Not long ago, the Chinese athletics at the Tokyo Olympic Games ushered in a historic breakthrough, and the "please come in, go out" strategy is regarded as the "magic weapon" for the overall improvement of Chinese athletics. Today, Chinese Chess is trying to use another "please come in, go out" approach to enhance the influence and vitality of the project itself. On the 16th, the first "Shanghai Cup" Chess Masters Open held a press conference at the Shanghai Chess Academy, announcing that at the same time as the September 25-28 in Nanxiang, Shanghai, the selection mechanism of the qualifiers was also announced - 74 players from 20 countries and regions in Asia, Europe, North America and Oceania will participate in the finals, including many non-Chinese chess masters. The high prize money, the competition between China's top chess players and foreign chess players, undoubtedly added topics and highlights to this national sports.
The biggest benefit is that Chinese and foreign masters are on the same stage
What surprised Shan Xiali, president of the Shanghai Chess Academy, was the enthusiasm of this year's foreign teams, "to know that there are only 9 countries and regions in Asia to participate in the competition, and there are 9 countries and regions in Europe alone, and more importantly, many of them are non-Chinese players." ”
According to the previous qualifiers, the overseas group competition will have 74 players from 20 countries and regions in Four Continents of Asia, Europe, North America and Oceania participating in the finals. Although affected by the epidemic, overseas group competitions will be held online through daily chess, but the registration situation can be described as quite hot. When listing this set of data, Shan Xiali was quite proud, "As we all know, chess is China's own cultural and sports project, but it is not good enough in the process of publicity packaging and promotion. ”
The gold content of the event itself is one of the reasons for attracting foreign teams. According to the organizing committee of the event, this year's competition has a professional group competition, an overseas group competition, a youth team competition and a celebrity invitational competition, with a total prize money of up to 1 million yuan.
Among them, the professional group competition invited 23 male chess players and 7 female chess players with the top national rankings, as well as 1 male and 1 female chess player in the host country, a total of 32 chess players participated. Wang Tianyi, Zheng Weitong, Jiang Chuan, Meng Chen, Zhao Xinxin, Hong Zhi, Lü Qin, Wang Yang, Hao Jichao and Xie Jing, 10 first-class masters with a score of more than 2600 points, as well as Tang Dan and Wang Linna, two national women's chess players ranked first and second in the national women's chess rankings, will compete in this competition. However, the emergence of more and more outstanding foreign chess players is the key to forming a gratifying situation of "Chinese and foreign masters on the same stage". In the interview, Shan Xiali cited the president of the German Chess Association as an example.
"This well-known surgeon in the department of cardiology, after learning chess, found that there are many mysteries in it, and also led a large number of German locals to learn chess. This tournament creates a platform for non-Chinese players to communicate with Chinese players and improve their level. ”
To promote chess, it is not enough to rely on the top players in China
Although this is the first "Shanghai Cup" Chess Masters Open, in fact, this is not the first time that the top chess tournament named "Shanghai Cup" has appeared in the domestic chess world. Almost 40 years ago, in 1982, Shanghai held the Shanghai Cup "Chess Masters Invitational Tournament" - at that time, 16 top chess players from all over the country gathered in Shanghai to catch and play against each other. In the end, Hu Ronghua, who is known as the "first person in Chinese chess", passed the hurdles and won the cup. "At that time, in addition to the 'Five Sheep Cup', the whole country was this 'Shanghai Cup' chess game. At that time, it can be said that Shanghai made a good start and was very successful, and the chess players said that eating and living were very good. Hu Ronghua, who is now over seventy years old, also appeared at the scene of the press conference, recalling that the "Shanghai Cup" was only held once that year, and the Chinese chess international grandmaster was quite emotional. "At that time, I didn't think about how many sessions I wanted to hold the 'Shanghai Cup', but now the meaning of this event is completely different - Shanghai wants to create a brand event, make a business card of Nanxiang, a business card of Jiading, and a business card of Shanghai."
As Mr. Hu Ronghua said, from the format of the current "Shanghai Cup" Chess Masters Open Tournament to the future plan, it is not difficult to see the long-term goal of this tournament: the event has decided to be held in Nanxiang for 5 consecutive years, and at the same time, with the help of the collision and integration of the two excellent traditional Chinese cultures of chess and Nanxiang Xiaolong production techniques, the use of sports events to expand the influence of the city, improve the attention of the city, shape the image of the city, and increase the recognition of the citizens. "Allowing more top chess players, amateur chess players and non-Chinese chess players to promote chess through the tournament is also to promote excellent traditional culture." Shan Xiali said.
Set up a stage, invite more overseas chess players to the "hometown" of chess to exchange ideas, and at the same time promote this national essence sport according to local conditions and take the initiative - the "please come in, go out" of chess, let people see the new vitality of this ancient sport.
Column Editor-in-Chief: Chen Hua Text Editor: Yao Qinyi
Source: Author: Yao Qinyi