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author: li puli

source: sina sports

on the evening of september 8, the yingshi cup go tournament came to an end, with japanese player ichiri ryo winning the championship, which was a sensational event in the world go world.

the yingshi cup is held every four years. the champion prize is 400,000 us dollars, which is the highest among all world competitions. it is known as the "world cup of go". the weight of the champion can be imagined.

if we make a comparison, ichiriki ryo's victory this time is as shocking as japan's men's football team's victory over germany and spain in the world cup.

japan's nhk news made a rare insertion for a special report, which was a bit like being on the xinwen lianbo in china.

the last time a japanese go player won a world championship was 19 years ago when zhang xu (a taiwanese go player living in japan) won the lg cup. going back even further, the last time a japanese go player won the championship was in the last century: kobayashi koichi won the fujitsu cup in 1997.

from this you can understand how difficult it is for japan to break the monopoly of china and south korea and win a world go championship. the analogy used above is not an exaggeration. in front of japanese go, china and south korea are as powerful as germany and spain in football.

even more legendary is ichiriki ryo, a "dual swordsman" (a man who practices two professions)he is not a professional chess player who follows the traditional path. his current identity is an editor and reporter.

japanese professional go players usually stop studying after junior high school, but ichiri ryo was able to multitask and attend high school normally, and was admitted to waseda university (faculty of social sciences). after graduation, he joined the family business and worked as a reporter in the editorial department of the tokyo branch of the kahoku shimpo. while playing professional go, he also wrote articles about go for the newspaper every week, and has been doing this for 4 years.

so some people joked that,in this yingshi cup, a go reporter defeated a group of go masters, creating an alternative legend of the sweeping monk.

speaking of the sweeping monk, among many sports, go is perhaps the one that is closest to the martial arts world, with swords and sabers, martial arts secrets, the huashan sword contest, personal counterattacks... the martial arts world created by the chess fanatic jin yong has too many shadows of go.

the history of the go competition between china, japan and south korea is also a long and wonderful legend like the romance of the three kingdoms. looking back at the night rain in the rivers and lakes, i can't forget the spring breeze of peaches and plums.

china is the birthplace of go, but modern go was developed and promoted in japan. the abolition of the rules of sitting, not returning the number of chess pieces (space), and modern go games were all improved and promoted by the japanese. this seems to be analogous to football. china had cuju in ancient times, but modern football was born in britain.

for most of the 20th century, japanese go was the dominant force, but the go force from china, as the "rebels", also left an immortal legend.

in the past, there was wu qingyuan, a kid who made a living by playing gambling chess in a chess hall in beijing. after going to japan to study under a master, he grew up to be the "showa go saint" and defeated almost all the japanese masters of his time.

then there was nie weiping, a young man who was once sent to work on a farm in the great northern wilderness. later, he became a whirlwind in the sino-japanese competition, winning nine consecutive games in three rounds and making the three top japanese chess players fulfill their promise to shave their heads if they lost...

with the rise of china and south korea, which have successively taken the lead, japanese go has fallen from the throne and become an inconspicuous existence in the corner.

yuta iyama is the king in japan, but it is difficult for him to win a championship against chinese and korean chess players. the japanese chess world is ridiculed as being self-indulgent behind closed doors. if chinese and korean chess players draw japanese opponents in the world championships, it is considered a good draw to be thankful for.

but this time, ichiri ryo won the championship and suddenly released an explosive satellite.

along the way, he won consecutive victories over chinese masters such as xu jiayang, ke jie, and xie ke, which was astonishing.

when talking about the passionate stories of japanese go, we have to mention an anime: hikaru no go. ichiri ryo wrote in his article: "i don't usually read comics, but i like hikaru no go very much. i have also watched the anime version of hikaru no go. many go players in their 20s and 30s are deeply influenced by this work."

in 2016, go ai emerged and humans were no longer its opponents.in the only chess game won by humans against ai so far, korean player lee sedol made a "miracle" move to complete a major reversal, which was praised in the chess world as "a move of god". this name is exactly the highest level of chess that fujiwara no sawada in "hikaru no go" was desperately pursuing.

the rise of japanese sports always seems to be paved by passionate comics: go has "hikaru no go" and football has "captain tsubasa".

in an era when everyone was chasing baseball and neglecting football, "captain tsubasa" inspired a group of japanese internationals. hidetoshi nakata switched from baseball to football, and his successors included keisuke honda and shunsuke nakamura...

the prototype character of "ozora tsubasa" created by the author yoichi takahashi can be said to be a hybrid. it has both the experience of the then japanese player mizushima takeshi studying abroad, but the main prototype, according to takahashi himself, is maradona who emerged out of nowhere at the 1979 world youth championship.

at this point, let's make an analogy with football. this kind of cross-sport hero ranking is also a favorite topic among go players.

if wu qingyuan, who swept the world, seems to be "comparable" to the old football king pele in terms of his achievements and status, then who is more like maradona in the chess world?

"stone buddha" lee chang-ho?

although his personality is very different from that of ma, li's dominance in those days was indeed at the "king level". his 17 world championship titles are unprecedented. so many talented heroes have been overshadowed by his existence.

the battle between lee sedol and gu li is quite similar to the one between cruyff and beckenbauer. of course, lee sedol's personal record is much better than gu li's. his 14 world championships are second only to lee chang-ho. the outcome of the ten-game match between gu li seems to have determined the winner between the two.

with pele and maradona, who can become messi?

ke jie once had great hopes and could become the youngest eight-time champion in history at the age of 23. however, his momentum has declined in the past four years and he has not won any titles.

the person who replaced ke jie as the world's number one is shin jin-seo from south korea. shin jin-seo is regarded as the player with the most thorough understanding of artificial intelligence go and whose moves are most like ai. he won his seventh title last month and his momentum is strong with no signs of stopping.

in today's go world, the chinese players are obviously stronger, but the individual sharpness of japanese and korean players should not be underestimated. shin jin-seo has become a stumbling block with his own strength, and now ichiri ryo has also made a breakthrough for japanese go.

this may be a new trend in the era of artificial intelligence:

the probability of producing an outstanding individual is much greater than before. a person who practices quietly in a corner may suddenly stand out and shock the world.

back then, a mysterious figure named “long feihu” was invincible in online go games, defeating china’s professional go masters one after another, sparking heated public discussion. could it be that there really are magical people in the world who have become masters through self-study?

it was later confirmed that the mysterious sweeping monk emerging among the people was just a beautiful vision, and long feihu was played by another professional chess player ding wei.

in that era, it was almost impossible to become a master by accident, like you tanzhi and duan yu in jin yong's novels, without the training of a master and the professional system.

the derivation and development of the chess world has also formed its own "family" system due to the relationship between schools and masters and apprentices, where you are in me and i am in you.

the disciples of japanese chess player kitani minoru have monopolized the vast majority of championships in the japanese chess world. among the six top-notch chess players, five are his disciples (masaki takemiya, hideo otake, cho chikun, kobayashi koichi, and kato masao), and the other one, lin haifeng, is a disciple of wu qingyuan.

zhang xu and kobayashi hikaru, who won the world championship for japan twice, are father-in-law and son-in-law. kobayashi hikaru is the son-in-law of his master kitani minoru. zhang xu studied under lin haifeng and is the grandson of wu qingyuan. the chairman of the japan go association, takemiya masaki, is the son of takemiya masaki. ichiri ryo won the championship this time, and the head of the japanese delegation, kong lingwen, who was with the team, is the son of nie weiping. kong lingwen married a japanese girl, kobayashi kiyome, who is the daughter of the former chairman of the japan go association, kobayashi kaku...

at that time, if you wanted to become a master, it was very difficult without a good master or a good sect (dojo).

but in 2016, a mysterious account called "master" appeared and defeated almost all professional players from china, japan and south korea on the internet, winning 60 consecutive victories.

later, people finally realized that this was not the reappearance of long feihu, but a subversive change of the times.

this mysterious chess player who transformed into "master" was named alphago in the previous version. lee sedol once won a game against the old version with a godly move, but when ai upgraded itself, humans no longer had any chance.

it can be said that the emergence of artificial intelligence has changed the leveling model of go masters.

the relationship between sects and becoming an apprentice may no longer be so important. anyone can become an apprentice of ai, just like everyone has a secret book of martial arts. how far one can practice depends on one's diligence and understanding.

ichiri ryo said, "i am slowly using ai thinking to play chess, which has greatly inspired me and has improved me. anyone can use ai, and there will definitely be better japanese chess players in the future."

in july this year, another inconspicuous piece of news exploded among go fans, which was quite shocking.

at the national professional go rank tournament, 43-year-old go coach chen xuewei accompanied his son to compete. both father and son were successfully qualified, and chen xuewei also set the record for the oldest chinese go player to be qualified.

becoming a professional go player at the age of 43 is probably equivalent to a middle-aged man who has never played professional football, but suddenly becomes enlightened, his football skills greatly improve, and he joins a professional team at the age of around 40.

using ai to study chess moves is chen xuewei's magic weapon to fight against many dojo kids. "in the past, dojo kids were very strong and had many routines, but after ai came out, these routines are useless because they can understand everything when they go back and use ai, so the dojo advantage is not as great as before. now the most important thing is to understand and improve your understanding of go through ai's moves."

this is the legend of the ai ​​era. from ichiri ryo to chen xuewei, it is like the legend of personal cultivation without any sect or school in the world of martial arts, and perhaps it will be staged more and more often.

the advantages of traditional sects and groups are no longer that important. an outstanding individual practitioner, one person's enlightenment may change the landscape of the martial arts world.