LOL: Can’t I play other games professionally?

Chapter 386 Why was I able to win? Because I'm stronger than a ninth-dan!
Lin Ruo originally planned to leave the chess academy without looking back, have a nice meal outside, then go straight back to the hotel to pack her things, buy a ticket, and rush to the airport, hoping to return to Shanghai that night to livestream and make money.

Unfortunately, my luck wasn't so good. I hadn't walked more than a few steps out of the hall when I was stopped by the staff of the chess academy, who then politely asked me to come back.

There won't be any post-match interviews from the media, but there will be a small closing ceremony in the afternoon to conclude the event, along with the draw for the main tournament group stage in June.

Lin Ruo remembered that the draw ceremony for the Mengbaihe Cup was always held the day before the main tournament.

Yes, he understood.

Everyone knows how to leverage online traffic, and it seems the organizers of the Mengbaihe Cup are also trying to strike while the iron is hot and use this huge wave of popularity to promote the main tournament in advance.

The closing ceremony will be held at 14 p.m., and the invited participants include a total of 23 players who have advanced to the main tournament, including 19 professional players who qualified from the men's group, and two players each from the women's group and the amateur group.

Lin Ruo, who had the lowest rank among the professional players who advanced, only higher than two amateur players, was honored to be seated in the first row of players by the organizers.

Surrounded by wolves and tigers on both sides, they are all professional Go players of at least 7 dan level.

Lin Ruo felt like she had entered a wolf's den, but little did she know that in the eyes of the other contestants, they were the ones who had entered the real wolf's den.

Do they even need to think about how strong someone who can defeat a ninth-dan player should be?

Everyone looked at Lin Ruo with strange eyes, and even the leaders of the chess academy mentioned him when they spoke on stage.

There's no way around it. As for how to go from a transparent first dan to a terrifying ninth dan, it's very simple: just defeat a ninth dan.

It's much faster than winning a world championship or climbing the ranks step by step.

It's just a bit difficult.

What Lin Ruo considers simple may seem impossible to others. This is something that young players who have just entered the first dan stage and become professional Go players should absolutely not imitate.

Because there is a possibility that one's Dao heart will be shattered.

For more than an hour during the closing ceremony, Lin Ruo sat upright and acted aloof the whole time. It wasn't that he didn't want to talk, but that he didn't know anyone around him.

The organizers clearly didn't just let him sit in the front for nothing. In the final segment of the closing ceremony, Lin Ruo, as the most dazzling contestant of this preliminary round, went on stage to give his acceptance speech.

After all, there is something to say about defeating a 9-dan professional Go player, but more importantly, it gives the media enough opportunities to take photos.

However, it's always a bit awkward for a beginner to share their experience with a group of advanced players.

Finally, the draw ceremony began, which was what all the players present, as well as the top players who had already qualified for the main tournament, were truly concerned about.

Before that, you naturally need to understand all the rules of the competition.

This round of the competition will still use the Chinese Go rules, following the rule that Black gives 3 and 3/4 points.

64强至4强用时方式统一为每方2小时后5次1分钟读秒，超时判负。决赛用时另曾加为每方3小时，保留5次1分钟读秒，超时判负。

Regarding the tournament schedule, all matches from the round of 64 to the quarterfinals will be played in a single-elimination format, with the winner determined in a single match, just like in the qualifiers.

The best-of-three format will be used until the semifinals, while the best-of-five format will be used in the finals.

In terms of other principles, this tournament will adopt a system where the winners and losers of each round are determined by a draw, rather than the regional grouping system used in the qualifiers.

At the same time, the basic requirement is that players from the same country or region should not clash, until it becomes unavoidable.

Since the semifinals and finals are not single-game matches, they will not use the boring method of guessing the first move in every game. Instead, the first move will be guessed in the first game, and then the players will switch sides. If the game goes to the final game, the first move will be guessed again.

Lin Ruo, who was sitting in her seat, had a general understanding of the rules after reading them. Most of the other contestants present were seasoned veterans who didn't need to read the rules at all.

They only focused on their opponents in the draw.

Soon, the draw results were freshly released by the lucky hands of several leaders and invited veteran chess players.

The tournament consists of 32 rounds of matches from round 64 to round 32. The match schedule on the huge electronic screen is displayed in a few quick glances, and the AI ​​system categorizes the matches according to certain conditions.

Lin Ruo took a good look at his opponent. His name was a bit long and difficult to pronounce. Even though he was fluent in Chinese, English and Korean, this was the first time he had been stumped because it was a foreign name.

"Mateusz Sulma, 1st Dan (Poland)..."

Lin Ruo gave up on reading the name aloud. Anyway, he could see the rank. This person wasn't in the qualifiers. It was obvious that he qualified through the European region rankings and directly obtained a spot in the main tournament due to the small number of participants.

The organizers of the Mengbaihe Cup have really gone to great lengths to find a first-dan player who can participate in the competition, even though Europe doesn't play Go at all.

That's true. It's a world-class competition; it can't be enough if only Asian players participate.

Even if Europe doesn't have them, we'll still have to get two.

If Africa doesn't have it, then so be it; there's really no way to get it there.

As for North America, Lin Ruo did see two wildcard players participating, but both had Chinese names, which is in line with the American tradition of using Chinese players to compete against Chinese players in various types of competitions.

Anyway, this should be the easiest opponent Lin Ruo has ever encountered. So, once you get past the preliminaries, the future is bright, right?

This means they're practically guaranteed a spot in the top 32.

Of course, the Polish player he faced should also feel fortunate, because in terms of rank, Lin Ruo was indeed the lowest level in this tournament.

The first-stage competition is fair, just, and transparent.

However, this is just a first-dan rank that defeated a ninth-dan; the value of the prefix rank far exceeds that of the actual rank that follows.

Polish athletes who weren't paying much attention might be relieved that the organizers were really looking out for them after receiving the news, but that's all in June.

After a group photo of all the leaders and contestants, a round of enthusiastic applause filled the hall, officially concluding the closing ceremony of the Mengbaihe Cup preliminary rounds. Lin Ruo, who was about to leave the scene, was once again surrounded and chased by the media.

It seems like refusing the post-match interview is really out of the question.

There's no way around it; that's how it is when you're popular. If you don't answer some questions, you might get chased to a hotel.

Lin Ruo could only reluctantly answer a few appropriate and helpful questions from her journalist friends.

For example, how did he manage to enter the main tournament through the preliminary rounds for the first time as a beginner, breaking the record for the Mengbaihe Cup preliminary rounds?

Faced with this problem, Lin Ruo certainly couldn't say something like "good luck," after all, attributing defeating four high-level opponents to luck would be too exaggerated.

So he chose to tell the truth: "It's obvious that I'm stronger than my opponents, which is why I was able to advance to the main tournament as a first-dan." Seeing Lin Ruo playing by their rules, the media reporters present were overjoyed. Just the sentence "I'm stronger than my opponents" could generate so many topics.

For example, Lin Ruo believed that his strength had reached the ninth dan level or even surpassed most ninth dan levels.

Lin Ruo's opponent was Park Young-hoon, a 9-dan player. Since he claimed to be stronger than Park Young-hoon, there was no question that he was above 9-dan.

Such news, once released, will undoubtedly generate a huge amount of buzz, if not an explosion.

"Lin Ruo, you've only just become a first dan and you've already defeated a ninth dan. Are you confident that you can become one of the top players in Chinese Go, or even challenge for the number one spot?"

"And Lin Ruo, have you considered leaving the League of Legends esports scene to pursue a professional Go career?"

As expected, after gaining benefits, the media reporters became increasingly bold in their questions, to which Lin Ruo commented that whether she was first or not was actually irrelevant.

After all, he's a man who's all about money. But it seems like if you want to make money, you have to be number one, otherwise how can you earn so much?

As for leaving the league to switch to Go, let's talk about that when he wins five world championships and forces Lee to retire early.

If you can't even become the best player in League of Legends, who has time to become the best player in Go?

After returning to the hotel in the afternoon and packing her things, Lin Ruo took a plane back to Shanghai overnight.

Finally, before midnight, he returned to the club with his bag on his back and stepped into the familiar training room: "Kids, I'm back."

"Huh, where's Kai?" Lin Ruo was still disappointed not to see Ming Kai patrolling back and forth in the training room like a security guard.

Of course, he didn't miss Ancestor Seven; he just missed Ancestor Seven's kind words of "brother who accepts defeat in a bet."

However, Mingkai is a very stubborn person and would definitely not be willing to call him "big brother" in front of others, so Lin Ruo took out her phone to wait for a message.

As expected, Ming Kai, who had no idea that Lin Ruo was back, transferred money in the bathroom that very night. It was just the money for a few dozen big swords, wasn't it? Kai would rather pay to avoid trouble than bow down and call him "big brother" in front of everyone.

He's not a college student who needs Lin Ruo to bring him food, so why is he calling him "big brother" for no reason?

"The God of Go is back! When are you going to win the world championship?" The team members teased Lin Ruo, with a hint of sincerity in their words.

Since Lin Ruo defeated a professional 9-dan player, they really can't disbelieve that he'll win the world championship.

Lin Ruo responded calmly with a smile. He had already shown off enough outside today, so he wouldn't bother showing off anymore. It would be better for him to sit comfortably in his gaming chair and relax.

Because there is still the final round of the regular season tomorrow, the team members are currently training intensively.

Lin Ruo also keeps an eye on the standings during the competition. EDG has won three and lost one of their four regular season games. Although their first win was broken, and although every game is a full match and it's not easy to win, it's still okay.

As long as he doesn't end up with a five-game losing streak as he envisioned, maximizing his negative publicity, then he'll consider it a success.

With only an hour left until midnight, it wouldn't hurt to do a short live stream to chat with my loyal fans and share my joy.

As a professional streamer, Lin Ruo started his live stream as quickly as possible, not wanting to miss any opportunity to get fans to send him virtual gifts.

Seeing Lin Ruo return to the live stream so promptly, the netizens who entered the room unleashed a torrent of witty remarks they had prepared beforehand.

[Just arrived. Is this the live stream of Lin Shen, the most popular and strongest player in the Mengbaihe Cup qualifiers, who defeated a professional 9-dan to make history by entering the main tournament as a 1-dan?]

Why add so many adjectives? Is this the live stream of the future number one Go player in China?

[Remove the question mark. I told you to remove the question mark! Is there any objection to me, Lin Shen, becoming the number one Go player in China? Even the Korean national team players have defeated me, and you still dare to question it?]

[This is ridiculous. He thinks he can become the number one player in China just because he defeated a professional 9-dan? At best, Lin Ruo can only be the number one player in the world for a short time. With his strength, he can only ever be the number one player in the world. I'm putting my words on this.]

[You've already drawn your knife, and then you tell me there's a plot twist? Fine, let's give our ally a proper burial.]

[Holy crap, this guy's livestream is full of trolls, am I the only one who isn't?]

[As everyone knows, ordinary people won't say "there are scumbags everywhere" to distance themselves from being scumbags; only real scumbags would call others scumbags. Little Blackie's showing his true colors now.]

…Forehead.

After nearly 20 minutes, seeing that the live stream was filled with nothing but frivolous talk and no sign of any true fans sending him gifts, Lin Ruo quietly and swiftly ended the stream with the screen going black.

Forget it, I should go take a shower and get some rest. I received quite a few cash-back swords from Mingkai, so I've actually made enough today.

One should learn to be content, so Lin Ruo's demands were not high; he would stop once he earned a billion.

Well, that's really not high at all. After all, if someone's small goal is to earn 100 million, then it's only natural for them to have a big goal of earning 1 billion.

Lin Ruo, who went to bed early and got up early as usual and continued to broadcast live, did not travel with the team to the Shanghai Arena to prepare for the final home game, even though he would not be playing in the last round of the competition.

EDG's final opponent was OMG, who had completely fallen into darkness and lost all their light. With Ai Luoli's passionate performance, they successfully swept the first point in the first game.

Clearly, OMG was unable to stop EDG from securing a victory and ending the match today.

However, OMG, who had already been eliminated from the playoffs, once again tried to control the variables by bringing up World6, and actually won a game against EDG, who were in mediocre form, to even the score.

However, even without Lin Ruo, EDG still managed to win the decisive match, just like the previous four games.

Although EDG struggled to win, they still won decisively.

At this point, the LPL regular season came to a close. Because he didn't play in the last five games, Lin Ruo handed over the regular season MVP to Rookie, the mid laner of IG who performed well in the Spring Split, by a margin of one MVP award.

With this, the LPL regular season standings, which have lasted for more than three months, have been finalized, and the top four teams in each division will advance to the final playoffs.

In the Western Conference, EDG leads with one loss, followed by Snake, blg, and WE, who stumbled back to form later in the season.

In short, it's like an invincible EDG team carrying three kids who are still in their infancy.

After all, Lin Ruo, as someone who had been through it all, certainly knew their strengths; in any case, none of them would make it into the top four.

In the highly competitive Eastern Conference, besides the consistently strong IG, RNG, who made a strong comeback midway through the season, successfully snatched second place from RW with a slight point difference, gaining control of the playoffs.

The star-studded RW team finished third, while this year's biggest dark horse, JDG, dominated fourth place.

Following the established principle of pitting the third-seeded teams from the East and West against the fourth-seeded teams from the West, the exciting playoffs will quickly commence after a short two-day break.

(End of this chapter)