LOL: Can’t I play other games professionally?

Chapter 439 Will you defeat me with the rules?

The Mengbaihe Cup has reached the quarterfinals stage and still maintains the single-elimination system. Only after entering the more crucial semifinals will there be a best-of-three match.

The draw results were quick, coming out less than 15 minutes after the match ended.

The new round of the quarterfinals is also a new round of clashes. Shin Jin-seo has now been eliminated. Among the two Koreans who have advanced, the most threatening are undoubtedly the mature and steady Park Jung-hwan and the very cunning Byun Sang-il.

Byun Sang-il, yes, the man who will unleash that divine move in the future.

He, Shin Jinseo, and Bi Ke are not considered newcomers. They debuted in the professional arena in 12 and have been playing for six years now. They are considered to be among the top five in South Korea.

However, his performance in world championships has been somewhat mediocre.

Reaching the quarterfinals of the Mlily Cup this time can be considered a slight improvement, though not a significant one.

Byun Sang-il didn't even have time to be happy, because shortly after the match ended, his opponent was announced to the world: Lin Ruo, who had just defeated Shin Jin-seo.

This opponent, initially dubbed the "easy target," has now defeated all the unexpected opponents, and Byun Sang-il feels as if he himself is the easy target.

There's nothing we can do; the difference in strength is undeniable.

Even before he had watched the game against Shin Jinseo, he already knew how terrifying it was once he knew the result.

There aren't many people who can easily defeat Shin Jinseo these days. Byun Sang-il-ja believes that he definitely can't do it, but if someone can, then that person is probably stronger than him.

Such an analogy is hard to be based on facts, but to put it another way, being able to defeat someone stronger than him doesn't necessarily mean that he is stronger than him, but to crush someone stronger than him is another matter entirely.

"Byun Sang-il? How come we've run into Koreans again? You're not going to kill them all and become an anti-Korean hero, are you?"

Li Weiqing felt that the draw was a bit outrageous. Lin Ruo hadn't had a single internal match since the round of 64, which is unusual considering that Chinese players make up two-thirds of the participants in this world-class Go tournament.

Civil war is a perfectly normal thing, but Lin Ruo has never encountered one so far; all she has fought are foreign wars, and she has won them all.

He doesn't know if the organizers pulled any stunts to generate buzz, but there's no doubt that this is the path to legendary status.

Having done all that, it would be unreasonable not to become a one-in-a-million superhero.

Lin Ruo didn't think the fortune slip was anything special, but just sighed, "What a pity, it would have been great if I could have met Park Jung-hwan."

If we're going to fight, we should fight the strongest. Why fight someone who's a level below Shin Jinseo? But it's still better than a civil war.

Facing the gazes of the media present, Lin Ruo calmly stood up from her seat, walked straight to the front of the stage, exchanged a glance with Byun Sang-il under the camera's lens, and then smiled and shook hands with each other.

Lin Ruo's smile was casual, while Bian Xiangyi's smile was somewhat numb and uncomfortable, with an urge to go back and study the rules to see if there was a way to subdue the enemy without fighting.

Of course, that's impossible; one divine intervention is enough.

In the quarterfinals, Lin Ruo, 1-dan, will face Byun Sang-il, 9-dan.

Seeing this, the media in front of the stage frantically recorded the scene and quickly published the news on the relevant social media platforms.

As long as it involves fighting in foreign lands, there will be no shortage of discussion.

The internet was still celebrating after defeating Shin Jinseo, and now expectations are at their peak. The fact that there's no internal conflict means they've already succeeded halfway.

Meeting Byun Sang-il is like finding your other half; there's nothing else to it. Playing against Koreans is just much more enjoyable than playing in other matches.

The public opinion situation is now quite different from that of the previous round against Shin Jinseo. It can be said that apart from Xiao Heizi, no one doubts that Lin Ruo can easily win the match.

After all, they've already beaten the future number one player in South Korea, so what's a mere mediocre player compared to them?

Normally, this is when the tables would turn and people would be proven wrong, but how could Lin Ruo possibly be proven wrong?

The only ones who were looking forward to this kind of face-slapping plot twist were the South Korean netizens who had been numb all morning.

However, even they couldn't have too high hopes. Anyone who watched the last round of matches knew that Byun Sang-il's form wasn't much better. It was like a clash of weaklings with frequent mistakes, and they only managed to make it into the quarterfinals after giving it their all.

Given the current situation, it's unimaginable how badly Lin Ruo would beat him.

In Go competitions, there is no such thing as an upset that will bring a player back to reality in the next round. Generally, if a player can defeat a nominally strong player, then as long as the competition continues, their performance will not be too bad.

Not to mention Lin Ruo, who was invincible in the qualifiers, he is still incredibly strong in the main tournament after a month or so, and I'm afraid he will still be like this after a year.

Perhaps because they were so eager to watch Lin Ruo suffer a crushing defeat from beginning to end, the number of viewers who booked the live stream of the quarterfinals on Yefox Go quickly exceeded 30,000 that day.

This figure of 30,000 might seem insignificant compared to League of Legends, but it's quite high in Go, a game with a much greater level of difficulty to watch.

It's important to understand that a game of Go can last four or five hours, and someone might spend at least twenty minutes thinking in between. Coupled with its inherent high barrier to entry, it simply doesn't have the appeal of being widely watched via live stream.

Therefore, it's quite astonishing that a single match could garner 30,000 views. Although there's a lot of external attention, most viewers focus on the result; they only keep an eye on the trending topics and the outcome, not on watching the entire match on the chessboard.

Those who actually get into the live stream room, even if they don't have a particular hobby, at least have some understanding and enthusiasm for it.

Well, to give a simpler example, in the Go timeline that Lin Ruo was familiar with, on platforms like FoxGo and other Go live streaming platforms, a match with more than 10,000 online viewers was already considered very high.

Aside from Douyin, there are still too many people passing by and clicking in every minute on these popular platforms. Even if everyone only stops briefly to eat some gossip, it can still guarantee a continuous influx of new users.

...

Following the same rules, there will still be a day of rest before the quarterfinals begin. However, unlike other matches, this time all four matches will be played and the winners will be determined within one day.

The same applies to the remaining four teams, except that the number of games in the matches will change.

When I returned to the hotel that night, I found Lin Ruo, whom I hadn't had any fun in a long time, lying in bed. I immediately transformed into a Weibo warrior and broke the long-sealed seal.

It's been a long time since we've interacted, and not doing any live streams feels like a huge disservice to our loyal fans.

So I made a bedtime message: "I miss the fans' big swords. I will continue to work hard in the competition the day after tomorrow and I will never let you down."

Regardless of what follows, the very first sentence was enough to make people burst out laughing.

Good reviews say Lin Ruo is very honest; bad reviews say Lin Ruo is shameless, since what streamer would openly tell fans they miss them and send them gifts?

However, Lin Ruozhen immediately started a live stream, and the expected barrage of gifts was definitely not lacking.

The commenters in the forum also tended to agree with this view.

【Come on, you want to do a live stream but also want to receive gifts? You want both, don't you?】

[I hope Lin Gou gets eliminated soon. I don't understand Go, I just find it boring.]

[Hurry up and come back to streaming, Lin Gou! Even if you win a world championship, is the prize money enough for a single advertisement? Listen to me, be a decent streamer.]

[Lin Gou is no longer a forward-looking man; he doesn't even care about money anymore, participating in competitions that don't pay.]

Indeed, I didn't understand the match at all, so I could only watch them win and find some amusement in listening to others praising Lin and reading the comments from Korean netizens.

[Damn it, the Summer Split starts in four or five days and Lin is still not here. EDG got crushed in the Demacia Cup again, what are you doing? If I were Abu, I would have fired you long ago.]

"Did we get beaten again?" Lin Ruo felt it was alright. After all, in order to ensure that the starting players had rest time after returning from MSI, the team fielded its second team in this Summer Demacia Cup. If they didn't get beaten even with that, then the LPL was truly doomed.

After browsing some comments for a bit of fun, Lin Ruo lay down and got some rest early, just in time.

Unlike Byun Sang-il, the Korean hand-raising expert in another room of the hotel, who was still studying his ultimate match against Shin Jin-seo at this moment.

After analyzing the situation for a long time, Byun Sang-il felt only despair, because he believed that no one could bear this fact for a short time.

That is, Lin Ruo was able to create a greater advantage when playing black, which was something that Byun Sang-il had never heard of before.

It's actually more advantageous for the player with black to play, so the 7.5 point komi really doesn't matter, right?

If he were to play black and start with a 7.5-point handicap, his win rate would drop by 50% almost without a doubt.

Unlike Lin Ruo, who, from the qualifiers onwards, always dominated his opponents with the first move, even when playing black.

In other words, Lin Ruo, who plays black, is very strong, while Byun Sang-il doesn't want to play black, but it seems easier for his opponent to defeat him if he plays black.

Now, regardless of whether it's White or Black, they're at a disadvantage from the start. Byun Sang-il really didn't expect that one day he would be at a disadvantage before the game even started.

What could he do? Feeling that further research was pointless, Byun Sang-il could only try his best to calm himself down.

As long as you cultivate the mindset that winning is a huge bonus and losing is not a loss, then no matter what the outcome is, it won't be a complete disaster.

At this stage, for both players and spectators, the first dan rank is no longer sufficient to measure Lin Ruo's current performance.

Everyone knows that it is no exaggeration to say that Lin Ruo is a 9-dan Go player, or rather, it is absolutely true to his reputation.

No one will treat Lin Ruo as a beginner anymore; they just feel an overwhelming sense of pressure facing such a player.

In just a few matches, Lin Ruo has changed everyone's perception of him, making him the first person in history to do so.

If he were to win the world championship on his first appearance in a major international tournament, that would be something no one would dare to imagine.

Did it suddenly appear out of nowhere?
No, God has come!
(End of this chapter)