I really don’t want to play Go!

Chapter 424 Everything was a gift from Yu Shao
The young man looked at An Hongshi, opened his mouth, but couldn't quite put his finger on what to say.

"Professor An Hongshi, have you changed?"

After a long while, the young man finally spoke.

"changed?"

An Hongshi was slightly taken aback and asked, somewhat puzzled.

"Nowadays, all chess players are learning from Yu Shao, including myself."

After a moment of silence, the young man spoke again: "Actually, Yu Shao has never participated in a world championship. Even if he wins a title in China, in a sense, he still cannot be considered a truly top-notch player."

"Only world championships can prove a chess player's worth."

"However, because his game records are so revolutionary and shocking, even though he has not yet achieved any results in world championships, everyone already regards him as a top player and is learning from him."

"However, no chess player has ever done what you have done."

The young man hesitated for a moment, then said, "If you hadn't called me, I would have definitely thought that Shiau was Yu Shao's; their fighting styles are so similar."

"Isn't this bad?"

An Hongshi smiled slightly and said, "Among chess players, we should not only be opponents, but also close friends who learn from each other and make progress together."

"But...but..."

The young man was speechless for a long time before finally speaking: "It is certainly not wrong to learn Yu Shao's method, but learning and imitating are two different things. You are An Hongshi."

An Hongshi chuckled and countered, "Perhaps it's really because I am An Hongshi?"

The young man was stunned.

"You may find it hard to believe, but I think that when the world championships start again, there will probably be many players like Yu Shao."

An Hongshi smiled faintly and said, "Yu Shao's playing style has brought about almost revolutionary changes to the current Go world."

"Kimura Go and Hans are no ordinary people; they must have realized this problem as well."

"If I told you that if you can't perform like Yu Shao, you'll be eliminated in the world championships, would you believe me?"

The young man was completely stunned upon hearing this.

If anyone else had said such a thing, he would probably have immediately refuted it. However, the one who said it was An Hongshi, the world's number one Go player. For a moment, he didn't know how to respond.

However, even so, the young man still braced himself and said, "Being eliminated just because you don't look like Yu Shao? That's... too exaggerated."

"I don't think it's an exaggeration."

An Hongshi calmly looked at the young man, shook his head, and said, "I have been paying attention to Yu Shao ever since the War of the Torch."

"At first, I just regarded Yu Shao as an unconventional genius, but later, as Yu Shao's game records increased, I found that this was not the case."

"Many people think that Yu Shaoqiang's strength lies in his amazing and unimaginable betting techniques, such as the 3-3 point, the sharp top, and the shoulder attack corner. However, I think that's not the case."

"If he only focuses on Yu Shao, then he is destined to be no match for Yu Shao."

The young man looked at An Hongshi with some confusion.

"His methods of invasion and reduction, his ways of attacking, the depth of his penetration... are all very different from what I thought. This is not just a difference in playing style, but a difference in our understanding of Go."

An Hongshi thought for a moment, opened the chess box next to the computer desk, picked out a black piece, and slowly placed it down.

Hey!
With a crisp sound of a piece being placed, a black piece landed squarely in the very center of the board!

Ten columns and ten rows, the center!
"Tianyuan?"

The young man stared at the chessboard, somewhat bewildered.

An Hongshi did not explain, but continued to place his pieces, and soon a relatively simple black-and-white fighting pattern was set up in the center of the board.

"To give an example, it's like this part."

Looking at the chessboard in front of him, An Hongshi asked, "Who do you think has the advantage?"

The young man frowned slightly, looked at the chessboard, and after thinking for a moment, said, "White."

Why do you think White has the advantage?

An Hongshi didn't say anything, but asked the young man why he thought White had the advantage.

"Isn't that obvious?"

The young man was somewhat puzzled, but still said truthfully, "The black stones in the center are too weak. They are surrounded by large areas of white stones on all sides. I can't think of any reason why white has no advantage."

An Hongshi smiled upon hearing this, said nothing, but simply picked up another black stone from the chess box, placed it down, and then asked, "Now who do you think has the advantage?"

"Still White?"

The young man was puzzled and said, "Even if Black plays here to solidify its position, it will be difficult to escape from White's encirclement."

“But what if I told you that I think Black has the advantage?” Ahn Hong-seok asked.

"Are you kidding me?!"

Upon hearing this, the young man completely lost his composure and almost blurted out, "How could Black possibly have an advantage?"

“What if I said that I wasn’t reinforcing my position, but rather protecting my own group, and that White was clearly weaker here, and that White should be the one paying the price?” An Hongshi continued to ask.

Upon hearing this, the young man stared at the chessboard with a look of utter disbelief.

An Hongshi's words do have some merit, and it's not wrong to interpret them that way, but everyone can see that it's clearly sophistry.

It's clearly white attacking black, how could it be black attacking white?
An Hongshi seemed to have seen through the young man's thoughts, and pushed the box containing the white pieces to him, saying, "Then, you play the white pieces, and I'll play the black pieces."

The young man took the chess box, looked at the chessboard with some doubt and uncertainty, frowned and pondered for a moment, and finally picked out a chess piece and placed it down.

Seeing the young man place his piece, An Hongshi followed suit and placed his black piece as well.

Da da da……

For a moment, the sound of pieces being placed echoed throughout the room.

As more and more pieces were placed, the game became increasingly complex, and a look of utter disbelief appeared on the young man's face!
Soon, An Hongshi once again placed a black piece.

"This……"

Seeing An Hongshi's move, the young man broke out in a cold sweat, and, somewhat skeptical, continued to place his white pieces.

Hey!
Hey!
Hey!
"How can it be……"

After a few more moves, seeing An Hongshi place another piece, the young man gritted his teeth, still unwilling to accept defeat, and continued to place a white piece.

In the blink of an eye, it was seven or eight moves later.

The young man stared blankly at the chessboard, no longer placing a piece. After a long while, he spoke in disbelief, his voice hoarse: "The offense and defense... have reversed?"

An Hongshi remained silent, gazing at the chessboard before him. After a long while, he finally spoke, “Many people believe that Yu Shao’s emergence has overturned the way Go has always been.”

"They believe that Yu Shao has overturned a certain move, a certain method of play, a certain pattern, or a certain variation."

"That's certainly not bad either."

An Hongshi paused, looked at the distraught young man in front of him, and said, "However, if he only realizes this, then it can only be said that he only saw the surface."

"This upheaval concerns everything about Go."

“In the past, we believed that what we thought was right was right. But after Yu Shao appeared, I began to doubt whether what we thought was right was actually right.”

"Everything that was once certain is now uncertain."

"This uncertainty is no longer about a single move, such as playing at the 3-3 point, nor is it about a single variation, such as the push under the Demon Blade joseki, but rather, it applies to the entire game."

"This is the biggest upheaval that Yu Shao's emergence has brought to the chess world today."

"Whether Yu Shao's move was correct or not is far less important than this question. Even if his move was only half right, it has already overturned everything about Go."

The young man stared blankly at the chessboard in front of him, his mind a complete blank, unable to even think.

"Didn't you ask why I look so much like Yu Shao?"

An Hongshi raised his head, looked at the laptop next to him, and said, "Actually, this is also thanks to the opponent I met online that day."

"He was clearly deeply influenced by Yu Shao. When playing against him, you could clearly feel the difference compared to playing against other players. This difference was not a difference in playing style, but a difference that was difficult to describe in words."

"It was this difference that put a lot of pressure on me. Even though I won in the end, I still felt extremely nervous."

"It was after this game that I began to study Yu Shao's game records more deeply, from his debut to the Twin Cup, and even to the recently concluded Torch Relay."

An Hongshi smiled and continued, "I study Yu Shao's chess records almost every day. I can say that I have reviewed more than a hundred games of each game."

"Although I have reviewed a lot of Yu Shao's games and it seems that I have thoroughly studied all these game records, I still feel inexplicably like I am still looking at flowers through a fog. There are still some things that I have not been able to see clearly."

"Until one day, an idea suddenly came to me."

"What if I started to look at each game of chess from a perspective of complete negation?"

Upon hearing this, the young man stiffly raised his head, looked at An Hongshi, and stammered, "Completely...denied?"

"Ah."

An Hongshi looked down at the chessboard, his eyes gleaming, and said, "Whenever I make a variation and feel I have the advantage, I think about the problem from a different perspective—"

"So, is it possible that this isn't actually my strength? From what perspective should I look at it, am I at a disadvantage?"

"This is absurd, especially under certain market conditions. I searched for a long time before I could barely find a reason. If we look at it from this perspective, I might be at a disadvantage."

"If I were to state these reasons, I'm afraid everyone would just find them absurd and laughable."

"However, when I actually tried it, I found that many of the absurd and ridiculous reasons were actually... not necessarily invalid."

The young man was completely stunned.

He looked at the local change he had just made, and his vision seemed to blur.

In fact, he had been thinking about this game repeatedly, trying to figure out which move he made was not good enough, which led to the reversal of the game, but even after racking his brains, he still couldn't figure it out.

There may have been a few oversights, but it certainly wouldn't have turned a winning position into a losing one.

And now, the answer to this question might be...

Was he actually not the one with the advantage from the very beginning?
From the very beginning, it was clearly Black who wanted to attack White, not White who wanted to attack Black!

"Of course, those reasons aren't always valid."

An Hongshi smiled and said, "At first, I also made a lot of jokes because of these lame reasons, but fortunately, my opponents at that time were not strong, and I eventually won them all."

"Later, I started to look at Yu Shao's chess scores again and gradually gained new insights."

An Hongshi slowly exhaled a breath of stale air and said, "As I get to know Yu Shao better, I suddenly feel that a door to a new world is slowly opening for me."

"I used to think that Yu Shao's Go was revolutionary for Go, but now I think that Yu Shao's Go was actually subversive for Go."

"But this is something that most people probably can't even realize right now."

An Hongshi looked at the young man and continued, "You think my current playing style is like Yu Shao's because you are still looking at Go with old perspectives. In that case, you can only see our shared new side."

"However, when you completely break free from your old perspective and look at my Go, you will find that the games I play and Yu Shao play are still fundamentally different."

The young man was completely speechless.

An Hongshi's words were like a resounding bell ringing in his ears, making him feel a buzzing sensation. As a ninth-dan Go player, he was suddenly plunged into a state of doubt about life.

Like all Go players, he was learning from Yu Shao, studying Yu Shao's playing style, his new understanding of the thickness and thinness of Go stones, and the new variations in Go.

However, he never thought of standing completely in opposition to the past to think about the game. Not only was this idea inconceivable, but more importantly, it was the world that a chess player had dedicated his entire life to!

"I'm afraid it's not just the vast majority of people..."

After a long while, the young man finally spoke again with difficulty: "I'm afraid that apart from you, no one else would... even think that way."

"Do not."

An Hongshi smiled and shook his head, saying, "Then you are underestimating Bencun Wu, Xinhe, and Zhuang Weisheng."

"Especially after Yu Shao won the title, they must have been reviewing all of Yu Shao's past game records day and night."

"Perhaps everyone's progress is different, but I dare say that if they appear at the World Championship, their performance will surprise everyone."

"And all of this will be bestowed by Yu Shao."

An Hongsheng smiled and joked, "It's lucky that I didn't have to face Yu Shao so soon. If I had faced Yu Shao much earlier, I probably wouldn't have had any chance of winning."

Upon hearing this, the young man finally came to his senses.

Suddenly remembering something, he quickly asked, "Mr. An Hongshi, will you be participating in the Phoenix Cup World Championship this year?"

"of course."

An Hongshi smiled and said, "I haven't participated in the World Championship for several years. A lot of new talents have emerged in the past few years, and this year there are also geniuses like Yu Shao and Su Yiming."

"If he doesn't participate in this year's World Championship, I'm afraid many people will forget about a Go player named An Hongshi?"

　Asking for a monthly ticket!

　　
　
(End of this chapter)