LOL: Can’t I play other games professionally?

Chapter 375 Lin Ruo makes a series of blunders, but it seems like Lin Ruo is about to win (5200, very auspicious).

"It's almost time." The referee in charge of the two-player match announced the start time according to the rules.

Lin Ruo, who had just sat down, nodded and stood up first to observe etiquette: "Please give me your guidance."

"Please give me more advice."

Huang Yizhong, a seventh-dan player, responded to the conversation. After Lin Ruo, who looked somewhat disheveled, finished her greetings and sat down, Huang Yizhong held her thermos, blew on it, and took a small sip. Her confidence inexplicably increased.

Thinking to himself, he wondered if the child was panicked on the way here because he was going to face him, a seventh-dan player with many years of experience, which explained his tense expression at the moment.

It seems that young people still need more experience and training. They shouldn't rush to participate in so-called major world events. Although the opportunity is rare, they should first recognize the gap between themselves and others.

Huang Yizhong clearly felt that the young people sitting opposite him had not recognized the gap between them. It was far from enough for them to participate in the Mengbaihe Cup and become famous in one battle with only the first professional rank.

Although Lin Ruo has demonstrated top-tier talent in the National Games and the professional ranking tournament, and such a person should not be underestimated, it is obviously unnecessary to pay too much attention to him.

Huang Yizhong believes that as long as he maintains a calm mindset, advancing to the second round of the preliminary rounds is a sure thing.

Lin Ruo, who sat up slightly, looked around the arena under the scrutinizing gaze of her opponent. The world-class tournament was indeed no different from the ranking competition.

A bunch of tables were set up with name tags, posters were hung up, and cameras occasionally cut out from the outside. More than a hundred people were just sitting in the middle of the room, and there was no exciting part to be seen at all.

But that's alright, once you get to the main tournament, you should be able to appreciate the elegance of Go.

As the game officially began, both sides removed the lids from their respective game containers to prepare for the coin toss.

Huang Yizhong, who is of higher rank and older, reached into the chess box, grabbed a number of white pieces, and held them tightly in his palm, waiting to be identified.

Seeing this, Lin Ruo also reached into the chess box, simply took out a black piece and placed it on the chessboard.

Taking one is his fixed habit; just like when he needs others to guess, he will only take one and hold it in his hand.

Under the referee's watchful eye, veteran Huang Yizhong released his grip, and a total of seven pieces fell onto the chessboard with a clatter.

"Aren't you tired from catching so many at once?" Lin Ruo wondered from the bottom of her heart.

"I'll play white." After counting the pieces, Huang Yizhong looked up and said.

Lin Ruo responded with an "Mmm," and said, "I'm a hater."

The timer started, and the game began under the referee's record.

Under the watchful eyes of the entire audience, Lin Ruo gently placed her first move on the chessboard.
Sixteen columns, four rows, stars!
Moving to the other side, Huang Yizhong carefully examined the layout, picked up a piece, and placed it in the star position.

After the first four moves, the game ended with Black having a small misaligned eye on the top of the board against White's two connected star points on the bottom.

When Lin Ruo made the fifth move, a small knight's move to approach the corner, Huang Yizhong looked at the game with some surprise. The opening of making a mistake in the small eye and the corner was quite rare.

The biggest advantage of this layout is its solid ground, which makes it easy to break up the game and create a close-quarters battle.

However, while the "wrong small eye" opening looks beautiful, it is difficult to place pieces on the outside, increasing the cost of starting a battle. For beginners, the "wrong small eye" opening is obviously too complicated.

Lin Ruo started by playing this game with him, and 37-year-old Huang Yizhong couldn't help but think that this was a trick, an attempt to deal with him using something that was hard to come by.

However, if that were the case, it would only elicit a dismissive laugh from Huang Yizhong.

As someone who came from the old era, I've noticed that in the past two years, the narrow-minded and low-positioned approach of betting on things from the sidelines has made it easy for the opponent to create an inefficient and rigid formation.

As a result, it was completely abandoned in the increasingly mainstream and efficiency-oriented AL layout. Apart from Japan, which still insists on it, it is now very rare between China and South Korea, which are more focused on confrontation.

In short, it became one of the outdated items after the widespread adoption of AL.

However, Huang Yizhong has a very long history of playing chess, and he is not a rising star who has only emerged in the last two or three years, so he is quite familiar with the way to play the Wuyou Corner.

On his sixth move, White made a high approach move in the upper right corner, and Huang Yizhong, confident in his strategy, began to break the deadlock.

"Why is he using the traditional methods? Isn't he just feeding himself to them?"

Outside the venue, Zhang Ruo, who had come to watch the game, couldn't help but shake his head as he looked at the layout on the chessboard.

Playing traditional strategies against Huang Yizhong, a 7-dan player, is like a child playing against an adult; the actual skill gap between them is enormous.

Yu Zhiying, standing beside her, analyzed the situation with remarkable composure. Lin Ruo's strategy had always been peculiar, so no matter what move she made, it wouldn't surprise her.

in other words.

Lin Ruo's early game strategy has always been haphazard, and this doesn't refer to the rhythm of the game or the control of moves.

Lin Ruo has always done very well in these aspects; otherwise, he wouldn't have achieved a perfect record of advancing to the next round with a winning streak.

Instead, she had a fixed opening strategy, which she felt Lin Ruo didn't have.

Many players have their own preferred opening strategies in the early stages of the game, and they will even reuse these strategies whenever they have the chance. This is both a sign of skill and confidence.

Over the years, when a player focuses on a particular opening, they will naturally become very familiar with its variations and unforeseen circumstances, enabling them to attack with ease and defend flawlessly.

For example, the "Chinese Opening" was first created by Chinese Go player Chen Zude, 9-dan. It is based on the combination of star point and small point, with small point as the main development direction.

Alternatively, the "Cosmic Style" is a Go opening style created by Masaki Takemiya, a top-tier Japanese Go player. It focuses on capturing large mobs in the center of the board and is also known as the Three-Star/Four-Star Large Mob Strategy.

These are the tactics that famous chess players are most proud of. They bring out their best moves, and their confidence is obvious.

However, Lin Ruo did not have such a fixed and preferred strategy, because it is obvious that in all the games Lin Ruo played, there was almost no commonality in the early moves.

Or rather, they never used the same or even similar layouts for more than two games.

In other words, Lin Ruo's moves are different most of the time. In the early stages, his moves can be offensive or defensive, up or down, and even left or right.

The game emphasizes playing according to one's mood, opening moves wherever one pleases, with absolutely no set patterns, because it could very well be full of patterns, you just don't know where those patterns are...

Having learned her lesson yesterday, Yu Zhiying was used to it and thought that no matter how outrageous Lin Ruo's plans were in the early stages, she wouldn't have any objections.

What she needs to focus on is how Lin Ruo uses this strategy to establish an advantage for herself.

On the seventh move, Black made a move to the upper right corner. Facing Huang Yizhong's attack, Lin Ruo chose a very fixed defensive counterattack.

White played a move that involved both sides, creating a common attack-defense opening pattern.

Following the established pattern, Black should have made a small jump at the bottom as the most appropriate move, but Lin Ruo did not follow the rules.

Although he used a traditional opening, it doesn't mean that his moves are fixed.

Eleventh move: Dot 3 in the bottom right corner.

Huang Yizhong, who was holding the chess pieces, was a little confused when he saw this. Changing tactics and formations was no problem, but what kind of formation was this move?

He didn't understand, and he was certain that after he followed up with a move to block, the initiative would undoubtedly have gone to the white side.

So this is a drama of digging one's own grave?
With a slightly puzzled expression, Huang Yizhong blocked the shot, then simply extended his hand again, successfully seizing the initiative in the lower right corner.

On the fifteenth move, Black moves out.

Lin Ruo calmly dealt with the slightly unfavorable situation. The skillful white pieces seized the opportunity to switch sides and return to the upper right corner to punish Lin Ruo for his lack of initiative.

White pushes, Black responds.

Taking advantage of the situation, Huang Yizhong expanded again, completely suppressing the black stones' position in the local area.

Black crawls in the next move, and White calmly extends again, successfully blocking Black's upper right corner layout and making its own shape quite solid.

Having passively gained the initiative, Lin Ruo decisively shifted the battle to the lower left corner to engage in a corner-hanging move, while White responded by flying to the lower right corner in response.

Huang Yizhong's move was very thoughtful. Since White had already gained a solid position in the upper right corner, if White wanted to advance further, it would need to establish a presence in the center to leverage its strength on both sides.

However, before that, he must first block the black stones' starting position in the lower right corner. Only in this way can he ensure the success of the central layout.

Therefore, Huang Yizhong decisively flew to seal off the lower right corner. However, blocking with a small point could not achieve the maximum effect. Black could make a proper push, but once a direct flying press was made, it would be difficult for Black to have any chance of making a comeback in the lower right corner.

Within just the first twenty moves, Lin Ruo's real-time win rate began to drop sharply.

"What is he doing? Did he not sleep all night after beating his senior sister yesterday, so he's dizzy and made such a bad move?" Wu Yiming, watching from the sidelines, was completely bewildered, and even thought that she could do better than Lin Ruo today.

Feeling hurt again for no reason, Yu Zhiying tried to calm herself down and also tried to imitate Lin Ruo's moves to find out the intention behind them.

But the result is obvious: Lin Ruo made a completely wrong move, leading to the current unfavorable situation. Otherwise, she couldn't understand what reason Lin Ruo would have for making that move.

At this moment, Huang Yizhong, a 7-dan player, already had a confident mindset. In all his years of playing, he had never encountered such an easy game. He had created a considerable advantage in less than thirty moves. It seems that young people are still young; they need more practice.

The twenty-fifth move: dot three in the bottom right corner.

Without hesitation, Lin Ruo reacted very quickly, his hand moving to a new position. His chess moves required almost no thought whatsoever.

This inevitably put Huang Yizhong to think. Although he had previously thought Lin Ruo was playing chess haphazardly, this move was indeed very farsighted.

White blocks, Black crawls over, and Huang Yizhong, who turns back, makes another significant single extension, continuing the relentless pursuit and attack.

Lin Ruo, who did not follow the usual path, did not play outside the first move because White had the advantage of capturing stones. Instead, she made a move that foresaw a possible attack to cut off the opponent's pieces.

However, as the white stones rose up later, it became the key point in the shifting balance of power between the two sides.

"Lin Ruo, a first-dan player, didn't seem to play very well here either. White still managed to block, which made the situation a bit bad."

On the Zhanqi platform, many Go-related streamers are broadcasting today's matches, with most of the attention focused on the contest between Lin Ruo, a first-dan player, and Huang Yi, a seventh-dan player.

For no other reason than that the traffic is large enough.

It's not because the match will be particularly exciting; in the eyes of these Go commentators, the probability of Lin Ruo, a first-dan player, beating a professional seventh-dan player is extremely low.

Now it seems their guesses were correct. After only about thirty moves, Lin Ruo had already made a series of blunders, putting him in a very unfavorable situation.

The plane crashed rather quickly.

[Just arrived, is my Lin Shen (a nickname) about to be finished?]

Come on, just a few more blows and we can slam the coffin lid shut.

[Oh no, Lin Shen, did your license expire or something? Why are you playing like this today?]

[You don't even look at who his opponent is; he was never going to win.]

[Lin Gou, come back soon! It's okay if you got crushed in the Go tournament, just come back and give those LPL teams a good beating.]

[It's okay, Lin Gou will have to come back after this game whether he wants to or not. He'll be watching the live stream tomorrow.]

...

"Ah-choo." Lin Ruo didn't know if he sensed that the audience was talking badly about him, but he couldn't help but sneeze in his chair.

Looking at the current chessboard layout, Lin Ruo, who had been repeatedly thwarted, remained calm and placed her piece without hesitation.

Huang Yizhong was almost stunned. How could you play so skillfully when you were at such a disadvantage? He would have thought that the two of them only had an hour to play.

Not daring to think too much, Huang Yizhong turned his head to examine the chessboard. Thirteen columns and sixteen rows, and he charged upwards.

Black's moves were nothing new to him; they were just back and forth, trying to get him to make a move and break the deadlock.

Huang Yizhong didn't tolerate it and blocked it from above.

Lin Ruo, holding the chess piece, placed it in an instant, making a cut right next to the white piece that had just been placed. Huang Yi was agitated, not because he thought it was a brilliant move, but because he thought it was a complete blunder.

In other words, how dare you do that? Your surroundings are all his white pieces, what use is cutting?

He believed that Black's best course of action at that moment was to make a second-line cut to form a group that could barely fight back, but instead chose to cut, which was tantamount to handing the stones to Black.

Lin Ruo was not unaware of this, but the more the second line turns, the lower right side might be preserved, but if White presses in from the third line, the center will undoubtedly grow bigger and bigger.

Therefore, Lin Ruo chose to cut, which seemed absurd, but as White played its move, it did not plug the actual hidden gap.

The situation was somewhat different; Lin Ruo successfully found a very rare opportunity for survival in the lower right corner.

Sixteen columns and eleven rows, sandwiched together, this is a hand trying to make contact with those below.

Huang Yizhong naturally couldn't let Lin Ruo have her way, so he bravely rushed down to block the black pieces' communication channels.

The thirty-fifth move, another cut.

With the pieces placed on the board, the direction of Black's pieces becomes obvious.

"This...it seems like they've found a breakthrough." On the Zhanqi live stream, the host who was watching the game adjusted his glasses and became more serious.

Next, White was forced to climb to the second line, while Black extended unimpeded along the first line. Although it seemed that Black had gained the upper hand, Huang Yizhong was not worried because of one thing.

His white stones have a support point in the lower left corner, which means that from a macro perspective, even if black occupies the main position on the third line, it is still inevitably surrounded by white stones.

"Continuing like this is pointless; it's just giving away free wins for White." The Go commentator believed a change in strategy was needed. He stood on Black's side and thought for a long time, but couldn't come up with the best position for the exchange.

When he looked at the chessboard again, Lin Ruo had already casually made a move to fill in the corner.

White followed up, and Lin Ruo calmly played a move below the black stone that had just been placed.

From then on, he resolved the most likely crisis in the corner completely ahead of time.

Huang Yizhong, who was momentarily stunned, only then noticed that the corner position was indeed a brilliant killing move. If Lin Ruo had arrived even a step later, he would have noticed the situation here much sooner.

But Lin Ruo arrived, and very early at that, eliminating any possibility.

If he is allowed to reinforce his position first and connect on the second line, the black stones in the lower right corner will undoubtedly be in trouble with limited liberties, and the white stones will be able to easily penetrate and create a massacre.

Unfortunately, there is no such thing.

But why should I?

Despite his own precarious situation, he remained remarkably calm and attentive to the situation on the other side without pause.

From the start of the game until now, Lin Ruo's pause time for each move has not exceeded fifteen seconds, which has increased the pressure on Huang Yizhong.

Although the situation was in his favor, his opponent's momentum did not diminish at all, and his confidence in making fast moves soared, completely unlike the thinking and sluggishness that one would expect when in a predicament.

Too fast, the opponent is too fast.

Whenever the situation is unfavorable to him, Huang Yizhong believes that Lin Ruo's speed of playing will inevitably affect his thinking.

In other words, the time commitment will definitely become quite difficult to manage as time goes on.

Helpless, Huang Yizhong barely gained the initiative and chose to capture on the upper side, and then start from the third line. Although he had climbed many sections of the second line due to Black's turnaround, overall, his white stones still held the advantage on a macro level.

He needs to maintain this advantage and prevent Lin Ruo from patching up any weaknesses and cutting off any killing moves. The best way is to continue the attack.

Correspondingly, Lin Ruo had to run away, and the disadvantageous situation was not over yet, because he had not truly escaped the encirclement of the white pieces.

With a flick on the left, he was met with an extremely aggressive counter-flick from White.

Black moves upwards, and White follows up with another attack.

Black attacks, White blocks, and the situation gradually reaches a heated stage in the early opening phase.

It grows by eating.

Despite being surrounded by Huang Yizhong and facing imminent defeat if she made a single careless move, Lin Ruo unleashed two swift and deadly attacks.

They directly carved out a lone piece at the top.

Immediately afterwards, White seized the key point with a sharp move, forcing Lin Ruo to make a cut, and then jumped out, putting pressure on the Black stones on both sides.

The situation was changing rapidly, and Huang Yizhong also made a good move in the game.

Black moves out from the left, and White immediately attacks the right.

Looking at the current chess game, Lin Ruo deliberately slowed down as he picked up a chess piece from the chess box. After thinking for 20 seconds, he finally made what he considered a crucial move.

That is.

The fifth column, eleventh row, damn it!
The crisp sound of the chess piece landing on the field startled Huang Yizhong, a 7-dan player, and even the referee standing nearby, who couldn't help but take a few more glances.

That was a beautiful, celestial strike.

On the AL real-time win rate chart outside the game, the black side's score surged by more than ten points in an instant, and Lin Ruo unsurprisingly recovered almost all of the disadvantage.

Black is about to escape White's encirclement.

(End of this chapter)