After Li Xiaoqiang and Yukari Umezawa played a special match, Yukari Umezawa was led away by Zhao Dabao, while Li Xiaoqiang stayed in the court to continue to pay attention to other matches.

The story of this game of chess is unknown to no one else, and the official record of "Li Xiaoqiang's 6 and a half defeats Yukari Umezawa" is not very conspicuous. The significance of this game of chess to the two of them is only known to the parties themselves.

The game ended a little after 4 p.m., so it can be said that even the end time was very normal. At this time, the whole arena is in full swing, and most of the matches are not over yet.

Li Xiaoqiang swept the entire arena, and then slipped to the sidelines of the match between Naoto Hikosaka of Japan and Mu Jinshuo of South Korea and stopped to watch.

The reason why Li Xiaoqiang chose to watch this game of chess is not without reason. The "early storm" was originally the hot spot of this competition, and Mu Jin-seok was one of the two new Korean chess players who entered the main match of this year's "Samsung Cup".

Another reason is because of Naoto Hikosaka's nine dans. After the end of the "Samsung Cup", it will soon be the semi-finals of the "Fujitsu Cup", although the vast majority of people think that it is difficult for Mr. Hikosaka Naoto to pose a substantial threat to Li Xiaoqiang, but he never despises any opponent, which is a good habit that Li Xiaoqiang has developed for many years. He is now coming to watch Naoto Hikosaka's nine-dan match, which actually means "spying on the enemy".

may be because he was too nervous to participate in the World Series for the first time, and when Li Xiaoqiang came to watch the chess, Mu Zhenshuo's situation was already very bad. Li Xiaoqiang made a simple judgment and found that Naoto Hikosaka, who was in charge of black, had a victory close to 15 on the board.

"How can it be so bad?" Even Li Xiaoqiang, who was watching the battle from the sidelines, was a little surprised. Li Xiaoqiang looked at the previous process of the chess game, thinking that this was caused by nervousness, especially in the layout stage, Mu Zhenshuo, who was in charge of white, was too restrained, and completely followed the rhythm of the opponent.

By the time he came to his senses and began to provoke everywhere, it was already too late, Naoto Hikosaka Jiudan gave full play to the Japanese Benge School chess player's ability to judge clearly, and he was not entangled with the opponent locally at all.

"The layout of the Koreans really doesn't seem to be good. Especially when playing white, their young chess players really don't know how to play......" Li Xiaoqiang, who was watching the game from the side, sighed in his heart.

From Cao Yanzi to Li Shifo, and then from Li Shifo to Li Shishi, it can be said that the layout level of several generations of Korean Go leaders is not good. This is also the main reason for the overall weakness of Korean chess players. However, due to the fact that in real history, Korean Go is strong as a whole, and they rely on the middle and back games to win the world. It also caused a tendency in the chess world of later generations to despise the layout, and this tendency even affected Chinese chess players. This is why some young Chinese chess players think that the "layout is useless" theory. But Li Xiaoqiang still believes that this view is extremely wrong.

There are many people who believe that the level of Go in later generations has been greatly improved, but Li Xiaoqiang has always thought that this statement is debatable. Because that kind of improvement is only a partial improvement in Go, from the overall point of view of Go, the later generations of Go have not made substantial progress on the whole due to the lack of layout level.

Soon after Li Xiaoqiang came over to watch the game, the game ended. In the end, Naoto Hikosaka and Kudan defeated South Korea's young up-and-coming Mu Jinshuo with a 7-and-a-half-mesh advantage. The two players saw Li Xiaoqiang come to watch the game, and after the game, they warmly invited Li Xiaoqiang to review together. Among them, especially Mu Zhenshuo, his fluent Chinese surprised Li Xiaoqiang.

In real history, Mu Jinshuo was one of the first Korean chess players to join China's "Weijia". And he is not like Li Shifo and others, he only plays a few games a year, he participates almost the whole process, and is the absolute main force of the Shancheng team to win the "Weijia" seven consecutive championships that year, and was affectionately called "Mumu" by many Chinese chess fans back then. He and another chess player, Park Jung-seok, are considered to be famous "China experts" among Korean chess players.

Li Xiaoqiang and Mu Jinshuo talked, and Mu Jinshuo said that many young Korean chess players are now trying to learn Chinese.

As for the reason, the reason makes Li Xiaoqiang very proud.

Because he said that the reason why young Korean chess players learn Chinese is actually the same as when Chinese chess players learned Japanese.

After laying out a few ideas of his own during the review, Li Xiaoqiang politely said goodbye to the two players and turned to watch other matches.

By this time, most of the matches were over, and on the whole, the first round of matches could be said to be uneventful, and most of the strong players who were favored by everyone before the game passed smoothly.

The draw for the second round will be held in the evening after the first round. In this round, Li Xiaoqiang's opponent was South Korean chess player Lee Sung-jae 4th dan. This chess player, who is slightly older than Mu Jin-seok and others, is as famous as Choi Myung-hoon, and is one of the "Four Little Heavenly Kings" in South Korea, and has been active in the Korean chess scene in recent years.

Lee Sung-jae Sidan also has a special identity, his grandfather is Mr. Cho Nam-chul, the founder of Korean Go, and he has an uncle, the famous Zhao Zhixun, it can be said that he was born in a Go family.

It's a pity that although Li Siduan was born in a family of Go, his own strength is not bad, but compared with the current Li Xiaoqiang, there is still a significant gap in his level. In the second round of the next day, he didn't cause too much trouble for Li Xiaoqiang.

In this way, after Li Xiaoqiang successfully defeated Li Shengzai in the fourth section, he once again advanced to the top 8 of the "Samsung Cup".

After the World Series reached the top 8 stage, basically every game was a real battle.

So far, the results of Chinese chess players have been quite good. In addition to Li Xiaoqiang, there are two chess players, Ma Xiaofei and Chang Rensheng, who entered the top 8. Among them, Ma Xiaofei, in particular, has shown strong signs of recovery since defeating Chang Rensheng to defend his title at the end of last year.

Although Li Xiaoqiang won two world championships in Chinese Go last year, he was still overwhelmed by South Korean Go in terms of overall results, and it should be said that this responsibility is mainly on Ma Xiaofei. Now Ma Xiaofei is making a strong recovery, which is certainly a good thing for Chinese Go.

Is a chess player a resurgence? Ordinary people look at his results, but connoisseurs look at the content of his chess. Sometimes you can't see things by winning or losing, for example, let Yukari Umezawa play chess with Ma Xiaofei, even if Ma Xiaofei's state is sluggish, he is unlikely to lose to Umezawa. Li Xiaoqiang watched Ma Xiaofei's recent chess game, and he felt that the chess game was full of aura, and the "light and elegant" horse demon knife was back.

In addition to the Chinese team, the Japanese team also had three players in the top 8. The three players are Cho Ji-hoon, Satoru Kobayashi and Naoto Hikosaka. On the contrary, South Korea had the worst performance in the first two rounds. Only two players made it to the top 8. However, the Korean team's strength to win the championship is still there, and the two Korean chess players who entered the top 8 are Liu Changhyuk and Lee Seok-fo.

In short, in the current view, the situation of Korean Go relying on the "Four Heavenly Kings" to fight the world will not change for a long time. Their up-and-coming players may grow faster, but as the saying goes, "fat doesn't count fat as a child." If you really want to change the pattern of the entire world chess world, no matter which country's new talent still has a long way to go.

South Korean Go is the "Four Heavenly Kings", and the Chinese Go is currently trustworthy in the international arena with Li, Ma and Chang Sanjie. Due to the existence of Li Xiaoqiang, now China's three heroes are not only not falling behind against the South Korean Four Heavenly Kings, but also getting better and better in terms of overall results. For example, this time Xu Fengzhu was eliminated by Ma Xiaofei, and Cao Yanzi was eliminated by Chang Rensheng.

This time it was Cao Yanzi who defeated Zhang Xuan in the first round to advance, but in the second round, Chang Rensheng quickly avenged Zhang Xuan.

Being able to defeat super chess players more and more often, this is the current Chang Rensheng. Now he is just as many people have commented: he is now a layer of "window paper" away from the real super-first-class.

Will he be able to pierce it? When will it be pierced? Now everything is still unknown.

No one knows when Chang Rensheng will be able to pierce the "window paper", but in today's world chess world, he has at least a lot more opportunities than his predecessors.

Immediately after the second round, the draw for the quarterfinals will begin. Waiting for the results of the top 8 battles to come out, reporter Zhang Da commented with a smile:

"Xiaoqiang, this guy, he couldn't guess first, but now his luck is really good when the draw is made. But that's good, he can at least avenge last year's "Toyo Securities Cup" with one stone......

Yes, Li Xiaoqiang's opponent in the top 8 of this "Samsung Cup" is Kobayashi Jue. Among the 5 opponents that Li Xiaoqiang may meet, this signing cannot be considered bad.

Compared with Li Xiaoqiang, the situation of Ma Xiaofei and Chang Rensheng is much more sinister. Ma Xiaofei encountered Li Shifo again, since being defeated by Li Shifo in 2 World Series finals in '96. Ma Xiaofei rarely won against Li Shifo. And Chang Rensheng drew Zhao Zhixun, which was also a very tough battle.

This is the end of the first two rounds of the 2nd "Samsung Cup". With the end of this competition, the entire June of '98 has also passed, and a new January will soon be ushered in.

Every July, the day of the Fujitsu Cup semi-finals is held. After the "Samsung Cup", Li Xiaoqiang didn't have time to rest at all, and he immediately appeared in Osaka, Japan, to participate in the semifinals of this year's "Fujitsu Cup".

"It's been a few years since I've been to Osaka."

After arriving in Osaka, Li Xiaoqiang first came to such an emotion.

"Boss, you're pretentious there, you just haven't been here for a few years, so who will I talk to for the first time here."

Chang Rensheng, who came to Osaka with Li Xiaoqiang this time, stabbed Li Xiaoqiang unceremoniously.

"Hey......

Speaking of Li Xiaoqiang, this is really not hypocritical. In last year's "Fujitsu Cup" top 8, he was defeated by Li Shifo, and the year before last, he was defeated by Cao Yanzi in the "Fujitsu Cup" top 8. The last time Li Xiaoqiang came to Osaka, it was in the semifinals of the "Fujitsu Cup" in '95.

However, that game also did not leave a good memory for Li Xiaoqiang. Not only did he lose to Mr. Kobayashi Koji in that game, but it can be considered that it was from that game that Li Xiaoqiang fell into a slump for more than 1 year.

It's not even that, the first time Li Xiaoqiang had that kind of thing with Yukari Umezawa was after losing in that game. Therefore, it is no wonder that after Li Xiaoqiang revisited his hometown, he couldn't help but feel it.

Three years have passed, and three years is enough time to change a lot of things. For example, Li Xiaoqiang now is completely different from three years ago.

But there are some things that are not so easy to change.

"Where are you now......

Li Xiaoqiang himself didn't know why, he suddenly remembered Yukari Umezawa at this time. (To be continued.) )