Chapter 427 It’s been two years?
Time flies, and soon, another week has passed.
"It still doesn't work..."
In the bedroom, Yu Shao looked at the chessboard in front of him and sighed softly.
During these two days, he did not go to the Shanhai Chess Hall, but stayed at home, reviewing the game by himself, playing two roles, and playing against himself, which is the so-called self-playing.
One party plays the chess style that he was good at in his previous life, while the other party plays the chess style that he has honed in this life to hone himself.
Before the high school Go league, he had also played Go by himself, but no matter how he played, he always won with the moves he was good at in his previous life. Now, he focused on attacking and killing, and finally he was able to defeat the moves made in his previous life in self-play.
However, in general, there are still more losses than wins. Maybe in the next ten games, I can barely win three or four games, not even half.
It was not until he played chess with himself that Yu Shao realized how formidable an opponent he had been in his previous life.
In his previous life, his chess style was extremely calm and restrained. He never provoked complicated battles. Even if he found a loophole in his opponent, he would just observe his opponent's movements and would not find any loopholes at all.
If you use force, your entire army will be wiped out. If you don't use force, you will be defeated without fighting. Your edge will be hidden in peace, and you will hear thunder in silence.
If he wants to win by attacking, he must disrupt the situation to the point where it is completely out of control and he has no chance at all. However, this opportunity is difficult to find even if he knows himself very well.
"After all, it still hasn't reached the end..."
Yu Shao looked at the chessboard and thought silently in his heart.
Although this is a huge improvement compared to his past self, it is still far from what he expected.
After all, although he is moving forward, others will only move faster than him because he can only rely on himself to explore, while others can draw nutrients from his chess records and grow rapidly.
Just like Su Yiming, he has caught up at an astonishing speed.
If he couldn't even match his previous life's self, how long could this advantage last?
"If I can push this attack and kill strategy to its limits, and then integrate it with the chess strategies of my previous life, then in one game, there will be both a profound return to simplicity and a fierce and decisive killing move when the opportunity arises. There will be both the flowing flow of water without competing for the lead, and the constant striving for the lead to achieve the kill..."
Thinking of this, Yu Shao couldn't help but be slightly stunned.
He suddenly felt that these descriptions seemed familiar.
In previous lives, this is how people evaluated AI.
All chess players have their own style of play. There are aggressive players who prefer high-position layouts and actively create contact battles to prevent the game from becoming stable. There are also solid players who play chess as solid as a rock. They suppress the opponent's movement space through their thick style, forming a slow and delicate chess pattern, and strangle the opponent invisibly.
Having a chess style is a characteristic of human chess players.
Only AI has no chess style.
In other words, AI's chess style is the sum of all chess styles.
AI sometimes pursues external forces, can play amazing moves in a row, kill with every move, and create a magnificent and stunning killing game. It can also return to basics, occupy the real ground without fighting or grabbing, and finally defeat the opponent with a gap as subtle as half a goal.
After a moment, Yu Shao shook his head, collected his thoughts, and continued playing chess.
…
…
In the blink of an eye, another three days passed.
There are only three days left before the start of the Phoenix Cup.
Early that morning, Yu Shao arrived at the Southern Chess Academy. After passing through the hall of the academy, he walked along the corridor towards the gathering point for the Phoenix Cup.
On the corridor, two young professional chess players were discussing something heatedly and were completely unaware of Yu Shao's arrival.
"This Phoenix Cup World Championship is so popular. When I watch ten short videos, seven or eight of them are about the Phoenix Cup. I feel like I've entered an information cocoon." A long-haired young man complained.
"It's not that I've entered an information cocoon, it's that the popularity itself is really too high. My girlfriend never pays attention to Go, but she sees it every day. But this is also a good thing. More and more people are starting to pay attention to Go."
A young man wearing glasses smiled and asked curiously, "Who do you think will win this World Championship?"
"I don't know. Who the hell knows? Anything is possible at Worlds. To qualify for Worlds, you have to have made it to the main tournament of the title match in the last three years. It wouldn't be surprising for anyone to win."
The long-haired young man shook his head and said, "Aren't there many examples of upsets in the World Championship?"
"I think we have great hope this year."
The young man with glasses thought for a moment and said, "Let's not talk about Teacher Zhuang Weisheng. This year, Zhu Huaian won two major titles at the same time. There are also those two monsters Yu Shao and Su Yiming!"
"No, no, no, you still think it's too simple."
The long-haired young man shook his head and said, "Teacher Zhuang Weisheng lost his tenth-dan title this year. I'm worried that his performance in the World Championship might not be as good as before."
"Although Zhu Huaian is full of confidence and has won two major titles, compared to those chess players who previously held multiple titles, such as Mr. Zhuang Weisheng, Zhu Huaian does not feel as pressured."
"As for Yu Shao and Su Yiming, I actually feel that they are even more oppressive than Zhu Huaian. They are indeed monsters. But then again, this is their first time participating in the World Championship after all."
The young man with glasses rolled his eyes and grumbled, "You're too pessimistic, aren't you? Why does it feel like the Chinese chess world is doomed when you say that?"
"I was actually quite confident at the beginning, but after I knew that Mr. An Hongshi was participating in the competition, I suddenly lost my confidence." The long-haired young man sighed and spoke softly.
"Damn, didn't you just say that anything is possible at Worlds, and it wouldn't be surprising for anyone to win? Why are you suddenly losing confidence just because Mr. Yasuhiro is participating?"
The young man with glasses widened his eyes and asked, "Don't you mean to say that you think Mr. An Hongshi will win the championship? Isn't that contradictory?"
"That's the truth."
The long-haired young man explained in a complicated tone, "I also know that Mr. An Hongshi may not win the championship. You asked me if Mr. An Hongshi could lose? I think it's possible, but the problem is, that's Mr. An Hongshi..."
"Well……"
The young man wearing glasses choked.
It seems that it does make sense?
Three years ago, An Hongshi, despite his illness, still swept the two world competitions that year and won two world championships. He still remembers that scene vividly and is deeply shocked.
However, to say that An Hongshi will not lose is definitely not true, but the problem is that even though he knows that An Hongshi may lose, he still subconsciously feels that An Hongshi will not lose!
During these twenty years, the name An Hongshi has been too deeply rooted in people's minds, and its suppressive power has been too great.
Even though someone had broken An Hongshi's golden body, everyone would actually make a new golden body for An Hongshi.
When Zhuang Weisheng defeated An Hongshi and snatched the world championship from An Hongshi, the whole country was excited, and Zhuang Weisheng was directly deified in the hearts of countless Chinese people.
But the problem is that in the next few World Championships, An Hongshi continued to sweep them.
The young man wearing glasses suddenly became a little pessimistic about this World Championship.
"And I think—"
The long-haired young man was about to say something when he suddenly noticed Yu Shao not far in front of him. He suddenly closed his mouth and swallowed his words.
The young man wearing glasses also noticed Yu Shao, and his expression suddenly became a little embarrassed. He didn't expect to meet the person who was the subject of the topic.
Yu Shao didn't take their words to heart at all. He walked past them and soon arrived at the door of a game room. He pushed it open and walked in.
In the game room, except for Zhuang Weisheng, Chen Shan, Zheng Qin and other players who signed up for the Phoenix Cup, everyone else has arrived, of course including Ma Zhengyu who is responsible for leading the team to Phoenix.
In addition, there are many chess players who did not sign up for the Phoenix Cup, including Xu Zijin, Wu Zhixuan, and Le Haoqiang, but who plan to watch the game live.
Seeing Yu Shao coming, everyone looked at him.
"Yu Shao, you're a little late."
After seeing Yu Shao, Wu Zhixuan's eyes lit up and she said with a smile, "I almost took your place in the competition."
Wu Shuheng, who was standing next to Wu Zhixuan, heard his sister's words and complained, "Come on, that's going to be embarrassing for the whole world. I didn't realize that the requirements for Chinese title matches were so low."
Wu Zhixuan couldn't help but snort when she heard that, and was too lazy to pay attention to Wu Shuheng.
"There's a bit of traffic on the road."
Yu Shao smiled, explained, and then glanced around the game room. He said, "I shouldn't be the last contestant to arrive, right? Isn't Su Yiming here too?"
"Not only Su Yiming, but even Cui Junzhe, who is 9th dan, hasn't reached that level yet."
At this time, Zhuang Weisheng looked at Yu Shao and said with a smile: "Good morning, Yu Shao, the national player."
Yu Shao was slightly startled, and after hesitating for a moment, he said, "Good morning, Teacher Zhuang Weisheng."
"I hope I can play against you, national team player Yu Shao, again in the World Championship." Zhuang Weisheng said with a smile.
"Me too."
Yu Shao nodded and replied with a smile.
Although he and Zhuang Weisheng are both contestants in this Phoenix Cup World Championship, they will not necessarily meet as opponents on the field.
Although the registration requirement for the Phoenix Cup is to enter the title match, which is already an absurdly high requirement compared to the previous life, there are so many chess players in this world that even if one is only eligible to register after entering the title match, there are still a lot of chess players who sign up to participate.
With so many people signing up, if the competition adopts a points tournament or a round-robin format, it will be hard to say when the competition will end.
Therefore, in the Phoenix Cup competition system, the first few rounds are the most brutal single-elimination tournaments. As long as you lose a game, you will be eliminated directly, and the competition will not stop until a certain number of people are eliminated.
Therefore, under this competition system, if you are unlucky, even the current title holder may be eliminated directly in the first round without a second chance. It is really cruel.
The Phoenix Cup is relatively mild because after a certain number of players are eliminated through the single-elimination tournament, it will be transformed into a double-elimination tournament, which has the error tolerance of a game of chess.
Some world competitions are single-elimination tournaments from beginning to end, with no room for error. A single mistake can lead to disaster, and it is extremely brutal.
However, although the Phoenix Cup is followed by a double-elimination tournament, which is better than a single-elimination tournament, based on the experience of previous world championships with similar formats, once you lose and enter the loser group, your chances of reaching the championship are often slim.
After all, anyone who can make it all the way from the single-elimination stage to here, even if they fall into the loser group, is already a well-deserved strong person, and it is too difficult to break through the siege among so many strong people.
Everyone knows that the loser group is harder to play than the winner group, because falling into the loser group means there is no way out and you can only grit your teeth and fight hard.
Therefore, the fighting in the loser group is particularly brutal, and too many famous games were born in the loser group.
But the winners group is different.
Although the competition in the winner's group is also extremely fierce, because there are retreat routes and room for error, and the mentality is different, the situation is not as thrilling as that in the loser's group, and is relatively mild.
In the end, the loser group champion, who has finally crawled out of the pile of corpses in the loser group after going through untold hardships, will meet the winner group champion in the finals for a three-game showdown. The one who wins two games will be the final champion.
After falling into the loser group, every game is extremely tense, and after fighting your way out, you are almost exhausted.
Therefore, if you fall into the loser group very early, even if you finally make it out of the loser group, in the chess match, the outcome is often that the winner of the winner group wins.
It is extremely rare for someone to fall into the loser group very early on, eventually break through and win the championship. The most recent example is Master Hans from Germany.
After the World Championship that year, a reporter interviewed Hans. Hans called this road the Road of Death and said that he never wanted to experience it again in his life.
In short, the World Championship is more brutal and more intense than domestic competitions in various countries. All chess players want to win no matter what, and they will burst out their strongest chess skills in the World Championship!
"Then it depends on luck."
Zhuang Weisheng smiled faintly and finally took his eyes off Yu Shao.
Yu Shao looked at Zheng Qin, who was standing in the game room, looking somewhat at a loss, with a look of nervousness written all over his face. After thinking for a moment, he took a step forward and walked over to Zheng Qin.
"Why are you so nervous? The competition is still a few days away. Today you are just flying to Phoenix. What will you do when the competition really starts?" Yu Shao teased with a smile.
"I'm not nervous, I'm excited!"
Zheng Qin immediately defended himself, saying, "Even when I became a professional Go player, I knew I'd eventually reach the world championship stage, but I never imagined it would come so soon!"
"Is it early?"
Yu Shao was a little stunned: "You have been a professional chess player for more than two years?"
(End of this chapter)
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