Go Legend

  Chapter 61 The 4 "A"s of the Go World

   "The reason why I ranked Huang Longshi in second place is very simple, because of his terrifying dominance, because his chess really surpassed his contemporaries."

   After Li Xiangping said this briefly, he shut up again. Reporter Zhang Da waited for a while. Seeing that Li Xiangping had no more words, he asked:

   "Huh, dominance? Beyond the contemporaries? Is it that simple? You put Huang Longshi second for this reason?"

Li Xiangping smiled: "Is this reason simple? Reporter Zhang, I would like to ask you, Go has been born for thousands of years, let's not talk about it in ancient times, let's talk about the last few hundred years, these few hundred years It should be regarded as a generation of famous masters, right? However, among so many masters, how many have truly achieved "beyond their contemporaries"?"

  Reporter Zhang Da came to be interested: "Well, let's count."

  Reporter Zhang Da was excited and Li Xiangping counted such characters. If you really want to count them carefully, you will find that there are not many such characters.

In about 20 years, Mr. Wu Qingyuan used 10 chess games to lower all the masters of his contemporaries to "first and foremost", showing quite terrifying dominance. It can be considered that his strength is significantly higher than that of other contemporaries. For one piece, this is of course "beyond the contemporaneous".

   In addition to him, there are only a few people who can barely match him. Among them, there should be only two who are closest to Mr. Wu's achievements. One of them is Huang Longshi, the ancient chess master, and the other should be the ancient Japanese chess master Dao Ce.

  Mr. Wu's deeds are nothing to say, let's talk about these two, let's talk about the ancient chess master Huang Yuetian first.

   Huang Longshi was born in the Shunzhi era, and we all know that from the early Qing Dynasty to the middle period of Qianlong, it was the period when the development of medieval chess reached an unprecedented heyday, during which famous players came out in large numbers, each leading the way. Among the many famous masters, Huang Longshi is undoubtedly the most outstanding one.

  From the third year of Emperor Kangxi, Huang Longshi, who was only 13 years old at the time, began to roam the rivers and lakes. After being tempered by the beacon fire of the chess circle in the second capital, Huang Longshi became more and more excellent at chess. At the age of sixteen or seventeen, he played all over the capital, was invincible, and achieved brilliant records. He was known as the "victorious general".

   At the age of 18, he played against Shanda, the leading national player who has been in the chess world for more than 50 years, and won seven battles and seven victories. The victory over Shandayou marked that Huang Longshi reached the peak of his chess skills in the early Qing Dynasty and established Huang Longshi's status as "chess saint".

  At his peak, he was simply invincible and had no opponents. At that time, the so-called "Huanglong Zhouhu", Huang refers to Huanglongshi, Zhou is another national player of the Qing Dynasty, Zhou Donghou, it is funny to say, the reason why everyone juxtaposed the two is not because the two are evenly matched in strength, but because at that time In the chess world, except for Zhou Donghou, no one dared to challenge Huang Longshi.

   Not only that, the reason why Huang Longshi is "called a saint" is his contribution to Go. The biggest contribution of Huang Longshi's game practice to the development of Go is that he changed the style of Go. Before him, the chess style was narrow and dignified. Huang Longshi made a big change in the style of chess. After that, the situation was open, light and changeable, and his ideas were far-reaching. To use the words of Mr. Takeshi Masaki: "The chess played by the ancient chess players is actually the blessing of Huang Yuetian. Even after Fan Shi and the two, Li Xiangping thinks that they have not broken away from Huang's framework."

   To evaluate Huang Longshi's chess, it may be the next generation of hegemons after Huang Longshi. The summary and evaluation of Xu Xingyou, who was once assigned 3 sons by him, is the most vivid:

   "I send a fiber farmer in the torrent, and embody the gods and handsomeness in addition to the body. The so-called human beings have no form, and the few are empty of everything, so they can have everything."

   "One breath is clear, branches and leaves are born, and there is nothing to ask for. Its dull and boring realm makes the enemy have to accept it. It is free from high altitudes, and it is not stained by a single dust, and it is a state of superior spirituality."

  Tsk tsk, seeing Xu Xingyou's evaluation, Li Xiangping can only say that modern chess players may be better at chess than Xu Xingyou, but if they are more proficient in writing, everyone may be considered illiterate in front of him. Huang Longshi, who was evaluated by Xu Xingyou, said that he "surpassed his contemporaries" without controversy. Li Xiangping believes that the "little king" in the Go world is well deserved.

  Interestingly, in Li Xiangping's mind, the only one who can compete with Huang Longshi for the status of "little king" is a chess player who is about the same age as him. I don’t know if it’s a coincidence or not, just when Huang Longshi dominated the Chinese chess world, an extraordinary genius was born in the Japanese chess world. .

   In the Japanese chess world at that time, Doce's dominance was also very terrifying. His chess skills were clearly outstanding in Japan at that time, and the first-class Japanese masters at the same time had to be given first or second sons at least.

Dao Ce played a game of chess that year, and at that time a "starter" (actually a professional seventh dan) lost only 1 game. The practice of handing over 2 pieces is five dan, so the Japanese praised Dao Ce's chess power as thirteen dan.

   As a digression, this is actually the original origin of the saying "Thirteen Duan". It is precisely because the Japanese said that, when the Japanese asked Mr. Wu Qingyuan to evaluate Huang Longshi's predecessors, Mr. Wu also applied this statement. He said that Huang Longshi's killing power also had the level of 13th dan.

Like Huang Longshi, Dao Ce is not only powerful, but also truly "surpassed his contemporaries". The reason why Dao Ce is respected as a chess saint also lies in his contribution to the theory of Go, such as the famous "hand-cut" analysis method. , which is created by Dao Ce.

Before Daoce, Japanese Go was also dominated by fighting, and Daoce was the first person who advocated the theory of Go that the overall situation is more important than the local. Therefore, he is called the originator of modern Go in Japan, and has a large number of players in Japan and around the world. Fans, and even many top modern players, regard Doce as an idol.

   Two more digressions, the first fan of Senior Dao Ce, that may be Mr. Kobayashi Koichi who just lost to Li Xiangping. Kobayashi Kobayashi admires Dao Ce very much. He vividly assumes that he and Dao Ce play chess. Due to the advantages of modern Go layout theory, they may be slightly ahead at the start, but Dao Ce will soon be overtaken in the middle game.

Because of his extreme admiration, Xiaolin even named his son "Xiaolin Daoce" at one time, but he changed it later. When someone asked him why he changed it, Mr. Xiaolin's answer was very interesting. He said that his son would always I asked him to learn chess, but when he was first learning, he thought that he would say: "Daoce, you are wrong to play like this", "Daoce, your chess is too stinky"

   Xiaolin felt that he couldn't bear it, it was disrespectful to his idol, so he changed his son's name.

The second digression about Dao Ce is related to the later generations of Go AI. At that time, Google's second-generation dog "Master" was publicly tested on the Internet. He played a total of 60 games with human players and won 60 games. Negative record zero human chess player.

In one game, the "Master" made a very eye-catching "touch" move. In modern professional chess battles, that move has never been played like that by a professional chess player, so many people think it is a move. "Dog trick".

   It was only later that some good people found out that that move was not a "dog move". As early as hundreds of years ago, Senior Daoce had played that move, and it was exactly the same as Go AI in terms of techniques and ideas.

   This is another footnote of "genius promotes Go", so it is emphasized again that Shenma "accumulates technology"? Shenma "evolution theory"? Li Xiangping has always believed that for Go, such a thing is simply a "mystery theory", and it is completely taken for granted to believe in such a thing.

"Hahaha, if it is said that Mr. Wu Qingyuan and senior Huang Longshi are the big and small kings in the Go world, then senior Daoce is the Ace of Spades in the Go world, do you think so, Xiangping? Then I will ask you again, on the record, on the Contribution, Huang Longshi and Dao Ce seem to be similar, so why do you put Huang Longshi in the front, is it because senior Huang Longshi is Chinese?"

Li Xiangping smiled and said: "Of course there is this factor, but it is not entirely. I just think that the environment the two were in at that time, the overall level of the Chinese side was higher, and the competition faced by Huang Longshi was also more intense. His level is probably a little bit better than Doce, so I put him in the front."

Reporter Zhang Da was surprised: "Do you think Huang Longshi's level was higher? Even China's overall level was stronger at that time? Your view is not mainstream. You must know that many people think that Daoce may be more powerful, such as Mr. Nie Nie. He once said that although Huang Longshi is powerful, he may not be able to make the right move."

  Li Xiangping continued to laugh: "I think this is probably a prejudice."

   "Prejudice?"

"Yes, Reporter Zhang, you should know that, aside from the specific techniques, the idea of ​​modern Go is actually in the same vein as that of Japanese Go. On the contrary, I think the idea of ​​medieval Go has lost its blood, precisely because everyone's ideas are closer to Taoism. , then everyone will be more comfortable watching his chess, pleasing to the eye, and it is normal to think that he is stronger than Huang Longshi."

   "Hahaha, your perspective is also unique."

  Reporter Zhang said that this is the end of the point. After all, he mentioned Lao Nie just now, and he said that such a dispute will not end, and there will be no end to the dispute for 10,000 years.

   "Okay, you just mentioned the "Ace of Spades" in the Go world, but there are 4 "Aces", what about the other 3 "Aces"? Xiang Ping, who do you think the other 3 "Aces" are?"

   "The other 3 "A"s"

  Reporter Zhang Da's exclusive interview with Li Xiangping continues.

   Sorry, I've been so busy these days. Even Uncle Qi didn't think that he would be shortlisted after spending 3 days to get a random bid. I was busy before the bid opening.

   (end of this chapter)