Taiwan's professional Go system was founded in 1980, before the chess players did not care about the distinction between professional and amateur, the top chess players can not rely on sporadic game bonuses for a living, can only mix in the tea house to play chess for profit, low social status. In 1965, Lin Haifeng won the title of "celebrity" in Japan, which greatly stimulated the interest of Taiwanese teenagers in learning Go, and became the first boom in the development of Go in Taiwan, after several years of brewing, finally launched the professional Go system in 1980, and some professional tournaments were established. The celebrity battles, chess king battles, and national hand battles sponsored by several major newspapers are similar to Japanese news chess battles, and professional chess players can have a broad space to show their talents.
At that time, Taiwan's Weiqi organizations were basically private, and the two major Weiqi organizations were the Taiwan Weiqi Association and the YingChangqi Weiqi Education Foundation, which had their own dan and taste systems and had their own professional chess players. The first players in Taiwan's chess world were Zhou Xianheng, Chen Yong'an, Chen Changqing, Dai Jiashen, Peng Jinghua and others, who seized most of the championships on the island and vigorously trained latecomers, laying the foundation for the prosperity of Taiwanese Go.
By the end of the 1980s, Taiwanese Go began to communicate with the mainland chess community. The original form was quite "trendy" – it was transmitted by telephone. On April 5, 1988, under the facilitation of Mr. Ying Changqi and the opportunity to participate in the first Fujitsu Cup, Ma Xiaochun, a top chess player in mainland China, played a historic match with Peng Jinghua, the most powerful chess player in the treasure island chess world at the Japan Chess Academy in Tokyo. At that time, the Internet was not yet widespread, and the two were thousands of miles apart, each playing chess alone, and playing a fast chess game through telex, and the result was that Ma Xiaochun won first. Since then, the mainland chess community has had an intuitive understanding of the strength of Taiwanese Go.
Ma Xiaochun fought against Peng Jinghua in the air
Ma Xiaochun took a group photo with Chen Zude, Cao Dayuan, Hao Keqiang, Nie Weiping, Shen Junshan and so on after the game
In October 1989, Taiwan's Go community and the mainland's Go community jointly held the first "Central Cup" cross-strait Go exchange tournament, which became an important measure for cross-strait Go exchanges. The Taiwan side was mainly composed of local players, with Zhou Xianheng, the highest-ranking player on the island at that time, and Chen Changqing, who had the most titles, as the main force, plus Zheng Minghuang, who was in Japan, and a total of ten people, formed a central team, and played five games with Beijing, Sichuan, Guangxi, Shanghai and Zhejiang. As a result, the Central Team defeated Sichuan, Guangxi and Shanghai, and lost to Beijing and Zhejiang, with a total score of 3-2, and won the competition. The mainland side mainly played with local players, which did not represent the highest level at that time. However, in the confrontation with the Shanghai team, the Central Team invited Mr. Lin Haifeng, a giant in Japan, as the main player, and the Shanghai team competed with Qian Yuping, who had just won the Chinese Chess Championship at that time, and the competition level suddenly increased greatly. Mr. Lin won in a fierce battle, maintaining his unbeaten record against mainland chess players at that time, and greatly improving the morale of the Central Team. On that trip to Shanghai, Mr. Lin, who was born in Shanghai and left at the age of 7, returned for the first time, and also found his uncle who had been lost for forty years, which was really worth the trip. Objectively speaking, the local players in Taiwan at that time were equivalent to the level of the mainland's second-rate strong players, and Nie Weiping commented that they "had the level of the (mainland Go) in the seventies" after the Taiwan team defeated the Shanghai team, that is, the degree of nine-dan concession, which should have been a more realistic judgment at the time.
The first Central Cup Cross-Strait Exchange Competition
Lin Haifeng vs. Qian Yuping
The following year, Taiwan was led by Wang Mingwan, a master in Japan, plus Yang Jiayuan, a young chess player in Japan, and Huang Mengzheng, Zhou Xianheng, Peng Jinghua, Chen Yong'an, Lin Shengxian, and Yang Zhide, a total of eight people to form a central team, and then went to the mainland, and played five friendly matches with mainland chess players in Guangzhou, Xiamen and Beijing. This time they won four and lost one, and once again won the overall result. In the competition, Wang Minghuan, who had a reputation for eliminating Li Changhao and Nie Weiping in the quarterfinals at the second Fujitsu Cup, defeated mainland masters such as Qian Yuping and Yu Bin, and Taiwanese chess players also had Huang Mengzheng defeat che Zewu and Chen Yongan Li Keyu ping, and their strength began to be valued by the mainland chess community.
In 1990, Taiwanese chess player Peng Jinghua and the little prodigy Xia Guanyu were also specially invited to participate in the national Go individual competition, and Xia Guanyu encountered the mainland prodigy Chang Hao in the first round, and the duel between the two aroused the interest of everyone, and finally the more elderly Chang Hao won. Xia's final result was 8 points in nine rounds, and Peng Jinghua fought all the way to the end, defeated Chang Hao in the ninth round, and achieved three consecutive wins in the last three rounds, ranking sixteenth with eleven rounds of 14 points, which surprised many people.
If this trend continues, the progress of Taiwanese Go may be very fast, after all, there is a level higher than the opponent to communicate with the level of improvement is of great benefit. Unfortunately, the third Edition of the Central Cup was scheduled to be held in Taipei in 1991, but it was shelved for various reasons and was delayed until 1995, when the battle was restarted in Beijing. This time, the format is different, no more team confrontation, but 11 people from the mainland and 5 people from Taiwan, for individual elimination. Taiwan did not invite the help of chess players in Japan, and played entirely as local chess players, with Zhou Xianheng, Lin Shengxian, Peng Jinghua, Yang Zhide and the fledgling Zhou Junxun representing the highest level in Taiwan at that time. In the game, Taiwanese chess players played well, winning three and losing twice in the first round. Zhou Xianheng won over Luo Jianwen, Lin Shengxian won over Hua Weirong, and Zhou Junxun defeated Wu Yulin. In the second round, Zhou Xian Henlik Wang Yuan was impressive, and Zhou Junxun eliminated Lin Shengxian. In the semi-finals, Xian Heng and Ding Wei were inseparable last week, and were once very active, but unfortunately, in the middle stage, they lost to Feng Yun. In the final round, Ding Wei defeated Feng Yun to win the championship.
In 1995, the Taiwan chess community also invited mainland chess players Wu Zhaoyi and Che Zewu to participate in the Taiwan Yongda Cup Go Tournament. The format of this tournament is complicated, and seven taiwanese players are selected through the preliminary round to enter the second stage final. The final is divided into a first round, a second round and a final. A total of 16 places in the first round, for the preliminary round of the finalists and the top seven of the previous year, plus two continental chess players, divided into four groups, each group of four people, in accordance with the Samsung Cup group stage of the double-elimination format, each group of two people qualified, a total of eight people into the second round. The second round is divided into two groups, and the top two in each group enter the finals, and the finals use two groups of crossovers to determine the winner. The battle for the championship and runner-up was fought between mainland chess player Wu Zhaoyi and Taiwanese chess player Lin Shengxian, and as a result, Wu Zhaoyi won with a six-point advantage and won the Yongda Cup.
In 1998, the mainland's Shao Zhenzhong Jiudan and Wang Yuhui Liudan participated in the Yongda Cup again, and Wang Yuhui defeated Lin Shengxian in the final to win the championship, but when Huang Xiangren, a Taiwanese newcomer who was then an amateur 7 dan, defeated Shao Zhenzhong in the competition to enter the top four, it also fully demonstrated that Taiwan's Go was by no means vulnerable.
Later, mainland chess players also participated in several competitions in the Taiwan Central Cup, Yu Ping, Hua Xueming, Yang Hui, etc. all performed well, but they did not find detailed information at hand for the time being, and the specific results were not sure.
In the 1980s and 1990s, Taiwan's native Go steadily improved its strength through various exchanges with the mainland chess community and the Japanese and Korean chess circles, and gradually cultivated a group of young masters represented by Zhou Junxun. In the 10th Fujitsu Cup in 1997, Joon Hoon eliminated Japan's veteran super-first-class big bamboo hero last week, injecting a shot of strength into Taiwan's Go, and the following year he broke south Korean emerging Cho Han-seon and the previous champion Wang Licheng in the LG Cup to break into the quarterfinals, and met Lee Chang-ho in the quarterfinals before stopping the pace of progress. In 2001, the volcano erupted more rapidly, and the 14th Fujitsu Cup Zhou Junxun broke through Lee Sedol, Mu Jinshuo and Kono Linsan to enter the final four, and truly put up a banner for Taiwanese chess players on the world stage. Then there is the 2007 Zhou Junxun who is familiar with the LG Cup, shaping the totem of Taiwan's local Go.
In 2007, Zhou Junxun beat Hu Yaoyu in the LG Cup final
However, at the same time, Chinese mainland players and Korean players are moving forward in a more rapid manner, and the wind and clouds are emerging in an endless stream, which makes Taiwan's Go catch-up has always been weak. To this day, the gap between Taiwan's Go and mainland Go is still the same as it was thirty years ago, of course, everyone has stood at a higher height.