Li Laiqun: "Handan toddler"
Wang Yiren
Speaking of "Handan toddler", many people will immediately associate it with a story from the Warring States period. The story is that in ancient times, handan people walked particularly well, so many outsiders came to Handan to learn to walk, so there is a saying of "Handan toddler". Nowadays, the Li Laiqun "Handan toddler" mentioned here is another "step" to learn.
The first test is sharp
Li Laiqun was born in September 1959 in Handan, Hebei Province. His father, Li Huaijing, was a porter. When Laiqun was just 10 years old, he became a regular visitor to the family and the former chess world. He often watched his neighbor Yu Uncle play chess with people, and when only Uncle Yu was left, he was eager to try it. He couldn't kill Uncle Yu, so he learned to follow him, and when winter went to spring, Uncle Yu was actually not his opponent. Li Laiqun, who is diligently seeking, often goes to other chess stalls to watch chess after school, every time the adults take a step, he is turning around in his head, if it is my turn to how to go, and then see how people go, invisibly, he learned a lot of moves from the adults, and his chess has grown. Later, he heard that there were often master games in the City Palace of Culture, so he ran there to watch the adults play chess. Once, he found a "time difference", when the attacker did not play for a while, he played first, and made a splash, and won a "three-game winning streak".
This sensation caused a sensation throughout the Workers' Cultural Palace. Qin Lianyuan, deputy director of the Handan Municipal Broadcasting Bureau, who was watching the battle from the sidelines, was naturally overjoyed. He felt that this was a good seedling, and it must be cultivated well. Since then, Li Laiqun has often learned chess under Teacher Qin's door. Lai Qun originally relied on intelligence, hard work, and played "wild roads", but after he read the chess books given to him by Teacher Qin, it didn't take long for his opening level to take a leap. It is also amazing to say that at the age of 13, he actually ascended to the throne of the city's chess championship.
In 1976, at the Hebei Provincial Chess Tournament held in Shijiazhuang City, Qin Lianyuan introduced a new "godhead" to Li Laiqun, a high disciple, named Liu Dianzhong. Speaking of Liu Dianzhong, many Heilongjiang chess players are familiar with him, he once studied under the "Northeast Tiger" Wang Jialiang, and at the age of 18, he won the seventh place in the country, which is a rare figure in the Chinese chess world.
With the guidance of famous teachers, Li Laiqun's chess skills are "on a higher level". In March 1977, at the "Handan Cup" National Chess Invitational Tournament held in front of his home, Li Laiqun was quick and fierce, and Li Ke Jiang Zhiliang, Cai Furu, Liu Xing and other masters won the championship with a score of 11 wins and 1 loss. This year, he finished seventh in the national individual competition and in 1978 he finished fourth, and he is moving closer to the championship.
One step away from Wanlingshan
In 1980, Li Laiqun began to sprint towards the championship. This year, the rules of the national individual competition were somewhat changed, and the selection of the preliminary competition was divided into three groups of A, B and C. In the Group A competition, Li Ke Heilongjiang Wang Jialiang, Guangdong Lü Qin, Beijing Zang Ruyi, drew with Shanghai Hu Ronghua and Guangdong Yang Guanxuan, with 6 wins, 3 draws and 2 losses with Hubei Liu Dahua and Shanghai Xu Tianli, but the small score was lower than the other side, Liu Dahua and Xu Tianli won the championship and second place, he ranked third. Maybe it was bad luck, or maybe it was a little bit worse, anyway, in 1981 he was going to sprint again. Speaking of this sprint, he felt a little lucky. Hu Ronghua accidentally fell off the horse in the last year's game and was relegated to the second group, which can be said that Chinese chess has truly reached the era of leaderlessness. From 1960 to 1980, Hu Ronghua dominated the chess world for 20 years from the age of 15, winning 10 consecutive national championships, becoming a myth in the history of Chinese chess. Liu Dahua first broke this myth, and the group of people wanted to continue to break this myth.
In September of this year, the National Chess Individual Grade A Tournament was held in Wenzhou, the first 9 rounds of competition, he won 6 wins and 3 sums, this result is rare in the chess world for many years, this undefeated "whirlwind" shocked everyone on the field, people have a premonition that a new national champion is about to be born. However, the situation took a sharp turn for the worse, and in the next two rounds of competitions, Li Laiqun was like a different person, losing successively under Yang Guanxuan and Liu Dahua, even so, he was still the highest score, but the small score was lower than Liu Dahua with the same score and once again relegated to it. For this matter, the veteran chess general of Liaoning Once gave a poem: "The flying soldiers cross the Ninth Pass, and the strong soldiers knock on the top of the mountain." Why should we fold the 'willow', one step away from Wanlingshan. ”
The loss of the game could not help but make Li Laiqun miserable, but he was soon relieved from remorse, and he felt that he had to improve his chess skills and meet the test of "winning and losing". In the 1982 national individual competition, Li Laiqun stood the test, defeating Zou Liwu, Cai Furu and Hu Ronghua in the first three rounds of competitions, and finally won the championship with a good result of 8 wins and 5 draws. This is the fifth national champion born since the National Chess Championship of China, and it is also the first time that the national chess champion has crossed the Yellow River, and the long-cherished wish of the Northern Chess Players represented by Wang Jialiang for many years has finally become a reality.
This year, Li Laiqun was 23 years old.
Next, in the 1984, 1987 and 1991 national chess individual competitions, Li Laiqun won three more national championships, becoming the second most numerous championships after Hu Ronghua and Yang Guanxuan. Of course, in recent years, Xu Yinchuan has caught up and won four national championships.
The chess king goes to sea
I met Li Laiqun in 1980 at the National Chess Individual Qualifiers in Fuzhou. He was only 19 years old at the time, and he already had a good result of fourth place in the country, which of course attracted people's attention. In my impression, Li Laiqun has a solid foundation and it is difficult to find his cheapness, so he smoothly entered the first division.
The second time I saw Li Laiqun was at the National Chess Team Championship held in Harbin in 1983, when the Hebei team composed of Li Laiqun, Liu Dianzhong, Huang Yong and Yan Yusuo won the victory all the way and struggled to ascend to the championship throne. Speaking of difficulties, we have to say that Hebei team has a game against Shanghai team. In the first set, Li Laiqun took the lead against Hu Ronghua, and the two began with five or six cannons against the anti-palace horse. After the mid-game twist, Hu Ronghua had a slight lead, and after 85 rounds, Li Laiqun was in danger. At this time, Hu Ronghua took a soft step and took a flat artillery to fight the troops, and Li Laiqun abandoned the troops and took the soldiers, and suddenly calmed down the situation. A game of chess that was lost to home was cleverly polished by Li Laiqun, otherwise it would be difficult to predict who would be the champion. Speaking of this game of chess for nearly 20 years, Li Laiqun and Hu Ronghua both remember that Li Laiqun once said to me that Hu Ronghua would lose this chess game without taking it.
In 1988, the Heilongjiang Chess Academy held the first Chinese Chess Tournament, in which Yang Guanxuan, Hu Ronghua, Liu Dahua, Li Laiqun, Wang Jialiang, Zhao Guorong, Bu Fengbo, etc., as well as Hong Kong chess king Zhao Ruquan and Philippine chess king Chen Luoping also participated in the competition. In the first game of the game, Li Laiqun quickly defeated Chen Luoping with his backhand.
In the second game, he and Zhao Guorong met. Li Laiqun and Zhao Guorong scored 21 points in the 1987 national individual competition and won the first and second places. Sai Laiqun told me that his energy was not as good as Zhao Guorong, and in the past the two of them spent almost the same time, but now they are more nervous than Guorong. Li Laiqun said that he could eat or sleep, and it was not good to rest when there was a big game, which was not as good as Hu Ronghua and Zhao Guorong. He also said that Guorong has achieved the strength to win, and now he has basically maintained the top 3, in the past few years has won two runners-up, two third places, if you want to win the championship, both stable and fierce, especially fierce, not afraid of the back of the ranking, winning the championship is more hopeful. In this confrontation, Li Laiqun took the lead, and the two sides walked into a five-seven cannon against the screen horse formation. In the 13 rounds, the two only took 11 minutes, and its Chinese Rong used 3 minutes and laiqun used 8 minutes, which was exactly what Laiqun said was not as fast as Guorong's words. After 21 rounds of battle, Laiqun took the initiative to redeem the two sons, simplifying the plate and shaking hands into peace. (Welcome to the WeChat public account "Xiangqi Yuan".) Read more biographies of chess celebrities. ）
The most intense round of the seven rounds should be the sixth round. The most promising chess king Hu Ronghua, Liu Dahua, Li Laiqun, Zhao Guorong met here at the same time, Li Laiqun vs. Liu Dahua is the most critical game in this chess king game, because the battle of the four fierce generals is only the last game, the first 5 games are all chess, if this game is divided into winners and losers, the "chess king" will most likely fall on the head of the winner. This plate, first Liu Dahua had a magic kill, which he missed. Laiqun later told me that he also had a chance to win, and he also missed it. However, the onlooker Qing, Hu Ronghua on the side, saw clearly, and he said that both of them were dizzy. Then again, if you don't faint, the chess king may not be surnamed Hu. Of course, Hu Ronghua and Zhao Guorong are both 4 wins and 3 draws, and after the fast game, Hu Ronghua was crowned "Chess King".
The following year, the second "Chess King" tournament continued to be held in Harbin, with 7 chess masters participating. In the first two rounds, laiqun won one victory and one sum, and the third round met Zhao Guorong. In this round, Li Laiqun first took the middle gun to cross the river car, and Zhao Guorong should take two snakes. It was a battle of equal strength, and it was not yet known by the time of the meal. After the meal, the two men picked up the lights to fight at night. By the 115th round, a situation of two elephants was formed. According to the convention, the car and horse are not easy to win the car double elephant, and they are two "super first-class" masters. But this time, Laiqun cleverly entered the game and won this crucial set. After that, if Lai Qun had divine help, he also sent Zhao Ruquan and Xu Tianhong to the two cities in succession, and took the challenge to the chess king Hu Ronghua in advance. In September of that year, at the Liuban Tournament of the "Chess King" Challenge held in Beijing, Li Laiqun ended the battle ahead of schedule with a score of 4:1 and won the crown of the "Chess King".
Fast forward another 5 years, and by 1994 I heard that Li Laiqun had gone to sea and that things were not doing well. At first glance, I really feel sorry for Li Laiqun, I often think that if I do business, there are many people in China who are stronger than Li Laiqun, but if you say chess, it is difficult to find a few people who can compete with him.
I also thought, li Laiqun, who regards chess as his own life, can really play chess and engage in business? In fact, I really wanted to go to Li Laiqun's heart. He couldn't give up chess, and as long as he had time, he tried to participate in national individual and team competitions as much as possible, and the results were not cheap. In the 1998 National Chess Team Championship, Li Laiqun sat on one side and fought with the team members to win a championship cup. This year and the following 1999, Li Laiqun twice reached the top six of the national individual competition, and in 2000, Li Laiqun's personal rating rose to the sixth place, which really impressed his peers.
Life is like a chess game
In 1996, the Chinese Chess Association held a new meeting in Panyu, Guangdong Province, and Li Laiqun and I both attended the meeting. In my spare time, I talked to him about his future plans. He said he was reluctant to play chess and do business, but to do more or less over a period of time. In 1998, the national individual competition was held in Shenzhen, and I was just in time to go out to Shenzhen, and one night, I asked Li Laiqun, Hu Ronghua, Zhao Guorong and Sun Zhiwei to have a drink, and everyone said a lot of drunken and ear-warming words. Among them, a very important topic is how to reduce the number of chess draws. In recent years, compared with Go, the heat of chess and Go is not enough, there are many reasons, one of the important reasons is that there are too many chess and chess, and Go does not have a chess.
During the banquet, Hu Ronghua said that when the endgame was over, the soldiers should be allowed to cross the river, so that it would be difficult to have a draw. Of course, this is a joke. The key to what the group said lies in comprehensively improving the quality of chess players. Take the opening round, in the past, more shots were fired, and after Hu Ronghua walked out of the flying phase round, he quickly became his town mountain treasure. Li Laiqun's shijiao cannon and five-nine cannons against the river car are also his housekeeping skills. In addition, the endgame of the group is also a must, sometimes it seems that the chess piece of Harmony is fixed, and when it reaches the hands of the group, after two or three hours, he actually wins. In the past, the che and ma double soldiers were all against the che ma and the pawns, but now that they are in the hands of the lai qun, they must grind and win for you. Sometimes it's all chariots and horses, but if he occupies a good position, he may take you down. The group may have some wine, and the conversation box is opened, and it can be seen that he loves chess.
One Sunday in the middle of the summer of 2002, I suddenly received a call from Laiqun, who had come to Harbin and we met. When we raise our glasses, the topic is inseparable from chess. We talked about the latest situation of many people, but what I was most concerned about was the situation of the group. I asked him, can I stand up to the big contest now? He nodded. In order to convince me, he told me that he always had the feeling that as soon as he sat in front of the chessboard, the world seemed to be the chess game in front of me. Speaking of this, I interjected: "It is a pity that you have forgotten the time and overtime at the CCTV fast chess tournament twice." He nodded again, "Yes, some are too engaged." He turned the topic around: "However, I can still find the feeling in front of the chessboard, in the past, I have played one game after another, and the masters can play one game after another in front of me." "When we broke up, he told me that I wouldn't forget about chess and would play as soon as I got the chance.
Sure enough, a few days after Laiqun left, I saw a news in the newspaper that the Vietnamese chess team had visited Hebei, and Li Laiqun was wearing armor to meet the battle and won a big victory. You know, the level of the Vietnamese players is by no means lower than that of our chess masters.
Not long ago, I saw another message in the media, this year's national chess team implemented a league, Li Laiqun sponsored 200,000 yuan for the Hebei team, and he had to wear armor in key games.
After reading this news, I somehow had a thought, I hope that Laiqun will return to the chess world as soon as possible, and then lead the Chinese chess world for a few years, so that the level of Chinese chess will have a new improvement.