The ongoing first Langke Cup Go World Open eventually evolved into a competition between Koo Zihao and Shin Jin-chen of China and South Korea. In the first round, the ratio of Chinese and South Koreans was 15 to 8, the ratio of Chinese and South Koreans in the round of 16 was 11 to 5, the ratio of Chinese and South Koreans in the quarterfinals was 5 to 3, and it was 2-2 in the semifinals. Judging from the world championship record of Go, in the early years, Cao Xunhyun and Stone Buddha Lee Chang-ho, Lee Sedol, who was a contemporary of Guli, and now Shin Jin-chen, Korean Go is very strong and prosperous. Why is Korean Go so strong?
Every time when the Chinese men's football team stops at the World Cup Asian qualifiers, some netizens will always say that the huge China of more than 1 billion, one of the 100 million people chooses out, can not form a decent football team? If the Chinese players of the Go World Series do not win the championship, it will be even more embarrassing. 1.4 billion people chose one person to represent China to compete for the crown of the tournament, and eventually lost to Korean chess players selected by 50 million people... Netizens and chess fans who have been following Go for many years know that such things have often happened in the past 30 years.
The origin of Korean Go
Go originated in China and is a traditional Chinese classic cultural treasure. The spread of Go to Korea and Japan was almost contemporaneous. One theory is that Go first spread to Korea, and then from Korea to Japan. The earliest record of Go activity in Joseon history was in 475 AD, when the king of Goguryeo planned to attack Baekje and sent a monk who played Go well to go undercover. The modern game of Go as we know it began to develop in Japan in the mid-19th century, and Korean Go was mainly learned from Japan in the last century.
The first Go king in modern Korea is Cho Nam-chul, born in 1923, and traveled east to Japan in 1937 under Minoru Kitani. At that time, Wu Qingyuan was already famous in the Japanese chess scene, and public opinion polls showed that Wu Qingyuan's popularity in Japan at that time was second only to the emperor, and Minoru Kitani and Hashimoto Utaro were Wu Qingyuan's defeated men. Zhao Nanzhe studied in Japan for a year, and when he returned to China in 1944, he was only three paragraphs. Cho Nam-chul founded the Seoul Chess Institute in 1946, creating a precedent for professional Go in Korea. At that time, the influence of Go in South Korea was very low, and Cho Nancheol even pushed a cart along the street to promote Go.
In the third Samsung Cup in 1998, the organizers paid tribute to their predecessors and presented wild cards to Korean and Japanese masters Cho Nam-chul and Hideyuki Fujisawa, who were both in their 70s at the time. The 75-year-old godfather of South Korean Go Cho Nam Cheol drew China's Yu Bin in the first round, and Yu Bin won the game in the black, and many years later, Yu Bin became the head coach of the Chinese Go team and led the Chinese Go to a complete turnover. In July 2006, Cho died in Seoul, the capital of South Korea, at the age of 83, and the Korean chess community held a grand funeral for him, and Lee Chang-ho and others personally carried the coffin.
After Cho Nam-chul, Korean chess players such as Kim Yin, Cho Hyun-hyun, and Cho Ji-hoon went to Japan to learn chess. Zhao Zhixun was a representative who studied in Japan and did not return to China, and Zhao Zhixun also reached the level of six super first-class chess players in Japan at that time, becoming the world's top chess player. South Korea's domestic Go tournaments have been rising and developing since the 50s of the last century, but the real national confrontation, or the Go World Series, began in the late 80s of the last century.
The population of Go ranges from 20 million to 15 million
Go is a relatively easy project for East Asia to stir up national sentiment. The first is the China-Japan Go Tournament, Nie Weiping Nie Whirlwind led the Chinese team, defeated the invincible Japanese team, caused a very big shock in the world. Ying Changzhi, a Taiwanese businessman, decided to hold the Ying's Cup of the Go World Series, hoping that Nie Weiping, who was very popular at that time, win this championship and make Chinese chess players the first world champion in the history of Go.
The Japanese chess academy panicked first, they still think that Japanese Go is the most powerful. The Nippon Kiin Institute urgently contacted the sponsor to establish the Fujitsu Cup in 1988 before the Ying's Cup. Moreover, the Nippon Chess Institute did not discuss with China and Korea in advance, and only after the tournament was finalized did they call the Chinese and Korean Chess Institute, saying that they were going to hold the Fujitsu Cup of the Go World Series, and you were invited to send chess players to participate. In the first Fujitsu Cup, Masaki Takemiya defeated Lin Haifeng in the final to win the championship.
Nie Weiping's careless misapproval of the Ying's Cup created the beginning of the Korean Go myth of Cao Xunxuan. At present, the top three Go world champions in history are Lee Chang-ho who won 17 titles, Lee Sedol who won 14 titles, and Cho Xunhyun-hyun who won 9 titles. These three have won 40 world championships in the past 30 years. Before Chinese players exploded in 2013, winning all six world titles in one year, all of our world titles combined could not match these three Korean players.
In the 40s of the last century, the population of Korean Go was about two or three thousand people. Around 2013, the population of South Korea's Go game reached a staggering 15 million, and their total population was only more than 50 million, and 1 in every 4 Koreans could play Go. In the early 90s of last century, Cho Xunhyun and Lee Chang-ho won consecutive world championships, which greatly stimulated South Korea's national self-esteem, and many powerful companies sponsored Go tournaments to create more opportunities for Korean players to win world championships.
Dilemma and change, South Korea has gone the best
After Go entered the AI era, it encountered more challenges and bottlenecks. The complete decline of Japanese Go, the most famous title, Honinbo Battle, recently announced that the championship prize money was reduced from 28 million yen to 8.5 million yen (about 430,000 yuan). At present, there are relatively many emerging Go competitions in China and South Korea, and Chinese and Korean companies are still willing to sponsor Go tournaments when the economic environment is good. However, the organization and promotion of Go events, the popularization and publicity of Go still face great challenges in the new era.
Today's children are much smarter than before, and they have a wider choice of interests and hobbies. How to attract more children, learn Go and like Go is a key part. It is the first choice to make the cake of professional Go bigger and better, and let the new forces outside the professional gate see the prosperity and growth of this industry. Compared with China and Japan, Korean professional chess players of intermediate or lower intermediate level live a more nourishing life by teaching, teaching chess and participating in events at the corresponding level.
After three years of the pandemic, the Chinese Chess Academy was almost suspended, and the Chinese National Go Team did not organize training for a long time. The Korean Chess Institute has taken the lead in resuming domestic tournaments since mid-2020, first with tennis chess and then with a large area of chess. Their domestic tournaments are very well organized, and chess players can easily play hundreds of sets a year. South Korea's domestic Go league, even many games are scheduled in the evening, the density is staggering.
The webcast of major tournaments of the Korean Chess Academy is very close to netizens and chess fans. In terms of reporting and publicizing Go tournaments, the depth and seriousness of the Korean media far exceeds that of their Chinese counterparts. When it comes to Go, many of us naturally think that this is ours, passed down by our ancestors. But it was the Koreans who actually made Go better and more prosperous.