After all of us are reborn, who plays Go?

Chapter 63 63. Unique Art
The World Amateur Go Championship is the earliest Go competition held worldwide.

It was held by the Japan Ki Association and Japan Airlines (JAL) in Tokyo, Japan in 1979, with amateur Ki players from countries and regions in Asia, Europe, Oceania, South America and North America participating.

Including this year's 1980, there were two sessions held in total. China and Japan each won a championship in the first two sessions. Doesn't it sound similar?

In fact, it is far from that. Since there is no professional system in China, there are essentially no professional players. People like Fang Yuan can find loopholes and participate in such competitions.

So it was no surprise that Fang Yuan won the championship in the first competition. After all, he was a chess player who could compete with the Japanese 9th dan.

China directly won the first and second place.

After all, can you imagine that some people who won the world championship would go to some rookie king competition to blow up a pond?
But in the second session, Fang Yuan and other strong players of the Chinese national team who did not have professional titles quietly chose not to participate in the competition.

But even so, the Chinese national team still had players participating in the competition, but as professional national team members, no one won the championship in the second competition.

You know, there is absolutely no movement in the Go game in South Korea now. China is at a disadvantage against Japan, but other countries in the world are basically in the barbaric era. They participate in the competition just for tourism. In essence, it is still a situation of competition between China and Japan.

It seems like a terrifying thing that the Chinese national team members were unable to defeat the Japanese amateur chess players in the competition.

But it's actually normal.

Because amateur Go competitions in Japan have also developed in a very commercial way, a large number of players with strength but no potential would rather work as amateurs than as professional players.

Because the income and glory of top amateur players are much better than those of low-level professionals at the bottom of the food chain in the professional world.

Decades later, Chinese Go amateur kings are also at a professional level. There are even many professional players who have retired to become amateurs. It is not uncommon to occasionally defeat some professional mid- and high-level players.

"There are four great amateur Go players in Japan, all of whom have professional skills."

"Four kings……"

Zhan Lang didn't know how to complain after hearing the last two sentences. It seemed that the Japanese, no matter now or in the future, like to give others nicknames.

In particular, the stronger the person, the more imaginative the nickname.

The Empire's most ferocious tiger!

The empire's destroyer dragon!

The big devil of the deep sea!

The Dragon Prince of the East China Sea!

If it were me, what nickname would be better?

war Wolf?

Any evil will be brought to justice?!
Looking at Zhan Lang who was lost in thought, Fang Yuan nodded: "These four amateur chess players are all at the professional level, and they are not ordinary professionals.

They have been competing in amateur competitions for countless years and have accumulated strong competition experience and strength. To some extent, they are professional amateur chess players.

If I'm not careful, they might take advantage of me and win one or two games."

After Fang Yuan finished speaking, he deliberately observed Zhan Lang's expression, but he still didn't notice any changes in the other party.

"So why are you telling me this?"

"The competition will start in less than half a year! In other words, you have less than half a year to prepare for this competition. With your current level, the possibility of winning the championship is very small. But considering that you have only studied for ten months so far, we are really sure what you will be like in five months..."

"Are you planning to assign me to participate in the competition directly?"

Hearing Zhan Lang's shameless words, Fang Yuan rolled his eyes and said, "Dream on!"

"We don't have many places for this competition. If you want to participate in this competition, you must first get the only place in the Tianjin team, and then come to me for the few places in the national competition."

For today's Chinese chess players, participating in competitions is a rare opportunity, let alone international competitions of this kind.

Do you still want to specify the quota?
You're probably just thinking about eating peaches!
"You are really being frivolous when you say that."

Zhan Lang felt a bit of a headache after hearing what he heard, but compared to what happened decades later, it was already considered good.

You should know that the Chinese Go players of the 90s generation must first go through the preliminary rounds to participate in the preliminary rounds, and only after passing them can they participate in the preliminary rounds.

"But you probably can't imagine how important this game is!"

Fang Yuan looked at Zhan Lang standing next to him with some seriousness: "For this competition, the champion will receive a prize money that is converted into RMB, which is nearly 30,000 yuan!"

Many modern commercial operations of Chinese Go are imitated from Japan. Now Chinese Go also imitates Japan in organizing professional Go competitions such as news chess battles. However, the only Go competition now is the New Sports Cup, and the champion prize is only 80 yuan!
The amateur prize money in Japan is nearly 30,000 yuan.

The gap between the commercialization and economy of Go in China and Japan can be seen from the amount of prize money.

It can also be seen how much temptation these top Chinese players have to endure for not participating in the competition. The prize money outside is really too attractive.

This is also the reason why many professional athletes left the country later on, as they can easily earn dozens of times more money abroad.

"..."

"If you say that, you must be a millionaire!"

Zhan Lang was stunned for a moment when he heard this, and then he immediately realized that Fang Yuan was the champion of the first session!

Fang Yuan felt that Zhan Lang's train of thought was very strange. Shouldn't you be surprised by the bonus? Why did you suddenly turn your attention to a rich man like me?

However, Fang Yuan still told the truth: "That's what I said, but after the foreign exchange comes in and the commission from the chess academy, I will only get less than one-third of it?"

Because most of today's Go players are trained and educated by the national team, the national team will also take a cut of the prize money after the players receive it.

It was not until several decades later that the number of individual Go training institutions increased dramatically, and professional players basically trained themselves at their own expense before the commission was stopped.

However, South Korea still maintains the chess academy's commission system. As of 2023, the later number one player, Shen Zi, had received a total prize money of more than million. After taxes and commissions, he was left with just over million.

Before Fang Yuan could continue to say anything, Zhan Lang suddenly slapped the railing and said, "Stop talking. I'm determined to win this game!"

Looking at Zhan Lang who was suddenly startled, Fang Yuan was completely stunned. Isn't this kid's train of thought too weird?
At this time, the corners of Zhan Lang's mouth were as curled up as Nike, and he hugged Fang Yuan and laughed.

You are such a good NPC for issuing quests!
[Side Quest: The 3rd World Amateur Go Championship
Matching champion bonus: 200,000 yuan
Found a world-class task, non-professional competition, the system is judging...

After obtaining the qualification to participate in this competition, you will have the right to use the artificial intelligence Jueyi for 24 hours before the competition.

PS: I couldn’t find the prize money for the World Amateur Championship that year, and it wasn’t in Lao Nie’s memoirs either, so I just made up a number of 30,000. I guess that’s less. Last year it was 200,000.

(End of this chapter)