Nowadays, the world Go arena circulates that 27 years old is the ceiling for professional chess players to win the championship, that is, the chance of winning the world championship after 27 years old will be very small.
The previous ceiling was 30 years old, because after the age of 30, Lee Chang-ho and Lee Sedol did not win the world championship, and Lee Chang-ho was a wave of nine consecutive Asia. However, Chang Hao and Gu Li are a special case, Chang Hao won the Chunlan Cup at the age of 33, and Gu Li won his eighth world championship at the age of 32.
However, Gu li is not the oldest world champion, in 1990, the 48-year-old Lin Haifeng won the third Fujitsu Cup and was also the runner-up of the first and second Fujitsu Cup consecutively.
At that time, the world chess world generally believed that 40 years old was the beginning of the peak era of professional chess players, so young chess players were generally not in a hurry, thinking that there were opportunities that there were always old times when they were super first-class and powerful.
But younger players don't think so.
In the first Ying's Cup final in 1989, the 36-year-old Cho Wonh Hyun-hyun defeated the 37-year-old Nie Weiping 3:2 to win the first world championship of his career and kick off the rise of Go in South Korea.
In the 4th Fujitsu Cup final in 1991, the 36-year-old Zhao Zhixun won the first world championship of his career without a fight because of the abstention of China's Qian Yuping, showing the world that Japanese Go is still strong.
In the final of the 3rd Toyo Securities Cup in 1992, 16-year-old Lee Chang-ho defeated 50-year-old Hayashi Hayashi of Japan 3:2 to win the first world championship of his career. Lee Chang-ho's victory marked the beginning of the rise of the third generation of chess players after the 70s. In fact, before winning the Toyo Securities Cup, Lee Chang-ho almost took away the domestic title of his teacher Cho Hwan-hyun, 10 years earlier than Cho-hyun expected.
In 1995, at the age of 30, Ma Xiaochun defeated Nie Weiping and Japan's Koichi Kobayashi to win the Toyo Securities Cup and Fujitsu Cup that year, which was also nie Weiping's last time to enter the final of the World Series, and then Nie Weiping gradually faded out of the world Go competition stage.
Everyone thought that the era that belonged to Ma Xiaochun had arrived. But Lee Chang-ho clearly doesn't think so, and he beat Ma Xiaochun in the world series finals four times in a row, opening the era of Lee Chang-ho's dominance.
In 2000, in the final of the 2nd Chunlan Cup, Ma Xiaochun lost 1-2 to Japan's Wang Licheng Jiudan and won the second place again, and the disheartened Ma Xiaochun gradually faded out of the world Go stage.
At this time, only Chang Hao in China is struggling against the Korean Wave, and post-60s players such as Liu Changhe and Yi tian Kiki are still struggling on the world Go stage.
In 2002, the 48-year-old Cao Xuanxuan defeated the 26-year-old Chang Hao 2:1 in the final of the sixth Three Star Cup, which made people sigh infinitely, both for Chang Hao's "anger and indisputability", but also for The immortality of Cao Xuanxuan's sword, in fact, Chang Hao after losing chess is not embarrassed and guilty.
But that's not all, in 2003, 49-year-old Cao Xuanxuan defeated China's Wang Lei 2-0 in the final of the seventh Samsung Cup to win his eighth world championship. Even in the era of Lee Chang-ho's dominance, Cho Hyun Hyun still won 9 championships, which is not admirable. Master Wu Qingyuan once said that Lee Chang-ho was a genius who worked hard, and his teacher Cao Xuanxuan was a real genius. Even if it is 50 years old, it is still the world's top super first-class.
In 2003, Cho Ji-hoon, who had almost faded from the public eye, won the championship by defeating 18-year-old Park Yongxun 2-1 in the final of the 8th Samsung Cup World Go Championship. People were surprised, because Zhao Zhixun was 47 years old at this time, and this victory made people full of respect for Zhao Zhixun, who is known as "fighting souls".
And Chinese Go is still struggling to move forward in the "Korean wind", the long night is long, and there is no hope where it is. Cao Xuanxuan and Zhao Zhixun after the 50s are still smiling proudly on the world Go stage, but China's post-50s and post-60s chess players have disappeared in the world arena, and only Chang Hao after the 70s is struggling to support! It was with chang Hao's support that Chinese Go finally ushered in the outbreak after 2005!
A nearly 50-year-old chess player can still win the world championship, which is now unimaginable. Therefore, Cao Xuanxuan and Cho Ji-hoon are both the fighting souls of the world's Go, which is admirable.