Compared to the Xiangjia League, the national chess team competition may not be so well known. However, the history of the national chess team competition is much longer, and it has witnessed the historical changes in the development of Chinese chess.
Old photos of the National Chess Team Tournament
In 1960, Marshal Chen Yi put forward the famous incisive thesis of "national fortune, chess luck", and soon after, the Sports Daily published two editorials: "Advocating Chess" and "Actively Organizing Chess Activities", and some excerpts of the editorials are as follows:
Recently, Chen Yi and He Long, two vice premiers, received good Go, chess and chess players in Beijing and gave valuable instructions on how to carry out chess activities. This is the importance and concern of the party and the government for sports and chess skills, and it is also a great encouragement to all chess players across the country. There is no doubt that China's chess skills will further release brilliant brilliance and prosper faster and better. ”
"I hope that everyone will actively participate in chess activities that are beneficial to physical and mental health; I hope that sports organizations at all levels will strengthen publicity and vigorously carry out chess sports."
Against this backdrop, the National Chess Championship held in Beijing from October to November 1960 greatly expanded the scale of the competition compared with previous editions, and the total number of athletes reached 198. In addition to the original three individual competitions of Go, Chinese chess and chess, the Chinese chess team competition was added for the first time, which is the first national chess team competition.
The first National Chess Team Tournament consisted of 26 teams, three members of each team, and a total of 14 rounds of competition. From the perspective of lineup, the favorites to win the championship are Guangdong team and Shanghai team, Guangdong team sits on one is three national champions Yang Guanxuan, two Stations Cai Furu, three Taiwan Chen Baixiang, and Shanghai team sits on one is He Shun'an, the second is 15-year-old young player Hu Ronghua, and three Stages Zhu Jianqiu. As a result, the Shanghai team won 12 wins and 2 losses and ascended to the throne of the first national chess team championship.
Hu Ronghua participated in the competition as a teenager
This national team competition selected 20 outstanding chess players, followed by the national individual competition. In particular, it is worth mentioning that after winning the national team championship, Hu Ronghua, a young player of the Shanghai team, soared into the sky in the individual competition, won the championship, composed a good story in the chess world, and also announced that Chinese chess entered the era of Hu Ronghua.
The successful holding of the first national chess team competition has made many chess players see the hope of participating in the national competition, and greatly aroused the enthusiasm of carrying out chess sports in various places.
However, the sky is not beautiful, China suffered three years of natural disasters, the National Sports Commission asked to save the tournament, the large number of participants in the national chess team competition pressed the pause button, and then for well-known reasons, until 1976 to resume. In 1976, the National Chess Team Tournament only held a preliminary round, and the final was cancelled for some reason.
Since 1977, the National Chess Team Tournament has gradually entered the right track, once a year, and has not been interrupted since. In 1978, the team competition was held separately from the individual competition for the first time, and the team competition in the first half of the year and the individual competition in the second half of the year are still used today.
Throughout the 80s and 90s, the hegemony of the national chess team competition was undoubtedly the Guangdong team, from 1977 to 2002 a total of 26 national chess team competitions were held, the Guangdong team won the laurel 12 times, and the rest were divided and eaten by the Hebei team, the Liaoning team, the Shanghai team, the Heilongjiang team, the Jiangsu team, the locomotive team, which was also the main power map of Chinese chess in that era: the Guangdong team represented by Yang Guanxuan, Cai Furu, Lü Qin, Zong Yongsheng, Zhuang Yuting, Xu Yinchuan and others; the Guangdong team represented by Li Laiqun, Liu Dianzhong, Huang Yong, The Hebei team represented by Yan Wenqing and others; the Heilongjiang team represented by Wang Jialiang, Zhao Guorong, Sun Tierui, and Zhang Xiaoping; the Jiangsu team represented by Yan Mujiang, Dai Rongguang, Xu Tianhong, and others; and the Shanghai team represented by Hu Ronghua, Xu Tianli, Lin Hongmin, Wu Zhengwei, Wan Chunlin, Dong Xubin, and others.
Lü Qin was a key figure in the Guangdong chess team in the 80s and 90s
During this period, China's economy has not really taken off, the people's entertainment life is not rich, there are many people who like to play chess, there are chess stalls everywhere in the streets and alleys, and it is very enjoyable to appreciate the superb chess skills of the masters. The wonderful performance of chess masters in team and individual competitions has left good memories for chess fans, who have dedicated countless wonderful chess games, and many famous games are still a must for chess lovers to play.
In 2003, the National Chess League, which had been in preparation for several years, was officially unveiled, marking the transition of Chinese chess from specialization to professionalism.
In 2003, the shanghai team won the first Xiangjia League
In the Xiangjia League, which has a strong commercial atmosphere, each team has a sponsor, which has the economic basis for signing a master to join; and the free operation of the market makes each team no longer limited to "provincial professional players", but recruits talents nationwide. Such a mechanism undoubtedly dwarfs the traditional national chess team competition. From this year on, the National Chess Team Tournament was reduced to a second division for the Xiangjia, which can also be called an early Xiangjia qualifier, and its top two qualified for the next year's Xiangjia League.
Without the participation of many top players, the national chess team competition has deteriorated and almost no one has paid attention to it, and this situation continued until 2014.
In 2014, two policies were introduced that had a profound impact on the professional chess world.
The first item: the establishment of a separate Xiangjia League qualifier, stripping away the function of the national chess team competition, and decoupling from the Xiangjia League.
Second: The "Technical Ranking Standards for Chess Players" promulgated in 2014 stipulates that the top six teams in the national chess team competition can be promoted to masters, and the individual winning rate is not assessed.
These two provisions, to a certain extent, have revitalized the national chess team competition, especially the second one, which provides a way for young chess players to promote to national masters, attracting the top players of various teams to return to the team competition, with the purpose of bringing "little brothers".
The policy was intended to give young players more opportunities for promotion, but it was too late, and the criteria for the top six in the group seemed a little too loose. After the implementation of the new regulations, chess masters have sprung up, let's take a look at the list of masters (men) who have been promoted through the team competition:
2014: Inner Mongolia team - Su Shaofeng, Zhejiang team - Liu Zijian, Hebei team - Wang Ruixiang, Zhao Dianyu, Chengdu team - Yang Hui
2015: Zhejiang team - Wang Jiarui, Xiamen team - Lin Wenhan, Shandong team - Li Chengqi
2016: Heilongjiang team - Liu Junda, Hangzhou team - Li Bingxian, Beijing team - Yi Yi, Zhejiang team - Zhao Yanghe
2017: Hebei team - Sun Jihao, Guangdong team - Huang Guangying, Cheng Yudong, Liaoning team - Li Guannan, Wu Jinyong, Fan Siyuan, Hangzhou team - Ji Xinghai
2018: Heilongjiang team - He Weining, Hangzhou team - Ru Yichun, Xiamen team - Zhang Chengchu
2019: Hangzhou team - Wu Xinyang, Jiangsu team - Lu Tian, Hubei team - Liu Tian, Vanke
Before the emergence of the team masters, there were three main ways to promote the masters: the Weikai Cup, the national individual competition, and the Asian Junior Championship. Among them, only the champion of the Weikai Cup can be promoted to the master, so there is a maximum of one per year; the top 16 in the national individual competition can be promoted to the master, and only three people can be promoted in the three years from 2017 to 2019; the Asian Junior Championship is held every two years, and it takes at least two years to promote one. The team tournament has promoted 26 people in just six years, an average of 4 people per year, and it is no wonder that some people think that this is a welfare game in chess. Scarce things are precious, is each of them really equipped with the strength of a master? In recent years, a new word "water big" has been born among the majority of chess fans, which may have been self-evident.
These young players, who participate in the team competition, usually play the fourth table, and the real concern of chess fans is the competition between the top players of the first one. Unfortunately, the first showdown is also often disappointing, full of a lot of stuffiness, speed and harmony. The reason is very simple, the goals of each team can be roughly divided into three types: the first is to compete for the championship (the champion team qualifies to arrange for the team members to participate in the Asian team competition), such as the Chengdu team in the 2020 team competition, which is composed of a fully luxurious lineup, obviously intending to compete for the championship; the second is to compete for the top six, with the intention of promoting the young players in the team to the master, this team lineup is usually "3 +1", that is, three masters with a young player, such as Zhejiang team (Zhao Xinxin, Huang Zhufeng, Xu Chongfeng + Wu Junliang); the third is no desire and no demand, neither can compete for the championship, There is also no suitable candidate for the promotion of the master. In addition to the first type of team that competes for the championship, one of the last two teams usually does not fight too hard, and everyone tacitly completes the task without announcing that they will enter the top six, so that chess is commonplace.
Without the fierce confrontation of the top chess players, then the attraction of the national chess team competition to the audience can be imagined.
The 2019 National Chess Team Championship Chengdu team won the men's team and women's team championships
postscript:
Nowadays, chess is in full bloom and there are many kinds of competitions, giving fans more viewing options. In addition, there are many competitions with high specifications and prize money, and the top chess players attach great importance to it, and the matches that are played are wonderful and fascinating, far from being comparable to the dull and boring team matches.
The National Chess Team Tournament has brought countless joys to the majority of chess lovers, but after sixty years of ups and downs, it has faltered and cannot keep up with the times, and now it is more of a feeling, a inheritance of chess traditions. Times are changing, and chess team competitions should also keep pace with the times.