In the summer of 2000, after many operations, a Japanese chess player named Yuta Iyama came to China and joined Li Xiaoqiang. Pen % fun % Pavilion www.biquge.info

As the most outstanding disciple of the "Shin-Kitani Dojo", Iyama carries the hope of reviving Japanese Go. But now that he has gone to China to learn chess, some people compare the significance of this incident to Mr. Wu Qingyuan's eastward journey.

Of course, what kind of achievements can Iyama achieve in the future? It will take time to review all this.

When Iyama arrived in China, he immediately threw himself into intense study. Because Li Xiaoqiang set two rules for him, and these two rules can be regarded as the conditions reached by the Chinese side and the Japanese side.

The first rule: Although Iyama has become a Japanese early stage, if you want to gain a foothold in China, this Japanese first stage does not count. Li Xiaoqiang pointed out that he must first qualify for the first stage in China before he can take advantage of China's competition resources.

Mr. Kato and others agreed to this provision without any hesitation. Think about it, as a genius who is unanimously favored by everyone, if you can't even pass a preliminary paragraph, it will be in vain to be a genius. Li Xiaoqiang himself is also full of confidence in this, he even added a time limit on this basis, considering that children have an adaptation process after changing the environment, Li Xiaoqiang asked within 2 years, that is, Jingshan reached the initial level of China at the age of 12.

The first rule has a time limit, so the second rule is hard to say. The second rule set by Li Xiaoqiang is: Jingshan must win a championship in the Chinese chess battle, and this championship cannot be a restricted competition like "Rookie Wang Zhan", it must be a national-level competition, as a condition for Jingshan's departure.

In other words, if Iyama has not been able to win the Chinese chess championship, then he will stay in China forever, and if not, he will be allowed to return to Japan.

Jingshan's visit to China to learn chess became a hot topic in the Go world for a while.

"Is it a sign that the most potential rising star in the Japanese Go world has come to China to learn chess? It marks that the center of the world of Go is moving from Japan to China... ”

Reporter Zhang Da's comment in a certain article is the reason why this matter has aroused heated discussions.

Of course, everyone was hotly discussed, but this incident did not cause much sensation. There are many major events in the Go world this year, and at the same time as Jingshan arrived in China, another truly sensational event in the Go world has arrived.

This major event is that the long-rumored "Uncle Cup" has finally arrived.

In August 2000, the World Go Federation (hereinafter referred to as the World Chess Federation) announced that the first "World Chess Holy War" exclusively sponsored by China's "Tian Yuan Group" was officially launched.

Of course, the "Uncle Cup" cannot really be called the "Uncle Cup". I remember when we were deliberating on an official name, what was the best name to use? Everyone really thought about it.

At present, the most popular practice in the world chess world is to add a suffix to "so-and-so cup". Some competitions are named after "XX Cup" without suffix, including "Fujitsu Cup", "Yingshi Cup" and "Qiuju Cup". And some matches have a suffix added to the end. For example, the full name of "LG Cup" is actually called "LG Cup World Chess Championship", the suffix of "Samsung Cup" is "Masters", and "Toyota Cup" is called "Toyota Cup World Throne Battle".

What is the name of the "Uncle Cup"? Since there is a "Tian Yuan" in the name of Hu Yi's company, is it called "World Tian Yuan War"? Although "Tian Yuan" itself has the meaning of "world center", it is obvious that with such an ordinary name, the big tyrant Hu Yi will definitely not be satisfied.

So what is the best name?

The highest level of competition, of course, with the highest level of title!

It is precisely because Hu Yi has this idea in his heart that it is natural that he will think of the "chess saint", the highest honor in the Go world. Naturally, the "World Chess Holy War" is about to emerge.

The "World Chess Holy War" is indeed extraordinary, and compared to other world championships, it has many things that are different. Therefore, as soon as this competition came out, it directly caused a sensation in the entire world chess world.

"I funded this tournament and never thought of comparing it to other Go tournaments. As you know, our tournament is organized by the "World Chess Federation", and our competitors are another World Chess Federation--- World Chess Federation, because I think that as a more interesting and complex board game, there is no reason why the prize money of the World Go Champion is lower than that of the World National Chess Champion. ”

The most eye-catching thing about the World Chess Holy War is its high prize money. At present, the highest prize money for the world chess champion is 400,000 US dollars in the "Ying Cup". And Hu Yi did what he said, he seemed to be indeed competing with the national elephants, and directly raised the championship prize of the "World Chess Holy War" to the million level.

In addition to the high prize money, compared to other world championships, the "World Chess Holy War" has many things that make it different.

Let's take a look at the top-level design of this competition first, according to Hu Yi and Li Xiaoqiang's early assumptions. The final of this tournament was decided by nine games, including 3 games of 1 hour rapid, 3 games of 3 hours of normal play, and 3 games of 8 hours for each side "two-day system".

For such a finals, many people still have opinions, thinking that this is too cumbersome, and even a bit nondescript. However, Li Xiaoqiang and Hu Yi insisted on their original intentions, and different game times represent different abilities, which is a great test of the comprehensive ability of chess players.

Only chess players who have achieved a high degree of unity in "skill" and "art" are qualified to be called "saints".

The total budget for the final is $2 million, and the prize money will vary depending on the score. If the score is 5-0, then the winner will receive 1.8 million, the loser will receive 200,000, and if it is 5-4, then the champion will receive 1.2 million and the runner-up will receive 800,000. Other scores and so on.

The advantage of this is to ensure the quality of each game. As an extreme example, if the game is tied at 4-0, if it is a fixed prize, the lagging side sees no hope of turning the game around, and the following game may be abandoned, but it should not be in this format, after all, each game is worth more than 100,000 US dollars.

Not only is the prize money for the champion and runner-up high, but also the prize money or match fee for other rankings. Didn't you Japanese chess players say that the prize money in the World Series is not high, so they are reluctant to participate in international competitions? The prize money for the champion of the "World Chess Holy War" is more than the sum of the prize money for the championship of Japan's "Great Triple Crown". Ordinary world competitions such as the "Fujitsu Cup" or the "Qiuju Cup", etc., the championship prize is about 150,000 to 200,000 US dollars, and the "World Chess Holy War" top 4 prize money is 200,000 US dollars, the top 8 100,000 US dollars, the top 16 50,000 US dollars...

The so-called professional competition is to speak with money, and it is precisely because of such a generous prize money in the "World Chess Holy War" that as soon as the competition was launched, it immediately caused a shock in the world chess world.

In addition to the high prize money, another feature of the "World Chess Holy War" is its large scale, the early world professional Go competitions such as the "Fujitsu Cup", "Yingshi Cup", etc., the scale of these competitions was 24 players, even if the "Open Tournament" format of the "Samsung Cup" and "LG Cup", the scale of the "main tournament" is only 32 players. The scale of participation in the "World Chess Holy War" has been directly expanded to 128 people.

What does it mean for 128 people to participate in this tournament? This means that 128 players will be able to earn money in this tournament.

"Once this competition is launched, there is no doubt that it will become the central event of the world chess world, and in the future, the world chess world will form a new pattern based on this competition and supplemented by other competitions."

In the office of Chen Chaoyue of the Chess Academy, Team Leader Hua sighed like this. Team Leader Hua was right. Once this tournament is formed, it will be like the "World Cup" of football and the "Grand Slam" of online chess, and all players will rush to it.

And once the players flock to it, then all the schedules and all the state adjustments of the players will revolve around this competition.

In addition to the characteristics of high prize money and large scale, another distinctive feature of the "World Chess Holy War" is the qualification of the participating chess players.

In the past, most of the qualifications for the World Championship were in the form of "designation" and "selection", in which the so-called "designation" was mainly based on the fame of the chess player, and there was no specific standard. And the "World Chess Holy War" is different. Although on the whole, this competition also adopts the form of "designation" and "selection", the biggest difference is in the "designation".

In the past, the "designated" quota was often allocated to several major Go powers, such as how many designated places China has, how many seeded players Japan has, and so on. The "World Chess Holy War" dilutes the national color.

This time, together with the competition, there is an official list of "World Professional Chess Players". The organizers of the tournament stipulate that the top 32 players in the world will directly qualify for the "main tournament" of the competition, while other chess players who want to participate in the "World Chess Holy War" must start from the qualifiers.

In fact, the "World Go Federation" has been working on the "World Professional Chess Player Rankings" for several years, but it was said that it was "trial" in the past, and it is only now that it is officially implemented.

It is precisely because of the release of the "World Chess Holy War" that this ranking is now particularly eye-catching.

In this list, Li Xiaoqiang is undisputed to be ranked first, Li Shifo is ranked second, Ma Xiaofei is ranked third because of last year's two world runners-up, Cao Yanzi is ranked fourth, and Liu Changhe and Chang Rensheng are ranked fifth and sixth respectively...

Overall, this list should be fair, at least Chinese and South Korean chess fans have little opinion on this list.

The only thing that has an opinion on this ranking should be the Japanese side.

Because in this newly released official ranking, the highest ranking of Japanese chess players is Cho Ji-hoon, who is ranked seventh. And except for Zhao Zhixun alone, there are no chess players who can squeeze into the top ten of this list.

Is the once old Go powerhouse really so bad now? Moreover, this ranking also claims to be based on the domestic chess results of chess players, so many Japanese chess fans question the fairness of this list.

The "World Go Federation" gave its own explanation for this. It turns out that when calculating the ranking of chess players, they used a very complicated formula to calculate the weight of each country's domestic competition, and this weight is related to the performance of each country's chess players in international chess battles.

For example, the same "celebrity battle", the prize money of China's "celebrity battle" is certainly not as good as the bonus of Japan's "celebrity war". However, in the calculation method of the "World Go Federation", the weight of the competition is not only based on the prize money, but also on the performance of players from various countries in the world chess battle.

If, in one year, Chinese chess players as a whole perform well in world chess battles, then in the next year, the weight of China's domestic chess battles will increase. Vice versa.

In recent years, the overall performance of Japanese players in international chess battles has also affected the weight of their domestic chess battles, which in turn has affected the overall ranking of Japanese chess players.

As soon as this explanation came out, all Japanese chess fans were speechless, because the "World Go Federation" stated the basic facts, and they could not blame others for being unreasonable, but only their own chess players.

High prize money, large scale, and innovative format are all the hallmarks of this new competition. Because the scale of this competition is too large, there are not only "this tournament" but also "qualifiers", except for the finals which are nine games, the semi-finals are five games, and even the top 8 games are three games, which cannot be played in a year anyway. Therefore, the organizers decided that this tournament will be held every two years, and in the last two months of each odd-numbered year, two players will compete for the highest honor in the Go world: the World Chess Champion!

Of course, like other title battles, this so-called "World Chess Saint" is only temporary, and the conditions for truly obtaining the title of "World Chess Saint" are extremely harsh.

The organizers have also stipulated that from the second edition of the competition, the final finals will be held in the challenge. The outstanding chess players will challenge the last "World Chess Champion". Only 5 times in a row, or a total of 10 times of championship. The "World Go Federation" will award the honorary title of "World Chess Saint".

Winning 5 consecutive games is equivalent to dominating the world for 10 years, and winning a total of 10 times will take more than 20 years to stand at the top of the world chess world.

Such conditions, of course, can be called extremely harsh.

"Xiaoqiang, are you ready?"

When reporter Zhang Da heard such harsh conditions, he made fun of Li Xiaoqiang like this.

Li Xiaoqiang smiled slightly, others think about the championship and the bonus, but Li Xiaoqiang thinks about something else.

There's never been a better time than now. At this time, some of the "six supers" are still heroic, Ma Xiaofei, Liu Changhe and other chess players in the 60s are still at their peak, and he and Li Shifo and others are in their prime, Li Shishi, Gu Dali and other first tryers. It is rare in the world chess world to have four generations in the same house!

Therefore, no matter whether you are ready or not, whether you can win the title of "World Chess Saint" or not, but this first "World Chess Holy War" is always something that you have to strive for.

Because of this new competition, Li Xiaoqiang's clockwork was re-tightened. (To be continued.) )