According to Xinhua News Agency, the 36-year-old South Korean Go star Lee Sedol submitted his resignation to the Korean Chess Academy on the 19th, officially announcing his retirement. Lee Sedol is a famous Go player and the most representative Korean chess player after Lee Chang-ho.
24 years of professional competition winning prize money of 9.8 billion won
In March this year, Lee Sedol told the media after losing to Chinese chess player Ke Jiejiudan in South Korea that he was considering retiring, and this year may be the last year of his professional chess career.
Born in 1983, Lee Sedol Kudan began his professional Go career in July 1995 (at the age of 12). In his 24-year career to date, he has won 50 championship trophies, including 18 world championships and 32 national championships, with a total prize money of nearly 9.8 billion won.
As a professional chess player, Lee Sedol's most widely known battle was the five-game battle with Google's computer Go program "alphago" in 2016, and although the total score was 1:4, Lee Sedol won the fourth game with the "One Hand of God", creating the only time for humans to defeat artificial intelligence chess players.
Three months in a row of two levels straight up to the nine-dan chess player
According to media reports, Lee Sedol was born in South Jeolla Province, South Korea, which is known to South Koreans as the "Holy Land of Go" by Koreans for walking out of the three Go nine dans of Lee Sedol, Cho Hwan Hyun and Kim Yin. Under the deliberate cultivation of his father, Lee Sedol and his brother Lee Sang-hoon are the famous local "Go brothers".
Lee Sedol, who has been gifted since childhood, is not inferior to others. When he was 11 years old, he was dissatisfied with the arrangement of the game by master Quan Jialong Seven Dan and boycotted the game; when he was still in the third dan, because he was dissatisfied with the dan competition, he felt that the dan competition was meaningless and did not want to participate, and the Korean Chess Academy had to change the rules, stipulating that the domestic champion could be directly promoted two levels, and the international champion was directly promoted to three levels, so he was able to win two world championships in three months, and the promotion of two consecutive levels to nine dans.
About the peak moment of Lee Sedol's nine paragraphs, there is also a story that makes the media talk about it.
In 2006, Lee Set his wedding date on March 12. However, on March 11 and 13 of that year, the first two rounds of the Chunlan Cup (one of the six major world professional Go cups) were held respectively. If you change into an ordinary person, you will definitely change the schedule and choose another auspicious day to hold the wedding. But Lee Sedol is not an ordinary person, he carried the suitcase to kill the opponent on the 11th, bought a ticket back to South Korea in the afternoon, held a wedding with his wife Kim Hyun-jin on the morning of the 12th as scheduled, and then arrived in Beijing with his wife that night to participate in the second round of the Chunlan Cup on the 13th of the next day. On this day, he still defeated his opponent.
The "lifelong opponent" heard about the retirement and expressed regret
Some people call the wild and uninhibited Lee Sedol "crazy stone", and searching for "Lee Sedol" in the search engine will automatically associate the keyword "crazy". In the early years, some media asked Lee Sedol how to view Lee Chang-ho, Cao Xuan-hyun and Ma Xiaochun, the three top masters of the chess world at that time, he directly diss, "Lee Chang-ho is the strongest, if I want to remove one of the three, it is Ma Xiaochun, he is not the world's top three."
But there is no shortage of geniuses in the World of Go, and there is never a shortage of madmen.
Earlier this year, when Lee Sedol, who had revealed his intentions to retire, was asked why he was considering ending his career, Lee said that it would be "harder and harder to beat young Go players like Ke Jie, and I personally feel very tired." It sounds like the "madman" Lee Sedol is going to be pushed on the beach by another post-90s who dares to speak up and is wild and informal.
After learning the news of Li Sedol's retirement, the Chinese Guli Jiudan, known as Li Sedol's "lifelong rival", allegedly sent such a circle of friends to express regret: "This day has finally come." Thank you for not being afraid of strong enemies, digging out one of the gods in the game of Alpha Go, defending the treasure of human wisdom; thank you for always being the target of my pursuit, accompanying me and encouraging me to move forward! ”
According to Xinhua News Agency, NetEase, Xinmin Evening News, Modern Express and so on