Chapter 586
The Man Who Knows Best How to Find the Camera
With the quarterfinals officially concluded.
The early arrival of the semi-finals, an all-South Korean affair, has clearly caused South Korea to lose more attention than before.
It will be difficult for the South Korean media to provide any substantial, face-to-face coverage of the upcoming semi-finals and finals; the news of the crushing defeat in the quarterfinals is entirely a final swan song.
Only the training institute, as the organizer and venue provider, may still need to complete all the preparatory work.
There are still at least three days left in the competition, which is not a short time.
Meanwhile, the four Chinese players who had finished their match gathered again in the debriefing room of the training institute after having dinner.
Lin Ruo originally wanted to go back to rest, but she was forcibly kidnapped by the other three people.
No, reviewing my match with Shin Jinseo would be enough, but why am I reviewing it with the three of you?
If you want to play mahjong and set up a table, that's a different story.
However, that's clearly not the case, nor is it about calling for Shin Jinseo to do a second review and form a five-player team.
Although Liao Yuanhe and his team reviewed the debriefing process at the venue, they still felt it was too simplistic, so they conducted a second debriefing in the debriefing room after dinner.
Because what they wanted to know wasn't where Shin Jinseo went wrong, but how Lin Ruo turned the tables later, some of the moves were so clever that even they didn't quite understand them.
Lin Ruo was forced to work overtime to teach him a skill.
In fact, after discussing all the details of this game, everyone gained a lot.
For example, Liao Yuanhe also realized that, compared to the younger Shin Jinseo, he was indeed lacking in the fact that Shin Jinseo's judgment ability was indeed exaggeratedly good.
In the match against Lin Ruo, Shin Jinseo played exceptionally well in the early and middle stages, without making even the slightest mistake, which allowed him to gain a huge advantage in the middle game.
He perfectly exemplified the principle that some paths lead to traps and others to losses, and he basically avoided taking any risky steps in the beginning.
This is what Liao Yuanhe lacks: he often takes risks and takes unusual steps from the very beginning, without realizing that it is a problem until it is used as a breakthrough point and he is passively aware of it.
However, Shin Jinseo is clearly not a perfect person. After the middle game, despite having a huge advantage, he made the mistake of being stuck and unable to move forward. Ultimately, it was because he valued Lin Ruo's style and wanted to play in a way that would suppress his opponent's style as much as possible on the board.
This led Shin Jinseo to overlook the specific details on the board, and coupled with Lin Ruo's excellent performance, it seemed reasonable that they were ultimately defeated.
all in all.
It can be said that before the middle game, Shin Jinseo was the one who played without any problems, while after the middle game, Lin Ruo was the one who played without any problems.
Both sides performed perfectly.
After understanding the situation, Liao Yuanhe realized that he could never reach either of the two people's levels. It wasn't that he lacked ability, but rather that even if he had the ability, he couldn't.
Liao Yuanhe also doesn't believe he can go halfway without making a mistake, because that's too much of an exaggeration.
In Go, the key is to see who makes fewer mistakes. You can make mistakes, but you have to make your opponent make more mistakes – that's how you win the game.
Not making mistakes is not his way of winning the game.
For Yang Dingxin, who has more experience, the focus is on the various strategies involved in this game.
Although both sides were trying to maintain stability and build up their positions in the middle game, a closer look reveals that there were many opportunistic battles within this strategy.
The power struggle between the two sides is considerable.
From the very beginning, Lin Ruo and Shen Zhenxue were setting traps for each other in the upper right corner.
The pits were dug very well hidden, and there were many of them. However, both sides surprisingly avoided being hit. It can be said that they were fully prepared on both the offensive and defensive ends.
In fact, if things weren't handled carefully, the situation wouldn't have remained so calm; instead, it would have erupted into an incredibly chaotic brawl.
This is precisely what Yang Dingxin is curious about in this game; he has a lot of ideas about the game between the two sides in the first half.
After a fierce battle, Lin Ruo made some subtle mistakes before the middle game, which allowed Shin Jinseo to find a breakthrough and widen the gap significantly.
Yang Dingxin's focus is precisely on this: he really enjoys the localized battles between the two sides in the first half, which are back-and-forth and incredibly exciting.
"I'm curious why you took a step here. You clearly miscalculated and let Shin Jinseo surround four stones at once."
No, why are you asking me questions during the debriefing?
Um… Lin Ruo scratched his head, somewhat surprised that he had taken that step, thus handing the initiative to Shin Jinseo.
There might be one best reason: he was overthinking things at the time.
Because Shin Jinseo had demonstrated absolute responsiveness in the previous dozens of exchanges, Lin Ruo naturally assumed that Shin Jinseo could understand many of his tactics.
Therefore, Lin Ruo devised a rather interesting counter-blocking strategy. However, to his surprise, Shin Jinseo unexpectedly failed to see through this move and instead took a different path that Lin Ruo didn't believe he should have taken.
This approach indirectly disrupted the thought pattern set up by Lin Ruo.
It's like a novice punching a master but failing miserably; Lin Ruo's approach was too profound, which ironically gave Shin Jinseo, who hadn't thought things through, an opportunity.
Having already made a move that somewhat backfired, Shin Jinseo then coincidentally found the key point, inevitably putting him at a disadvantage.
"Oh, is that so?"
Yang Dingxin didn't quite understand why, but after listening to Lin Ruo's entire plan and ideal vision for this step, all he could do was marvel at it.
Is this a step that a human could possibly come up with?
Indeed, not to mention Shin Jinseo, even Yang Dingxin didn't fully see through it. If he had truly understood Lin Ruo's intentions, he would undoubtedly have followed Lin Ruo's strategy.
That would be troublesome, because once they get caught up in it, Lin Ruo would have a huge advantage in the mid-game and later stages.
Moreover, Lin Ruo's ideas had already been fully covered, and since Yang Dingxin had followed his lead, he couldn't guarantee that Lin Ruo would be able to come back to his original ideas later.
So this step seemed very ingenious to him, but in the end he was too careless and thought too deeply. Yang Dingxin didn't see it, and neither did Shen Zhenxie.
If people can see through it, then this huge trap will likely be discussed for a long time to come, because it was dug so subtly and so cunningly.
Once you jump in, it's almost impossible to climb out.
The biggest problem is obviously how to jump in. Lin Ruo made a move that most people wouldn't make. They could see the power in it, but they couldn't see the motivation behind making that move.
In other words, Lin Ruo did not provide enough attraction when setting the trap.
Or perhaps the attraction strategy was implemented relatively late, requiring someone who fully understood it to make the move, but clearly even Shin Jinseo didn't make the move because he didn't understand it. This led to this step being somewhat of a parrot.
However, Yang Dingxin could see that Lin Ruo was not just a little scary, but rather a lot scary.
If I don't manage to, I might encounter a similar ingenious idea tomorrow, which would be a bit troublesome.
But what's the use of thinking about these things? As an experienced Go player, Yang Dingxin's greatest wisdom is the principle of remaining calm in the face of adversity.
No matter who your opponent is or how strong they are, the best answer is to maintain your own state of mind and not let your opponent change your mindset.
Just don't end up like the other two.
In the duel between Liao Yuanhe and Tang Weixing, for reasons unknown, the two agreed that their opponents were both relatively easy to defeat.
Liao Yuanhe probably drew this conclusion based on Tang Weixing's poor performance in the Chinese Weiqi League. After all, Tang Weixing is really unremarkable in China, and he often can't beat anyone.
As for the claim that he's practically invincible once he enters the Samsung Cup, that's certainly true, and Liao Yuanhe really believes in that buff. But isn't your invincibility based on the Koreans? I'm Chinese, after all.
In that case, Liao Yuanhe can only consider Tang Weixing as the same person he was in the domestic league.
In that case, I'm not even as good as a newcomer like myself in the Chinese Weiqi League.
Tang Weixing also had his own thoughts. To be fair, he felt that he was truly invincible in the Samsung Cup, so he was very confident in facing Liao Yuanhe, who had only been in the game for two years.
He easily defeated all those young South Korean players before, so it makes no sense that he's afraid of a Chinese player now.
In short, all three of them were thinking and making judgments about tomorrow's opponents. The reason there were three people was because Lin Ruo, the fourth person, was thinking about what to eat for breakfast tomorrow.
He was thinking, "Look, our Chinese players have swept all four semifinal spots. Isn't that a great achievement? Shouldn't we go out for a nice meal to celebrate?"
The result was obvious: he was the only one with this idea.
Moreover, not only did the others have no opinions, but they also had to drag Lin Ruo back to review the situation after they had just finished eating a meal that didn't suit their taste in the cafeteria.
To put it simply, Lin Ruo didn't have any real alone time tonight.
However, there's good news: tomorrow's match will start at 11:00 AM.
Well, this gave Lin Ruo her only question for the evening: when to have breakfast.
Will eating around 11 o'clock affect my performance in tomorrow's game? But if I eat around 9 o'clock, will it not count as breakfast? Isn't that breakfast?
After thinking it over, Lin Ruo decided to follow her heart and go to sleep first. She could deal with these things tomorrow; there was no point in thinking about them now.
The next day, Lin Ruo decided to get up at eight o'clock as usual and have breakfast first, since the only decent thing in the training institute's cafeteria was breakfast, and if she missed that, there was nothing else to eat.
Then, around 9 a.m., while the other three had already gone to lunch, Lin Ruo was still quietly digesting her breakfast in the dormitory.
Around 10 a.m., the other three had already gathered at the competition venue, and Lin Ruo slowly walked into the cafeteria to prepare for lunch.
What should we eat? Let's skip the meal.
There aren't any substantial dishes to eat with; we can't just eat it with kimchi and pickled radish.
So Lin Ruo very rationally ordered a plate of spaghetti, two pieces of fried chicken, and a cup of yogurt.
Huh, they even have fried shrimp today? This was a pleasant surprise for Lin Ruo.
But why fry shrimp? Well, to be honest, it tastes pretty good.
After finishing her meal in about half an hour, Lin Ruo leisurely made her way to the reception hall of the competition venue, munching on an apple.
As for why it took half an hour to eat, it was because Lin Ruo was looking at her phone while eating.
Isn't it a waste not to use your phone or watch videos during meals? Yes, that's right, so Lin Ruo didn't waste this precious time.
When he arrived at the competition venue, the cleaning lady was already there before him.
"Good morning, viewers watching the live stream. This is the Korea Training Institute. We are currently broadcasting the Samsung Cup semifinals. All four semifinalists have already been Chinese players, so today's matches are undoubtedly a major free-for-all for the Chinese Go community..."
As usual, the WildFox reporter was on-site conducting a live broadcast early in the morning.
Then, as usual, Lin Ruoshan arrived late, but this time she wasn't carrying anything else.
Oh, it's almost noon now, and Lin Ruo doesn't have many chances left to bring breakfast.
However, this did not prevent Lin Ruo from greeting the camera before walking into the competition venue.
This is basic courtesy, okay? Of course, Lin Ruo also wanted to show her face.
That's how handsome guys are.
The viewers in the live stream were used to it.
[The guy who's most professional at finding the camera, I admit you're handsome and photogenic, but could you please stop sticking your face so close to the lens? Believe me or not, I'll slap you across the face, and then another one, until your face is bright red.]
[Damn it, how could you slap Lin Shen's handsome face? I can't even bear to touch him, I want to touch him every day.]
People from Chengdu really know their stuff when it comes to this.
[Sigh, let alone people from Chengdu, even I, a guy, want to touch it; it's so exquisite.]
[Disgusting! What are you all talking about? Are you all so eager to touch his face? Unlike me, I don't even think about that. I just want to lie in bed with the great Lin Shen.]
Alright, alright, we've gone off-topic. What we should be thinking about now is whether Lin can win today's semi-final and make it to the finals.
[Seriously, is there even room for discussion here? You don't believe in me, Lin Shen? Get out of here! We, Lin Shen, don't need such insecure fans. As Lin Shen's fans, we must be bold and confident enough!]
[Sure enough, I've already photoshopped the picture of Lin Shen holding the trophy. What are you guys still thinking about? Can he even make it to the finals? What a joke! It doesn't make sense.]
Yes.
In the eyes of those who enjoy entertainment, anything can be discussed, but if you discuss whether Lin is at risk of not winning the championship, then sorry, there is absolutely no logic to it.
So let's continue discussing Lin Shen's face. (End of Chapter)