Editor's note: The 2021 season of the City Siege Federation has come to a successful end, and Zhang Shutai, the leader of the Paris Universal Medical Club, wrote an article summarizing the feelings of participating in the City Siege League this season.
▲Paris Universal Medical In the overseas competition
This year marks the third season of paris clubs teaming up in the Siege of The City. At the beginning of the formation of the Paris team, it set the purpose of "happy Go" and the strategic goal of "one step a year, three years to get the ranking". After two years of running-in, the current main lineup has been basically fixed, that is, mainly a number of French foreign amateur chess players, combined with two Chinese professional chess players Liu Xingqidan (concurrently coaching) and Niu Yutian Seven Duan to sit in the Chinese army. This lineup of "middle" with "outside" and "old" with "new" also fully reflects the characteristics of the City Siege League - spreading Go to the world.
▲ Zhang Shutai led the team to participate in the Liuzhou opener of the 2018 season of the City Siege League
The first season of paris team participating in the city siege league achieved the predetermined strategic goal of "debuting in the city siege league and striving for a breakthrough of zero". In the second season, due to too much consideration of "friendship first" in the game, after the opponent's "sliding", the opponent was allowed to "pull" without objection, so he lost the playoff qualification and regretted that he failed to achieve the strategic goal of "entering the playoffs". This year, everyone is holding on to a strong momentum and must achieve the three-year strategic goal of "taking the ranks."
▲Group photo of the team members of the 2019 season of the Paris Universal Medical Club
Although this year's event is divided into two major divisions, domestic and overseas due to the requirements of epidemic prevention and control, it seems that it is relatively easy to get the rank, but in fact, whether it is the overseas veteran osaka team, Toronto team, Los Angeles team, or the Seoul team that aims to win the championship for the first time, which team's strength is above the Paris team, if you want to "get the rank" in the wolf pack tiger den with strong hands, it can only be said to be a dream in everyone's heart.
The First Game of the Paris team has two professional nine-dan Los Angeles team, the French beauty Milena Bode 3 dan who plays the lead is obviously a significant gap with the Chinese female player Lin Xuefen in the beginning of the professional stage, and the Du Jingyu 6 dan who follows the Paris team is also inferior to the Los Angeles team's Mike Raymond professional nine dan, not to the middle set, the Paris team has been significantly behind, although Liu Xing's seven dan and Meng Tailing's seven dan full catch-up has narrowed the gap, but helplessly the front is too far behind. In the final stage, the Paris team sent Niu Yutian seven dan to catch up with Wang Licheng nine dan, narrowing the gap step by step in the reading of seconds, and finally achieved a shocking reversal, winning with 3/4 sub.
The victory over the superior Los Angeles team in the first match greatly boosted the morale of the Paris players. In the second round of the Osaka team, the professional chess players of the Paris team specially conducted a pre-match sprint training for the French beauty chess player Camille Levuque, and the beautiful chess player Camille Levuque who played did not live up to the cultivation of the teachers, and did not fall behind after the end of the preamble, and got the unanimous praise of the teammates, although the situation was repeated later, but everyone fought tenaciously, and finally went to the next city and won the osaka team with strong strength.
In the third game against toronto team with championship strength, Paris had planned to continue to let camille Levuque, a French beauty who had performed well in the last game, start again, but considering the purpose of popularizing the establishment of Go, it was finally decided to give more French female chess players the opportunity to exercise as originally planned, and replace them with new players with slightly worse chess skills. Sure enough, the strength of the new French chess players is obviously a big gap with the opponent, the opening is a lot behind, and although the two professional players have worked hard to catch up, they finally lost the opponent with a small gap of 3/4, and everyone regrets to say that if the chessboard is bigger, it will be good.
In the fourth set, Paris team lined up the strongest squad against Kuala Lumpur with all their strength, and finally won the last set without any danger, achieving the goal of "taking the place" this season.
Looking back on this season, the Paris team has gained a lot, not only through participating in the competition of the City Siege League, enhancing the friendship between Chinese and foreign chess players, exercising the chess strength of many French amateur chess players, but also winning the good results of the runner-up, exceeding the first "three-year goal" set when forming the team. The Paris team will continue to adhere to the purpose of "happy Go", to promote the spread of Go as its mission, and strive to reach a higher level in the new season next year. At the same time, we will continue to make unremitting efforts to make a name for ourselves in Paris.
(Contributed by: Zhang Shutai, team leader of the Universal Medical Club in Paris)