On the afternoon of Sunday, April 14, 2024, the first game of the final of the 38th Tongli Cup China Go Tianyuan Tournament was lost, and the defending champion Qi Yuting accepted Lian Xiao's challenge. The familiar event, the familiar environment, the familiar process, the breath released inside and outside the Tongli Cup, and the conversations between the chess players and the guests have already told the witnesses and onlookers that the Tianyuan Cultural Garden by the Tongli Lake and the Tianyi Pavilion where the final game is played seem to be not only a stage for the chess players to compete in their skills, but also a scene landmark that inspires the memories of good times in the depths of many people's hearts.
The traditional Chinese Go title tournament is the "China Go Tianyuan Battle" founded in 1987 and the "China Go Celebrity Battle" founded in 1988. The Tianyuan Battle was hosted by the Xinmin Evening News and the China Chess Academy, and the celebrity battle was hosted by the People's Daily and the China Chess Academy. Perhaps because it was played in Shanghai for many years in the early days of its founding, chess fans in Shanghai paid more attention to the Tianyuan Tournament.
Time is a magical thing. It doesn't move, but it can change everything quietly. It has allowed chess players to grow from young teenagers to Go masters, and it has also allowed chess fans to move from enthusiastic youth to calm middle age. In these long years, Go has become an indispensable part of their lives and an eternal memory in their hearts.
The event has gone through 38 spring and autumn seasons, and some of the participants of that year are still participants today, and they can all tell stories about the Tianyuan Race and the Tongli Cup. For example, Zhang Jiandong, a veteran reporter who participated in the establishment of the Chinese Go Tianyuan Tournament and the preparation and news reporting of each event, was awarded the "Special Contribution Award for the Chinese Go Tianyuan Tournament" by the Chinese Go Association at the end of 2020, he said that he had just joined the newspaper in 1987, and the original intention of preparing for the Tianyuan Tournament was also to learn from the news war in the Japanese chess world at that time, but he didn't expect it to be 38 spring and autumn in a flash.
Mr. Lu Guoliang, a senior referee who has also participated in the first session since the present, still treasures a photo of Nie Weiping against Ma Xiaochun in the first session of the year, and Lu Guoliang appears in the middle of the picture. In 1987, he was also the editor of the monthly Go magazine and one of the organizers of the Tianyuan Tournament. In the picture, Mr. Lu is still holding a stopwatch in his left hand, and he said: "I am on the side, manually notating, manually reading seconds, when the first session, I was 37 years old, and now I am in the 38th, and my age is exactly doubled, 74 years old." Over the years, I have been here more than 40 times. Every spring, I look forward to it, I want to keep breaking records and witness the longevity of this oldest event. ”
Wang Runan, the 78-year-old honorary chairman of the Chinese Weiqi Association, said with a smile in his speech before the start of the tournament that since the Tianyuan Tournament was held in Tongli in 2000, it has been 24 years, and he hopes that he can still walk around when he is 90 years old and watch the younger chess players play chess.
Chang Hao was only 21 years old when he was first crowned Tianyuan in 1997, and now he is 48 years old and he is already the chairman of the Chinese Go Association.
There are many iconic records with a sense of age and a sense of time in the Tianyuan Competition, such as from 1987 to 1996, in the first ten sessions, Ma Xiaochun, Liu Xiaoguang, and Nie Weiping took turns to win the championship and sit in the village, known as the "Nie Ma Liu period"; Now, Lian Xiao still has a "chronological record" to challenge: the last former champion returned to the final of the Tianyuan Tournament and won the cup again was Ma Xiaochun Jiudan in 1997.
Seven years ago, Chen Yaoye, who won eight consecutive championships, was removed from the throne, and when he was crowned Tianyuan Tournament, Lian Xiao was still a 23-year-old young chess player, full of vitality, and he is now 30 years old in a flash. Similarly, in 2015, when Qi Yuting first challenged Qi Yuting, who had won six consecutive championships at that time, he was only 19 years old...... Perhaps many years later, the two people who are now sitting in the game pavilion will recall the passion and confrontation on the chessboard lightly.
In the first game on the afternoon of the 14th, Yu Yuting won, according to the schedule, both sides will rest tomorrow Monday, and the second leg of the trilogy will be played on Tuesday the 16th.