Go: Is the portable old man the nine-time champion?

Chapter 276 Asian Cup

The Asian Cup Go Tournament, also known as the Asian Go Federation Tournament, is a continental tournament organized by the Asian Go Federation. Other tournaments of similar caliber include the Copa America and the European Cup.

If you're going to ask why there's no Australian Cup or Africa Cup of Nations, I think you'd better not ask.

However, this "same level" refers to the competition format. Both are competitions held on the same continent with the same number of participants, but the Asian Cup is far more prestigious than the other two competitions.

There's no way around it; just look at the players sitting at the Asian Cup opening ceremony right now. In the real-time rankings, Li Junhe is ranked number one in the world, Jiang Mobai is ranked number two, and Kuroki Teruto is ranked number four.

Three of the world's top five players are here, and even seven of the world's top ten players are here.

You tell me, if we exclude these people and then divide by two, how high can the competition's prestige be?

To put it bluntly, the European Championship is still going quite well, even though it's a battle of weak teams. It's still quite entertaining, given the long-standing rivalries between these European countries.

As long as the players are at odds, the match will always be interesting, like a game between England and France.

However, the Copa America is often criticized for being no different in quality from domestic competitions in America, since most other countries in the Americas have been dealt a terrible blow.

Apart from Canada, which is doing a little better, most other countries are practically non-existent, unable to produce even a decent chess player or athlete.

Therefore, people often complain that Ethan has never won any honors above the national level, and question whether the Copa America is even considered an intercontinental competition.

Of course, these things can't be said outright, but everyone understands what's going on.

Furthermore, the Asian Cup is a tremendous opportunity for Chinese chess players, as it is extremely difficult to get a chance to participate in other major Asian tournaments of the same caliber.

In the Asian Games, only two people can participate in the individual Go event, and it's held every four years. This basically means that if you can't become the number one Go player in China, it will be difficult for you to participate in the professional Go event.

Although the Asian Go Championship also has 64 participants, the quota is allocated entirely by country. No matter how strong China is, it won't be allocated too many slots. China only gets 10 slots. After excluding the seeds that are internally selected by the national team, there are less than two left for domestic selection.

Who are the people selected internally in China? It's incredibly competitive to fight for a spot among a limited number of people.

Forget about winning the championship; just making it to the main tournament is a blessing.

So even though the Asian Cup is held every two years, allocating nearly half of the spots for the comprehensive qualifying is like a godsend.

China accounts for nearly half of the entries each year, and this year it has reached a new high.

One runner-up seed from the previous tournament, eight national seeds, and twenty-five players who qualified through the combined qualifiers, totaling thirty-four players participating in this Asian Cup, accounting for more than half of the available slots.

Only this competition truly showcased the depth of Chinese strength; other competitions were nerfed too much because the Chinese version was simply too powerful.

There were also quite a few players from other countries participating in the competition. Excluding the seed allocation outside of the general preliminaries, Japan had five seeded spots, Silla had three, India had three, Korea had two, and the remaining spot was one seeded spot. Various smaller countries such as Malaysia and Singapore also received one seeded spot.

There are too many countries in Asia, and many of them have considerable strength. Many people subconsciously think that Asia is only East Asia, Southeast Asia and Asia in general.

But actually, there are also Central and West Asian countries, such as the squid and the Middle Eastern countries, who are all Asian and also participate in the Asian Cup. The remaining eleven spots, one for each country, aren't even enough; every year there's a huge fight over them.

However, each country still has professional-level athletes, unlike the case of Coach Ke who invited athletes from all over the world except China, Japan, and South Korea, simply to showcase the word "world".

They even treat their days as just for fun, and most of Japan's top Go players seem to care only about domestic competitions and not international ones.

Because of a special rule in a certain world championship that penalizes players for exceeding the time limit, the Ing Cup is not recognized as an official tournament by the Japan Go Association in Japan.

But once they win the championship, everything changes. They show a completely different face, burning chess scores to their ancestors and promoting themselves as the world's best, all while trying to bring glory to their ancestors.

So it's not that they don't care about world championships at all; it's that they genuinely lack the ability to compete and are just putting on an act.

Apart from China, Japan, and South Korea, other countries only have professional first dan and amateur levels. In competitions, they are basically guaranteed a win. They can beat anyone from China, even the top-ranked player in the overall card and board game.

But if the top-ranked player in all card and board games really came to participate in the Asian Cup, he would probably be eliminated in the first round no matter who he faced.

"There shouldn't have been any kind of comprehensive preliminary election."

Seeing the entire venue filled with the chatter of Chinese, one of the Silla chess players said with a look of indignation, his sour taste almost permeating the entire venue. It was hard to tell if it was because they had eaten too many side dishes at their state banquet.

That damned Asian Go Federation! They know perfectly well that the Chinese are strong and numerous, yet they still hold this kind of comprehensive preliminary round. Isn't this blatantly helping the Chinese cheat?! They don't consider the game balance at all!

The comprehensive preliminary rounds should be abolished! This is helping China expand its Go skills!

It's unbelievable that even two strong 9-dan players from Silla who participated in the preliminaries last year failed. There shouldn't be such a thing as a comprehensive preliminaries.

Last year, Silla suffered a double loss in the overall preliminary rounds. The two players, ranked second and fourth in Silla's Go rankings and who could have directly entered the competition as seeds, participated in the preliminary rounds in the hopes of securing two more spots. However, they were instead punished.

At this moment, Yi Zheng, one of the people who were punished for his righteous actions last year, was already asleep in his chair, sleeping quite soundly.

There was no way to understand what the king on the stage was saying. Although there was a translator to help, the hypnotic effect was greater due to the combined effect.

It's not as interesting as the gossip from the audience before the competition starts, such as how wise and powerful the king's father was back then, how he went from being a puppet to having real power, and how this king turned out to be incompetent.

For example, just how wealthy is this king's family? It far surpasses that of other wealthy Middle Eastern kings.

It is said that the king's son previously acted very stupidly, just like the so-called sole bloodline of the royal family of a certain island nation. Under the media spotlight, he seemed unable to live a normal life.

But who knew that after another heir died for reasons unknown, he instantly went from being mentally impaired to a normal person.

It's truly remarkable that a tributary state deeply influenced by China has such sophisticated practices, even its children know what it means to feign madness. It also makes one realize that the royal family is definitely not a place for normal people.

(End of this chapter)