LOL: Can’t I play other games professionally?

Chapter 380 Park Young-hoon: I Can't Lose
Although she was eliminated in the third round of the men's group, Yu Zhiying did not feel that she had lost out at all. More than a week of preparation allowed her to demonstrate the potential of her best game of the season in her match against Park Young-hoon.

Even though she lost, it proves that she has made continuous breakthroughs in her chess skills. It can be said that switching to the men's preliminary rounds has been very rewarding for her.

and…

Compared to these, Yu Zhiying's anticipation for the final round of the qualifiers is undoubtedly even stronger.

Meanwhile, in the main hall of the chess academy, as all the third-round matches concluded before 13 p.m., the atmosphere became noisy again.

As one of the highest-ranked players in the preliminaries, and having defeated the top female player Yu Zhiying to advance to the final round, Park Young-hoon attracted the attention of most media reporters at the scene.

On-site interviews are unavoidable after many Go matches, and Park Young-hoon naturally had no reason to refuse.

Throughout the interviews, the media reporters, who were desperately looking for sensational stories, asked questions that were neither about his feelings about playing against Yu Zhiying, nor about his evaluation of the preliminary rounds of the China tour.

They know better than anyone what constitutes the most valuable news story.

"Park Young-hoon 9-dan, do you know Lin Ruo? He's your opponent in the next match."

"Lin Ruo, as a first-dan professional player, defeated Fang Tianfeng, an eighth-dan player, and Huang Yizhong, a seventh-dan player. Do you think he can pose a threat to you?"

"Do you have anything to say about your final match against Lin Ruo?"

Because he frequently comes to China to participate in competitions, Park Young-hoon, who has a basic understanding of Chinese, was able to understand the general meaning of the media reporters' conversation, and then showed a suspicious look.

"Sorry, I haven't heard much about it, but did he, as a first dan, really defeat a professional eighth dan?"

Finding himself at a loss for words, Park Young-hoon immediately switched to his native language: "I think this is simply impossible. It seems that Fang Tianfeng, 8-dan, made a fatal mistake during the match due to negligence."

"Because in my view of Go, it is absolutely impossible for a newly promoted 1-dan to defeat a professional 8-dan. Moreover, I heard before the match that this player seemed to have only started playing Go halfway through his career."

If someone has been exposed to Go since childhood and has more than ten years of knowledge, then in Park Young-hoon's view, this is still very likely to happen.

Because at this point, the so-called defeat of a high-level professional player by a lower-level player is not considered an upset, but rather the peak period when a genius who has accumulated strength over a certain period of time has finally reached his peak.

But can Lin Ruo make such a comparison? Obviously not, because he didn't learn chess from a young age.

Therefore, Park Young-hoon believes that such a probability is absolutely impossible to occur, and even if it did, it would be hard to believe.

When pressed by the media, Park Young-hoon replied earnestly, "I will definitely advance to the main tournament of the Mengbaihe Cup. Although this Lin Ruo player really surprised me, I will not lose to a professional first dan."

It's normal to be confident when playing Go, and Park Young-hoon believes that such an absurd thing could not possibly happen to him.

He's a former world champion and a professional 9-dan player; losing to a professional 1-dan player could have led to his immediate retirement.

Upon hearing this, the media reporters were eager to interview Lin Ruo and get her to respond, hoping to create a head-to-head confrontation and maximize the traffic.

Unfortunately, Lin Ruo was no longer at the scene. He hadn't run away; instead, he had been taken away for an exclusive interview by a CCTV reporter who had come to hear about him.

This left other media reporters gritting their teeth in disbelief; the name CCTV was synonymous with authority.

...

#Lin Ruo defeats Zhang Li, 6th Dan#
#Lin Ruo will face Park Young-hoon in the fourth round of the qualifiers for the only spot in the main tournament#
#Park Young-hoon says he won't lose to Lin Ruo#
After the match, Weibo inadvertently became Lin Ruo's home again, with heated discussions about his advancement to the final round. At this point, netizens were clearly no longer surprised.

After all, Lin Ruo had already defeated veteran players of the eighth and seventh dan ranks, so why would he care about a young player in his early twenties who was only a sixth dan?
Even today, the match between Lin Ruo and Zhang Li was somewhat close from beginning to end, which was not as overwhelming as the previous two matches where their opponents, Tianfeng 8-dan and Huang Yizhong 7-dan, dominated.

Many netizens felt that Lin Ruo had gone easy on her, otherwise the game would have ended in the middle of the match.

The victim, Zhang Li, felt this was very real. He also believed that Lin Ruo had indeed gone easy on him. Throughout the game today, he had several opportunities to defeat Lin Ruo, but in the end, he always lost by a single move.

At first, Zhang Li almost thought that he had reached his strongest period of explosive growth, so much so that he performed at the same level and fought fiercely.

Of course, if Lin Ruo hadn't explained the game to him so clearly and skillfully after the match, as if everything was under his control, he would have truly believed it.

In short, netizens nowadays no longer care about Lin Ruo's so-called rank.

If ranking can measure the true strength of any other player, then it obviously doesn't apply to Lin Ruo at all.

After all, if Lin Ruo doesn't play professional matches, and his strength is measured by his rank, he will probably be stuck at the beginner professional rank forever, unless he wins a world championship and gains a significant rank increase.

So can you say he's a professional novice? He achieved his professional rank with a perfect record, and he even crushed high-ranking players.

The world can be so absurd sometimes. The organizers of the Mengbaihe Cup never imagined that they would have such a high-profile episode in a world tournament because of a junior player.

Moreover, this episode hasn't even reached its peak yet. The four-round match between Lin Ruo and Park Young-hoon the day after tomorrow will undoubtedly bring unprecedented popularity to the preliminary rounds.

No one dislikes watching high-level matches, and no one dislikes watching the China-South Korea showdown.

Moreover, Park Young-hoon's post-match interview had already generated a lot of publicity for the game.

That very night, a hot topic of discussion emerged on Weibo: Did Lin Ruo really have a chance to defeat Park Young-hoon 9-dan and advance to the main tournament?

Faced with Park Young-hoon's aggressive and confident remarks, netizens unanimously hoped that Lin Ruo could thoroughly refute them, but...

Just like many online media outlets published articles overnight analyzing the strength of both sides, even though Lin Ruo's performance was quite astonishing, it was still too exaggerated for him to challenge a professional ninth-dan in one step.

Because chess players have different personalities and approaches to life, they develop different playing styles. This leads to the concept of a "nemesis" or "nemesis" player.
Many Go media outlets believe that regardless of the significant gap in their current strength, Park Young-hoon has a very strong style of play that counters Lin Ruo.

Born in 1985, Park Young-hoon studied under Choi Kyu-byung, a top Korean Go player, and has a solid foundation since childhood, especially in the Avalanche opening.

Park Young-hoon's playing style is reminiscent of Lee Chang-ho, but sometimes it also resembles Lee Se-dol's style, showing that he has absorbed the strengths of many top Korean players.

He was extremely patient in his moves, and his calculations were precise and consistent, earning him the nickname "the gentle school." His endgame skills were also among the best of his generation, earning him the title "the endgame death god."

In League of Legends terms, this type of player is clearly the type who duos with a turret, as stable as an impregnable fortress.

With exceptional endurance, they are masters of maneuvering in massive avalanches and their large dragons on the chessboard are extremely difficult to kill.

Lin Ruo's performance style may be attributed to the analysis of his two matches against Fang Tianfeng (8-dan) and Huang Yizhong (7-dan).

Many chess media outlets have categorized Lin Ruo as an extremely aggressive player, with a particularly fierce playing style and an unpredictable and unconventional approach to the game.

This lack of experience could easily lead to defeat against Park Young-hoon, a 9-dan player, who is extremely adept at dealing with fierce attacks.

Therefore, the prevailing public opinion largely maintains the same bias, and it would be truly unbelievable if Lin Ruo could defeat a professional Go player of the ninth dan level.

Although I strongly support Lin Ruo, it's basically impossible for her to beat Park Young-hoon.

[I emotionally support Lin Ruo, but rationally I choose Park Young-hoon.]

Yes, you can ignore the difference between an 8th dan and a 1st dan, but the difference between a 9th dan and a 1st dan is absolutely impossible to ignore. Moreover, Park Young-hoon is still in his prime, unlike Fang Lao who has already started playing for fun.

"It's okay, losing is losing. If Lin Ruo makes it to the fourth round, she'll definitely have a chance to defeat Park Young-hoon in the future."

[Lin Go isn't even a professional Go player, he has no future, he's just playing around.]

[His performance in the first dan is quite good, but Lin Ruo is getting old. Ke Jie would have won a world championship by now. This is probably his peak, and he'll decline in a couple of years. If he can't beat Park Yeong-hun this time, things will be very difficult for him later.]

[Lin Gou is fine. If he can't beat them, he can come back to the LPL and stomp on the noobs to regain his confidence.]

[What are you saying? You're really looking down on my Lin Shen! It's one thing to belittle other LPL teams, but how can you belittle my Lin Shen? You actually said my Lin Ge can't beat a Korean bastard? Have you forgotten how you thrashed him last year?]

[Who would have thought that Lin Gengxin would start criticizing South Korea so soon after switching to Go?]

[Brothers, I believe in Lin Shen (Lin Ruo), because I've heard countless times that Lin Ruo is impotent, but the facts prove that this damn Lin dog has never been impotent.]

[The classic buff-stacking phase. You think Lin Gou is no good? Well, sorry, Lin Gou is about to show off. We suggest you step back to avoid getting caught in the crossfire.]

When viewers from other circles, including the Go community, did not believe that Lin Ruo could defeat Park Young-hoon, only viewers from the League of Legends community remained steadfast in their support for Lin Ruo.

There was no other reason, because they had witnessed too many examples of Lin Ruo's inability to perform.

Lin Ruo could never have reached the top of Overwatch, but he did.

Lin Ruo couldn't possibly win the Spring Split championship, but he did.

Lin Ruo could not possibly win the world championship, but he did.

So here it is, Lin Ruo can't possibly defeat Park Young-hoon... Such a familiar cliché, viewers in the gaming community feel a deep sense of familiarity from the inside out.

It wasn't because they trusted Lin Ruo too much, but because they believed in miracles one hundred percent, and Lin Ruo was that undeniable miracle.

When you don't believe Lin Ruo, he will prove you wrong. When you believe Lin Ruo, he will still prove you wrong. How will he prove you wrong? By performing better than you expected.

In conclusion, you have to believe Lin Ruo whether you like it or not.

In this respect, the League of Legends community is absolutely an expert; there's no way around it, they've been proven wrong time and time again.

...

After finishing the unexpected interview with CCTV, Lin Ruo, who hadn't paid much attention to the outside world, went back and specifically reviewed today's game with Yu Zhiying.

Regarding how she lost to Park Young-hoon.

The reason was certainly not that Lin Ruo wanted to study Park Young-hoon; he was simply helping with the analysis. As for whether Yu Zhiying had any such intentions, it's hard to say.

Because Park Young-hoon is Korean, there would be many difficulties in language communication during the debriefing, which is why Yu Zhiying chose to come back to Lin Ruo for the debriefing.

As it turned out, her choice was correct; Lin Ruo did indeed point out the problems in the game.

Yu Zhiying's playing style is aggressive, and it was obvious that after making a mistake in the early game, she was slowly worn down and defeated by Park Young-hoon.

Even though she came up with many brilliant moves in the mid-game, she still couldn't break through her opponent's impenetrable defense.

"You play chess too rigidly. You've made a lot of common-sense moves, which may be correct, but many of them aren't the best moves," Lin Ruo said bluntly after her analysis.

In fact, Yu Zhiying is also the type of player who started strong but declined later. She was incredibly strong in the first two years after her debut, but gradually went from being a top-tier female player to a very strong one.

Not only are they often upset, but they also tend to make many rigid mistakes in crucial games.

Jaguar may have overdone things, causing it to fall behind the ever-evolving landscape of Go. As for Yu Zhiying, who was once considered a golden couple, it's simply that she hasn't found the most suitable niche for herself.

You say she didn't work hard? That's impossible, but her later achievements weren't as good as her earlier ones.

After all, when she first debuted, she swept aside a host of male contestants to win the Rookie King competition, making her far more dazzling than the current prodigy Wu Yiming.

"Then how should I change it?" Seeing Lin Ruo's confident words, Yu Zhiying had no choice but to ask for advice.

Upon hearing this, Lin Ruo simply shrugged and said, "I don't know either."

Offering suggestions is fine, but as for how to make improvements, sorry, he's not a coach.

This kind of thing still requires players to make changes and transformations step by step in actual games; you can't get by just listening to advice.

However, Lin Ruo still had a way to get Yu Zhiying to touch the threshold of change, because he himself was the kind of person who didn't like to play by the rules.

So it's simple.

"I can demonstrate it for you the day after tomorrow. Whether you can learn anything depends on your comprehension, Senior Sister," Lin Ruo said with a smile.

Yu Zhiying tidied up the chessboard, her face calm as she said, "Are you that confident?"

Lin Ruo smiled and said, "No, it's not shameful to lose. I'm just a professional beginner."

Yes, a professional first dan losing to a professional ninth dan is something that anyone would criticize if they wanted to be subjected to a massive online attack.

At least in terms of mindset, he definitely has an advantage over Park Young-hoon.

At this moment, in the special hotel near the Go Academy, Park Young-hoon, after studying the game between Lin Ruo and Fang Tianfeng 8-dan, did feel a bit of pressure.

He suddenly realized that he might have made some boastful remarks during the interview earlier in the day, because his opponent's performance in the game was indeed very strong.

(End of this chapter)