li Xiaoqiang almost figured out the reason for the incident.

Among the three Go powers of China, Japan and South Korea, Japan has the longest and most complete professional Go system, so Japan has more professional players than China and South Korea in terms of the total number of professional players. They have nearly 100 professional nine-dans alone, and China and South Korea combined have no more than 50 professional nine-dans now.

There are so many professional chess players, why are there only a few dozen of them who go to South Korea to compete? They certainly don't have a money problem like Chinese chess players. In fact, even if later generations of Japanese Go degenerated like that, their players lived a nourishing life. Of course, it cannot be said that Japanese chess players are not enthusiastic about participating. In fact, the real reason why Japanese players are reluctant to participate in the qualifiers is precisely because of Japan's overly formal professional Go system.

The arrangement of Go tournaments by the Japanese is indeed more formal than that of China and South Korea. With the exception of those who are particularly active, they basically play one game a week, and the tournament dates are relatively fixed, with most of the tournaments being played on Wednesday or Thursday, where Thursday is called the "main match day" and Wednesday is the "secondary match day". What's more, they plan each player's game very early, and once it's arranged, they don't make changes easily.

Those who have watched the anime "Chess Soul" should have an impression of one detail. After Hikaru Shinto became a professional chess player, even though he was still a beginner, he received a letter from the Japan Chess Academy every month. The content of this letter is his schedule for this month, in which the name of the competition, the time of the competition, the location of the competition, etc. will be clearly explained in the letter.

"Chess Soul" is very real in terms of details, and this detail in "Chess Soul" is actually the real operation mode of the Japanese Chess Academy.

It should be said that this mode of operation embodies the normative side of the Japanese professional game of Go. But today, with the increasing number of international competitions, the drawbacks of this model have come to the fore.

As a very simple example, a Japanese chess player would have liked to participate in the "Samsung Cup" qualifiers, but this week there was a "ten-dan battle" in this tournament. So is it to participate, not to participate, or to participate? The Japanese player will be very entangled.

You must know that the qualifiers for the "Samsung Cup" will definitely not be a matter of one or two days, and it will take at least a week to toss back and forth. If you go to an international tournament, then the Japanese Chess Academy will abstain from you in the "Ten Dan Battle". Participating in international tournaments is not only more competitive, but also has less prize money, which naturally causes many Japanese players to be reluctant to participate in international tournaments.

In real history, why did Japanese players appear to be less competitive in the various qualifiers? Li Xiaoqiang doesn't think that Japanese chess players are really that bad. This is because the Japanese players who go to the qualifiers are only those who are not good or in poor shape, except for those who are particularly fond of participating in international tournaments.

Why go to the International Qualifiers? Because there was no chess to play during this time. Why is there no chess? Of course, because of the level or the lack of form during this period, I have been eliminated in all competitions recently......

Mr. Kato put forward a proposal to address this shortcoming, saying that Japanese Go cannot continue like this, and hopes that when there is a conflict between domestic and international competitions, international competitions will be given priority, and the schedule of domestic competitions can be flexibly adjusted. After arduous negotiations, the Nippon Chess Academy seemed to convince the main sponsors of the news chess tournament that they agreed to Kato's proposal. This is the reason why Japan's lineup is strong this time, and Otake and Takemiya are actually leading by example and supporting Kato with their own practical actions. ”

"The Japanese are known for their stubbornness and old-fashionedness, but how did Mr. Kato convince the sponsors this time?"

Mr. Kato played a card, and he took the chess fan out to tell the story. He said that today, even compared to the "big three crowns" with huge prize money, ordinary chess fans are definitely more willing to see domestic and foreign chess players play. Mr. Kato didn't say much else, and he persuaded the entire Japanese Go community for this reason. ”

"I see."

Li Xiaoqiang didn't continue to ask when he asked this, but continued to pay attention to the game with Team Leader Hua.

Indeed, the times are different now, and although Japan's news chess tournament has a lot of prize money, the "Big Triple Crown" has a higher prize money than most World Championships, and it looks like it is full of money. But sometimes it's not just about money.

How to describe it? If the "Big Triple Crown" more than 10 years ago is like the NBA, although it is only an international internal competition, because the level is the highest and the money is the most, there is naturally nothing to say about such a forced style. But the current Japanese Go is a bit like the "Chinese Super League" in later generations. In later generations, some teams in the "Chinese Super League" invested more than some European giants every year, but the "Chinese Super League" was forced to ......

"Speaking of which, this change in Japanese Go actually has a lot to do with Xiaoqiang, it is precisely because you suppress Japanese chess players too hard, so that they clearly realize that they are no longer the first in the world, and your popularity in Japan is high. Japan's "Chessway" magazine even launched a poll, asking which one would everyone prefer to watch compared to Li Xiaoqiang's game and the "Big Triple Crown" game? Most of the chess fans voted that they would prefer to watch your game. It is precisely because of this that the Japanese chess world is willing to make changes this time. ”

Li Xiaoqiang smiled when he heard this, and he knew about the vote of the Japanese "Qidao" magazine. But at this time he was reluctant to say more.

"Team Leader, let's watch the game, let's watch that game today...... Hey? Gu Dali's kid is against Yamashiro Hong, this is a test for Dali, I want to take a good look at this game of chess, to see if Dali's brute force can pass the "infiltration flow" level. ”

There are a total of 5 rounds of qualifiers for the "Samsung Cup", and today is the 3rd round. Several members of the Chinese national junior team, like several of South Korea's new talents, performed quite impressively in the first two rounds. However, the further back in the game, the stronger the opponent will become. For the up-and-coming players, now comes the real test.

"Do you look at that plate? I would like to watch this ......" Team Leader Hua joked with Li Xiaoqiang: "...... I thought you would be interested in this game as well. ”

Li Xiaoqiang turned his head to look at the game that Team Leader Hua was concerned about:

Yukari Umezawa VS Xu Ying. (To be continued.) )