LOL: Can’t I play other games professionally?

Chapter 424: Two First Dan Advance to the Round of 32?
Black makes a low right corner approach move, and White makes a small knight's move.

After Lin Ruo finished dismantling his piece, Su Erma followed suit and moved to the lower left corner to attach to the black piece.

Black forces White to retreat, White responds with a small, sharp move.

Stick it on, then stick it on again, and the little point is finished.

Surma launched his first offensive, aiming to force Black to jump in the upper area, thereby gaining the initiative to make a corner approach in the upper left area and replicate the effective attack.

But Lin Ruo was not about to let him have his way. With lightning speed, he made a corner move next to the white stones in the upper right corner, completely ignoring the potential predicament in the lower left corner.

He wasn't worried that by not jumping, White would be able to capture his corner.

If White dares to capture a piece and fails to recover in time, then White can create a pincer attack on White's pieces in the area by making another corner approach in the symmetrical direction of the upper right.

Commonly known as the Double Swallow.

By using the pincer movement formed by the two flanks, one can both compress the opponent's development space and lay the groundwork for future expansion of power.

Even if we don't play the double swallow move, and assuming that Surma really dares to capture his corner, Lin Ruo has many ways to prevent White from completely capturing the pieces.

Faced with this situation, Surma thought for a moment and chose to temporarily give up on capturing the corner, and made the simplest solution, which was to press down and gain ground through local exchanges.

Black moves the board, White moves the board.

Pull up the corner, then hold it in place.

Both sides used very common, old-fashioned techniques, with mostly predictable steps.

Lin Ruo then stopped there, preserving the original shape and switching to connecting pieces in the upper left corner, forming a solid single-point defense.

By placing pieces in high positions, it becomes easier to develop influence in the center or on the edges. Lin Ruo's strategy became much clearer. Compared to developing in the corners, he focused more on figuring out the external influence.

In the Wild Fox Go live stream, the commentators kept their eyes glued to the changing moves of the game.

Lin Ruo's moves were still the same, too fast, and several of her moves were quite novel, completely different from her usual style.

Even the Go viewers in the live stream could tell that Lin Ruo's moves were more casual than innovative.

It seemed as if he didn't take the opponent seriously at all. As the saying goes, he was all-out and unrestrained. Apart from the first two moves, Lin Ruo was extremely reckless.

After a few correct responses and exchanges, the subsequent moves completely confused the game, resembling a chaotic brawl.

"Lin Ruo, a first-dan player, seems to have made a bad move. In fact, White has gained more territory this way."

"However, those two moves later were good; they really helped to reduce the overall pressure on White's position."

The commentator's voice became very fast. Coincidentally, Lin Ruo not only descended quickly, but also moved at varying speeds, demonstrating her mastery of the art of escape.

In fact, in Go competitions, players playing quickly is a good thing for most commentators.

After all, because there is time allotted, especially in major world tournaments, it is reasonable for players to spend more than half an hour thinking about a single move, which is within the rules.

Therefore, for commentators, it is especially important to ensure that they have something to say during the players' long thinking time, without making the audience feel that they are just rambling.

This really tests the commentator's analytical skills and basic ability to handle long scenes.

In short, it's about how to reasonably extend the runtime without the audience noticing.

Lin Ruo, on the other hand, makes the commentary less complicated, because each of his moves so far has been completed within one minute.

As a result, there is no possibility that the commentators in Yefox's live stream need to pad their commentary time. On the contrary, what we should be more worried about now is that before we can finish explaining the previous move, Lin Ruo will make his next move.

Fortunately, Sulma's gentle pace effectively balanced the game between the two, allowing the commentators to keep up with the situation while also having room to avoid wasting time.

This match is arguably the most suitable for commentary, bar none.

Compared to this.

Meanwhile, the game between Japanese prodigy Sumire Nakamura and Chinese Go player Wang Chenxing, a 5-dan professional, was much more agonizing for the commentators. In just over a hundred moves, both players spent a full half hour contemplating each crucial move.

Two and a half hours, that's one hour.

In other words, the commentator has to analyze two moves of the game for an hour. Who knows how the Wild Fox commentator got through that hour of breaks?

This perfectly explains why various Go competitions nowadays require a two-partner system, with different skill categories: one responsible for creating a lively atmosphere, and the other for demonstrating professional skills.

That's how they managed to endure the long period of time and make it to the final stage of the competition.

Commentators like Zhan Ying are clearly there to lighten the mood. Anyway, when Lin Ruo watched Go matches online in her previous life, the commentary partners with Zhan Ying were basically retired national-level players.

If someone so professional can't possibly lighten the mood, then who is? Need I say more?
However, that's not the issue the audience is discussing right now. During the match, many viewers noticed something quite obvious.

That's why this ten-year-old prodigy from Japan is truly remarkable.

[Am I seeing things? She's actually evenly matched with Wang Chenxing, a 5-dan player?]

Indeed, the initial setup was flawless, without any missteps.

[Ten years old, only ten years old! To play like this in his first international competition is truly terrifying.]

[Wang Chenxing, a 5-dan player, is a national team player whose performance among female players is not particularly outstanding. It's already a great miracle that she was able to make it from the preliminaries to the main tournament. The female players who were going to play 7-dan have all made it through. She shouldn't lose to a 1-dan player, right?]

Viewers can only speculate about the outcome of the match, and it's too early to tell who is better in this close contest.

However, one thing does show who is better: in terms of thinking time, Wang Chenxing currently spends more time than the Japanese prodigy Sumire Nakamura.

If the game goes into the late stages, the side that takes less time to think will naturally have a significant advantage.

Does this indirectly suggest that Sumire Nakamura is currently in a certain advantageous position?

The audience turned to watch the match between Lin Ruo and Sulma on the other side. The two sides were also playing very closely, but Lin Ruo was still pursuing some unconventional and imaginative moves.

The two players went back and forth, and for a time the entire chessboard was a battlefield that could be touched.

The pace is fast and varied.

"Lin Ruo, a first-dan player, made a very big move. Without looking, it's impossible to see clearly where she's standing. The gap is too big, and it seems that Sulma's attack has somewhat divided the board."

However, Lin Ruo's next move was quite good, and he actually completed the cut, and it seemed to be much bigger than the cut made by Suerma.

Both dragons are currently struggling, and more attempts are needed.

Watching this highly anticipated match, the commentator from Wild Fox could only offer one criticism: the back-and-forth attacks and defenses between the two players were moving too fast.

It's completely reckless, using absolute offensive tactics to overwhelm the opponent's formation, to the point that one moment you make a mistake, and the next moment I make a mistake.

Actually, there are four words that can better summarize it: "chickens pecking at each other"... It really is very similar, although the struggle between the two sides feels very passionate.

Lin Ruo was completely letting loose, while Suerma was trying his best to perform at his highest level, but as a beginner professional, his level seemed to be just so-so.

[It felt like Lin was just playing around, but he still put considerable pressure on Sulma.]

[It wasn't exactly playing around. Lin Ruo's overall chessboard setup was quite methodical, but his move rhythm was very discontinuous, as if he was testing pieces, changing them if he felt the next move wasn't working.]

[You're all saying Lin is rigging the game, but am I the only one who sees his magnanimity? It's obvious he's trying to provide a good gaming experience for foreign players. He can't let them come for nothing, get thrashed, and leave empty-handed, understand?]

[Holy crap, now that you say that, I suddenly think Lin Gengxin is so great. Is this the legendary "friendship first, competition second"?]

Indeed, look how seriously Sulma played. Lin Gou was amazing, giving Sulma a real feel for the game. I would have thought Lin Gou was just playing along, like he was getting paid.

[But Lin Ruo seems to be having a lot of fun with his moves. Look at those few steps he took; he actually tried to break through using this method.]

Most viewers couldn't figure out Lin Ruo's specific walking method at first, and only a few could see some subtle clues.

That is, Lin Ruo kept forcing Sulma to escape along straight or diagonal lines to the edge of the chessboard until he had nowhere to escape and was captured.

This performance only appeared after 150 moves. After finding another weakness in the white pieces, Lin Ruo did not give the weakness back in a roundabout way this time, but instead began a heavy attack.

The commentator was speechless at the blow: "This situation looks like a sheep's head being twisted; it looks like Sulma is about to be twisted to death!"

In his view, the occurrence of a "sheep's head" turn in a chess game is incredible, especially in a world championship, indicating a significant gap in strength between the two sides.

Well, how should I put it.

As the name suggests, "Twisting the Sheep's Head" refers to a tactic that forces the opponent's pieces to flee along a specific route by continuously capturing and attacking them, eventually encircling and annihilating them due to the limitations of the board's boundaries.

It's absurd to think about, isn't it? After all, how could anyone force someone to follow a specific route, like a sheep being herded?

But Lin Ruo did it, even after 150 moves when he had a clear advantage.

The fact that this was achieved suggests that there was indeed some hidden foreshadowing beforehand, which explains why Lin Ruo made many unavoidable mistakes and had many novel points in the earlier parts of the story.

Thinking of this, Wild Fox Commentary was even more surprised.

Twisting the sheep's head requires extreme computational power. Twisting so many black pieces, he was able to recover from the weaknesses caused by twisting the sheep's head in various places and even had more liberties than white. He couldn't even imagine how strong Lin Ruo really was.

The last time the commentators saw a sheep's head twist in a match was in an animated film.

That's right, it's the Go-themed animation, Go Boy, where the character Li Muqing was once killed by twisting a sheep's head.

Those who don't understand Go might just find it amusing, while those who do understand it would realize it's completely unrealistic.

I even thought the animation was unprofessional, wondering how someone could possibly die from having their head twisted like a sheep's. But all those doubts have now been dispelled.

Now it's more professional because there are real cases... right in front of you, you have to believe it whether you want to or not.

The match ended not very long, but it was certainly not short either, setting a new record for the longest game in Lin Ruo's Go history.

The ram's head broke the deadlock, a victory that was completely unexpected.

Surma, who was defeated instead of admitting defeat, was filled with shock. He had no idea how Lin Ruo had managed to do it during the match.

He was actually tricked into having his head twisted like a sheep's.

For half the game, he still believed he had a chance to win, though he also knew that Lin Ruo was deliberately throwing the game.

Otherwise, the focus and experience during the game wouldn't be so high.

However, regardless of the circumstances, Surma was very satisfied with the process and result of the match.

"Thank you for your guidance, Lin. You are truly amazing." Sulma stood up, shook hands, and gave a thumbs-up with a broad smile.

He had never seen such a strong player before, even though he had played against most of his professional matches in Europe.

However, he has played against top Chinese and Korean players before, which does not change the fact that Suerma believes Lin Ruo is the best Chinese and Korean player he has ever played against, without exception.

"We've been giving each other pointers, and you've put a lot of pressure on me," Lin Ruo replied.

Both players seemed to be having a great time during the game, which was also noticeable to the viewers in the live stream.

You two just played around here the whole time, didn't you?

While everyone else was focused on the game and working hard to advance, table number seven was making a series of blunders, going back and forth with great enjoyment.

The referees who passed by were shocked, but thankfully, after seeing Lin Ruo's first two moves, they wouldn't be too surprised by any of the moves she made afterward.

Because there won't be anything more shocking than the first two moves, unless it's just a slight difference in the center of the board at the start.

The universe is in harmony.

The viewers in the live stream also breathed a sigh of relief. In the first half, they didn't understand why Lin Ruo made so many mistakes but was able to cover them all up. In the second half, they didn't understand how the game turned into a twisted sheep's head.

In summary, I was completely confused throughout the entire process and didn't grasp the real essence of the game at all.

[It's over, it's over! I've finally finished watching this fun game.]

[Damn it, if Lin dares to play like this again next time, I'll go to his livestream and send him a hundred big swords.]

Don't make any rash promises, okay? What if Lin Gou encounters another first-dan professional next round? Then they could play like that again.

[Quickly retract this comment, don't let Lin Gou see it. Be careful he doesn't actually take it to heart. You'll never know how high Lin Gou's potential is in Go right now, but you must know that Lin Gou will do anything to move forward (for money).]

[Yes, I need to quickly delete it, lest Lin Gou really sees it and holds a grudge against me. So, I'm asking... how do I delete a comment in the live stream?]

[Don't worry, Lin Gou won't even encounter a professional 1st dan. After this round, besides himself, who else will be a professional 1st dan? If Lin Gou dares to play like this against other 7th or 8th dan players, he's just waiting to die.]

No problem, what am I afraid of?

As long as the opponent is not below the third dan level, the joking audience firmly believes that Lin Ruo would not be able to create such a situation of turning the sheep's head around today.

Of course, it's hard to say what will happen if Lin Ruo's opponent in the next round is another professional first dan.

When I think about that other match, there's actually a sliver of a possibility.

At that moment, on another table in the arena, the game between Japanese prodigy Sumire Nakamura and Go 5-dan player Wang Chenxing had reached a fever pitch.

The situation on both sides has clearly shown a clear advantage or disadvantage. Black's large group of stones is showing signs of taking shape, and the player playing black is none other than Sumire Nakamura, who was exceptionally admitted to the Japan Go Association.

This ten-year-old prodigy is currently on the winning side…

(End of this chapter)