The person who convened everyone for discussion today is none other than Lao Chen, the current president of the Chinese Chess Academy and chairman of the Chess Association. In later generations, Lao Chen's reputation seems not to be very good, and many people said bad things about him. But to be honest

, there are a lot of bad things said about him that really don’t need to be taken too seriously.

It can be said that Lao Chen is quite unlucky. The Chinese Chess Academy was actually born out of the Sino-Japanese Go Tournament. During the period when Lao Chen was the dean, firstly, Chinese Go was at a low ebb. Or the truth is that it was not a low ebb.

The victories in the previous group competitions were like a shot of chicken blood for the Chinese people. Compared with the state of the chicken blood, the current situation of the chess world in recent years seems to be at a low ebb.

Secondly, during the years that Lao Chen has been in office, he just happened to catch up with the "Olympic Gold Medal Plan". So for non-Olympic sports like Go, especially non-Olympic sports with poor results, you can imagine that life will be difficult.

Look at those people who criticize Lao Chen or have opinions about Lao Chen. In fact, most of them are local chess players or outdated old chess players. They are the "victims" of the reform and need to bear the "labor pains".

For some people, of course there are many things they say that they don’t need to take too seriously.

Seeing that no one answered his question, Lao Chen responded:

"Old Nie, what do you think we should do about this matter?"

Strictly speaking, Lao Nie, who has resigned as the head coach of the national team, no longer belongs to the management. However, everyone knows that in the domestic Go community, Lao Nie has a transcendent status. He is not a management but is better than a management. This kind of existence

It was perfectly normal to have him in the situation.

"Ah? It's not appropriate, it's not appropriate! Because Li Xiangping has been studying chess regularly, he doesn't seem to be an official professional 6-dan, right? He goes to the World Series finals with the title of an amateur 5-dan, and competes with the number one professional chess player

It’s really inappropriate for people to compete for the world championship of professional Go. But I think it’s easy to handle, so I’ll reward you! People who achieve such good results should be rewarded. This is the fine tradition of our Go team. In the arena competition

There will be a precedent then, so I really don’t think there is anything to discuss.”

Lao Nie is right. There is indeed a tradition of "award-level" in China. For example, Jiang Zhujiu in the first competition and Liu Xiaoguang in the second competition all received "jump-level" rewards because of their consecutive victories in the competition. Even Lao Nie was

Strictly speaking, Nie's "Chess Saint" is a similar reward, but because he was already at the ninth level at the time, he could not be promoted. Among the two titles of "Great National Player" and "Chess Saint", everyone finally chose

Received the title of "Chess Saint".

It is precisely because of this tradition in China that when Lao Nie brought it up, no one had any objection.

The key question now: How big should this "reward" be? Or simply put, what rank should be awarded to Li Xiangping?

There is no precedent for this in China, so after Lao Nie finished speaking, although everyone agreed with the "reward", what specific "reward" method should be used? Everyone continued to be silent.

Seeing that everyone was silent again, Old Chen ordered again: "Old Wang, tell me your opinion."

The "Old Wang" in Lao Chen's mouth is the current vice president of the Chess Academy, and he will take over from Lao Chen this year as the second president of the Chinese Chess Academy, so Lao Chen asked him to speak.

"Have you all heard the rumors from South Korea? It is said that they are holding a hearing to study how to reward Xiao Li."

"Oh? You are planning to let Xiao Li advance to the ninth level, right? Have the results come out?"

Everyone heard Lao Wang suddenly mention this, and the atmosphere finally became more lively, and some people began to ask questions. What Lao Wang was talking about was actually the reform of the ranking system of the Korean Chess Academy, and the reason or origin of their reform was actually because of their Xiao Li

Li Shishi.

After Xiao Li was promoted to 3rd Dan, he disliked the lack of bonuses in the promotion competition, so he announced that he would not participate in the promotion competition. Therefore, when he conquered the country and became a prince, he even won the first world championship in his career.

As a professional third-dan player, this even includes Liu Chang-hyuk. Because Liu Chang-hyuk was an amateur-turned-professional chess player, he only obtained Korean first-dan professional status at the age of 18, so when he won the world championship for the first time

At that time, it was actually the third stage of career status.

So now, the Korean Chess Academy is brewing reforms and is preparing to turn all world champions into 9th Dan.

Leader Hua, who had just returned from South Korea, spoke at this time: "The results are out, and all their chess players will pass. In fact, if you think about it, no one objects to this. First of all, the current nine-dan is not valuable, and Xiao Li can't be promoted to nine-dan."

It doesn’t harm everyone’s interests. Secondly, who would be so stupid to object? Aren’t you afraid that Xiao Li will fight if he shouts dissatisfaction?”

Hearing the words "If you don't accept it, fight", all the participants laughed, and with everyone's laughter, the first resolution of the meeting was passed with tacit understanding.

The resolution is: If Li Xiangping can win the championship this time, the Chinese Go Association will award him the professional ninth-dan title.

Seeing the preliminary results of the meeting, Lao Chen seemed very happy:

"Okay, okay, of course it would be best if you can win the championship. Then there is nothing anyone can say to a ninth-dan player. Now I am afraid that I can't win it. After all, my opponent this time is Da Li, and the final is still Wufanqi. It seems

So far, Li has not lost to a foreign player in a chess match, right? Let’s discuss the runner-up now. First, if Li Xiangping wins the runner-up this time, then we should award

What rank is he in? Secondly, should we award this award to him before the finals or after the finals?"

Lao Chen's second question is actually not controversial. Everyone agrees that it is most appropriate to award it after the game. After all, if it is awarded before the game, then no matter what rank is awarded to him, what if he really wins the championship? Wouldn't it be awarded after the game?

To be awarded once? That is not equivalent to everyone slapping themselves in the face.

However, regarding the first question, there is still some controversy. Considering Li Xiangping's current age, some people think that following the practice of the arena competition back then, it is enough to reward three or five levels. For example, let Li Xiangping become

"Li San Duan" or "Li Wu Duan" or something like that.

Some people also think that this reward may be too low. After all, Li Xiangping has achieved an impressive 10 consecutive victories starting from the qualifiers this time. Among them are many of the world's top players, from Koichi Kobayashi in the qualifiers to this competition.

At this stage, Lao Cao, Kato, and Da Liu, there are as many as 4 top players recognized by everyone.

With such an outstanding record, it is obviously too low to award a low-level professional rank. He should start at the seventh-level career level. He should choose one of the seventh-level professional level or the eighth-level professional level.

Slowly, the latter opinion gained the upper hand.

"If you really ask me, it is not easy to be the world runner-up. Think about it so far, apart from the two world champions Ma and Xiao, the only three people who have participated in the world series finals are Lao Nie, Yu Tou and Xiao Chang. Therefore, Li

The achievements this kid from Xiangping has achieved so far are actually ranked among the top 5 in the country."

This is what another veteran of the management team, Luo, said at the end of the meeting, and this sentence actually gave the entire meeting a conclusion:

If he wins second place, Li Xiangping will win the professional eighth-dan title.

"Hehehe, I think this is good, this is good, the champion will be 9th dan, the runner-up will be 8th dan..." After the results were discussed, Old Nie's big mouth spoke again:

"What did I just say? This problem is not difficult to solve, right? Think about it, even South Korea's Xiao Li can jump to nine directly, so what's so great about our Xiao Li giving an eight or nine."

To be honest, what Lao Nie said was purely unintentional, but his words aroused the interest of others.

"Oh? Then Lao Nie, do you think our Xiao Li is better or the Korean Xiao Li?"

"Hi! Just that guy from Korea, Xiao Li..." I have to admit that in this era, Xiao Li's chess moves are very difficult to catch the eye of Lao Nie:

"How should I put it? After all, he is the world champion now, so I can't just tell lies and say that our Xiao Li is better than him now, but if I tell the truth, I think our Xiao Li's potential is much greater than him.

..."

"Ah?! Old Nie, do you think so highly of this kid Xiangping?"

"Of course..." Li Xiangping humbly treated him as a disciple some time ago, and everyone knows that with Lao Nie's urinary nature, if he doesn't brag at this time, then he will brag:

"Korea's Xiao Li is the same age as Gu Dali, and Xiangping is a few years younger than him. Let's not talk about other things. Just the age of the younger should be converted into a lot of potential. Even if we don't mention these, just talking about chess

Reasonableness, then South Korea’s Xiao Li cannot be compared with ours. I’m not talking about comparing them with people of the same age, but I’m talking about South Korea’s Xiao Li who is now the world champion. I don’t think they can compare with each other.

Today’s Xiangping.”

"Haha, the rating is so high?"

Regarding Lao Nie's words, except for Team Leader Hua who chimed in with his remarks, everyone else knew his temper, so they all smiled and remained silent.

"Hehe, it seems that everyone doesn't believe what I say, right? Then I'll leave it at that. Let alone their little Li, even their big Li, I think Li Xiangping is capable of a charge, just

Take this final as an example, I know that everyone is not optimistic about the kid Xiangping, but I think the gap is definitely not as big as everyone imagined, let alone one-sided..."

Lao Wang suddenly interjected: "Lao Nie, what do you think will happen in this final? Three or seven or four or six?"

"What three-seven? What four-six? Of course I can't say the final result now, but I think it should be a 50-50 draw this time, 49 to 51. The reason why I am a little optimistic about South Korea's Lee is because

For the sake of his more experience, from a purely technical point of view, I think our Xiangping is not bad at all. Even though we almost lost this time, I still say the same thing. I will leave it here to shake the Li Canghao dynasty.

That person must be our Li Xiangping!"

"Haha, that's good, that's good..."

It was obvious that everyone did not want to listen to Lao Nie's loud mouth, so Lao Chen interrupted him:

"Then Lao Nie will have to worry more about preparing for war during this period."

Lao Nie didn't realize it. He slapped his chest loudly:
Chapter completed!