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Ma Xiaochun (1)
is similar to
Nie Weiping (2);
the colorful personality makes him an esay target for exaggerations.
Ma Xiaochun is usually like air, floating, flowing, and hard
to catch. He walks lightly and fast, like leaves carried by
wind. He talks slowly and subtly, with clever words carefully
selected. To interview him is a difficult assignment. Even
after he captured the world championship, there were still
very few reporters who were able to engage him in substantial
conversations.
His answers make your questions stupid. His trace is somewhat
mysterious. Players are playing or replaying in the study room,
and he glances from a a few steps away. When you turn to glance
in his direction, however, he is already gone. His style on the
board gives people the same feeling. Some say it's light, some
say it's airy, and some say it's ghosty!
Yang Hui (3) would
comment on a move of his, "Whoa, such a ghosty move!"
While
Liu Xiaoguang (4)
would shake his head after losing to Ma,
"How can a man beat a ghost?"
But Ma Xiaochun is also a tornado. He wraps you, swallows you,
and throws you into the sky. You can solidly feel his existence
and his power. Nowadays, no matter who, meeting him in a match
is bad luck.
After beating
Cho Hunhyun (5)
in a three-game series [for
the victory in one of the semi-finals of the 1995 Tongyang
Securities Cup in Korea], Ma Xiaochun gained the feeling of at
the top of mountains.
People were speculating the upcoming final matches between Ma
and Nie. Some say whenever Nie met Ma, Nie would make less
uncharacteristic moves, while Ma would show more weakness than
usual. It was told that a physiognomist in Shanghai looked at
the two and concluded that Nie had more king looking and was
thus the favorite to win. Nie was born in a Year of Dragon, and
so was Ma. I therefore said to my colleagues that they were
"two dragons going after the pearl" and everything
remained unpredictable. Ma and Nie had had over a decade
of rivalry, and their records were about even. The balance
sometimes leaned to one side, sometimes the other. Ma fully
understood that these final matches of Tongyang Securities Cup
staged a "battle of Waterloo"; whoever wins it would take the
world. Coming up short twice, Nie had won two second-places in
world championships. He would not let another golden opportunity
slip away from his finger tips. Age wise, Nie did not have many
years remaining, and this battle became especially crucial.
Nie also valued heavily on who is the No. 1 in the world. Last
year for the first time he was listed behind Ma in the national
top-ten voting. He did not buy it at all, saying, "The
fans are outsiders, but how could the experts not understand
either?" Lo and behold, he defeated Ma in the Nie-Ma
seven-game series, defending the crown he had held for years.
Under special conditions, Nie could explode with an irresistible
power.
Interestingly, the five-game Tongyang Securities Cup final
matches overlapped with the five-game Tianyuan matches [Tengen
in China, also between Nie and Ma], together a ten-game series.
It was difficult to decide which one to emphasize. Ma told
a reporter, "I will try to win as many games as I can,
otherwise God would punish me." But later when he chatted
with me, he said, "Maybe I shouldn't win all of them,
otherwise God would punish me." It was obvious that his
mind was in a complicated state.
A company cheering for Nie held a small ceremony, during which
each of them received a bottle of "Louis 13" [an imported
alcohol]. I was present on that day, but only later I learned
that Ma had seen good luck in this bottle of "Louis 13." Nie
normally only drank white alcohols, seldom imported, while Ma,
on the other hand, liked foreign alcohols only. Wasn't this
bottle, therefore, a good sign? His mind had deeply sunk into
the Nie-Ma battle.
A few days later in Tokyo, Ma cirsply finished
Kato Masao (6),
while Nie was eliminated by Korea's
Yoo Changhyuk (7)
[unsure of the name of the tournament]. Ma must have learned something
again.
The first game of Nie-Ma Tianyuan matches was held on April 13,
in the special playing room of Chinese Go Association. Specially
decorated with ancient taste, the room was crowded with a few
other observers. The match thus did not look particularly
serious, but it was the prelude of a magnificent symphony. Nie
lost the game.
During the replay, Nie looked relaxed, joking around with other players.
A shade of mystery crept into the matches.
"He did not play hard at all -- the sly old fox,"
returning to the dorm, Ma said to me. "He only spent 80
percent of his full strength."
Surprised, I turned to ask him, "Then how much did you
spend?"
"60 percent." He sounded even more sly.
The next day they were heading to Seoul for the first two of
the Tongyong Securities Cup final matches. I asked for his
predictions. He said, "One apiece, I guess. If I am asked to
sign for a result of 1 to 1, I would sign it right now."
"Why?" I asked. He said, "If I were to win both,
there would be no way to watch the rest of the matches."
I was shocked by such a boast. He sounded as if the outcome had
been totally controlled in his hands! His planning was actually
deeper than that. It was impossible to lose all, but it was also
difficult to win all. The key was that he was confident enough
to "give up" a game. He understood Nie too well. A 2-0 score
would push Nie against the wall, and who could imagine what kind
of force Nie would then erupt? By losing a game, on the other
hand, it would be possible to hang some pressure in Nie's mind.
The author of the book, "Go and the 36 Strategies", Ma
began to apply one of the strategies.
With a meaningful smile, he was gone in a cab.
Like Nie Weiping, Ma Xiaochun is extremely confident. When
he wrote "Go and the 36 Strategies", for example, he said,
"Only I could write a book of this type. What's so
interesting about other go books? Any go player can write
one." For another example, I wrote three years ago that
Rui Naiwei (8)
won a game from him. He was utterly angered, "I
never lost to her!" But how could I remember wrong? Rui
was so happy about the win that she cried in the room, and I
was with the team at the time. Later I asked him to confirm, he
smiled, "Now I remember. Well, that was not really a formal
match, so I wasn't with my mind."
His confidence also showed in the fact that he was never hard
on himself. A couple of years ago, people commented that he was
"an insider [winner] for games inside [domestic], and an
outsider [loser] for games outside [international]." He argued,
"Isn't just that I lost three 0-2's [annual Mingren-Meijin
duel matches] to
Kobayashi Koichi (9)?
But do not forget that
I stopped his five-game winning streak in the [China-Japan]
Supergo. Kobayashi being stronger than me was a historical
result, but history has also given me the advantage of age.
Sooner or later this will show!"
Some said that his desire for victory was not strong enough.
He replied with a sneer, "Playing go is no melee. Fighting
without knowing when to give up is hopeless."
Some others said that he didn't work hard enough, playing too
much music and games. He counterattacked, "People knowing
only one road to Rome have no merit to give advices."
He's not just confident; he's also superstitious. The dates
of matches and the number of hotel rooms are all God's hints
to him. He invented a whole set of theories of omens, such as
"single-[numbered-]year is lucky, but double-year is unlucky"
and "a losing streak would follow a winning streak." The
[Communist] party head for the Chinese Go Association, Mr.
Nian, often led teams to international tournaments in which
the players suffered losses. To Ma, "party head" is the same
as "losing games." [In Chinese, the word for "party head" is
"shu ji," while the word for "losing games" is "shu qi;" the
two words sound similar. :-)] Once Ma went a few minutes late
for a game on purpose, in the hope to avoid Mr. Nian. To his
surprise, Mr. Nian was waiting for him at the door and greeted
him, "Good luck for the game!" Ma thought, oh shoot,
bad luck! And it was indeed so.
On the way to the semi-finals of Tongyang Securities Cup, the
team leader was Mr. Luo. Ma requested a change of the team
leader on the ground that teams led by Mr. Luo often lost in
international matches. It was actually no longer valid after
Cao Dayuan (10)
winning in Shanghai, but Ma still insisted so. After
beating Cho Hunhyun in Seoul, he couldn't hold such a belief
anymore. Some players shouted, "Justice for Mr. Luo!"
Some other shouted, "Justice for Mr. Nian!"
Among these jokes, his student
Luo Xihe (11)
revealed the key,
"He was just looking for some spiritual support."
Ma is a believer in tactics. Tactics have helped him, but
tactics have also got him before. During the seven-game serise
against Nie, the score was tied 3-3. Ma was then tricked
terribly in the seventh game. Midway through the game, a relaxed
Nie was happily smoking and drinking water. Ma thought, Nie must
be leading! But the actual leader was Ma himself. He overplayed
the rest of the way, ending up losing the game. When the referee
announced a half-point loss for Ma, he was stunned in silence.
More than a decade ago on a train from Hangzhou to Hefei [both
cities locate in eastern China], people were telling
Chen Zude (12),
"There is an incredible kid here." Chen played
the boy a handicapped game. When he played, the boy's eyes
looked upward, circling around. His play showed a profound
understanding of the game. Chen later wrote to Zhejiang [Ma's
home province] Sports Committee, "Don't forget to raise Ma
Xiaochun."
About the same time,
Fujisawa Shuko (13)
was also deeply
impressed by Ma's talent. He wrote a special article to
introduce him to the Japanese go world. But when the two met in
the first Ing Cup [in 1989], it took Shuko the old man only a
few dozens of moves to settle the game. Shuko commented after
the game, "Ma doesn't work hard enough, and he doesn't
improve fast."
Chen Zude had the same feeling. He later told me, "I
have been disappointed by him. If he again fails to win a
championship this time, he deserves a spank on the butt."
The first two games of the five-game series [Tongyang final
matches] indeed turned out a draw. In the first game played
on April 17, Ma held black and won by resignation. According
to his comments after the game, "I would not want to win
quickly." He therefore played patiently, waiting for Nie to
make mistakes in the second half of the game. And he got what
he waited for. The problem was the second game played on April
18, in which he held white. Under a favorable situation, he made
an incomprehensible move that turned the game sharply. Upon
receiving the moves, the players in the Chinese Go Association
commented that they "could not understand" Ma's play
anymore.
After they returned from Seoul, some said to Ma, "It was
a pity to lose the second game." I asked him if it was a
"planned loss." He said, "Losing is not necessarily bad, and
winning is not necessarily good." Go figure.
He was frequently on trips those days, at a time in his life
to face the busiest playing schedule. In Shanghai, he finally
defeated Nie by 3-1, claiming the Tianyuan title. Again in
Shanghai, he outdueled the new Tengen from Japan,
Ryu Shikun (14),
by a score of 2-0 in the Tianyuan-Tengen matches. Ma's
confidence was growing with the battles.
During his Tianyuan matches against Nie, he learned on the phone
from a friend in Beijing that folks were betting on the matches.
He advised, "Go ahead and bet -- bet on me."
"Are you so sure? Well I will just bet on Nie instead."
said the friend.
"Then you will lose money for sure."
Ryu Shikun, on the other hand, was a rising star in Japan after
beating
Rin Kaiho (15)
2-0 to take the Tengen crown. But Ma
said, "He is still a baby."
In the first game, Ma delivered a tremendous 50-point exchange
on the board to take the game, shocking almost everyone. Ma
had been known of his delicacy on the board, and to conduct an
exchange of this size required no ordinary spirit. An expert
commented, "Ma has changed his style. This game could well
be a milestone."
The next day was a schedule break, and the Japanese players
originally planned to go to Suzhou [a famous sightseeing city
near Shanghai], departing at six o'clock in the morning. Ryu
Shikun, however, became undecided the previous night. Losing the
game, his relaxing mood was gone with the wind. The Japanese
team leader had to decide to cancel the trip. When Ma entered
the cafeteria for breakfast, he saw Ryu eating. He wondered,
"How come you didn't go to Suzhou?"
Some told him of the cancelation of the trip. He said, "He
still has chances to go." Seeing others confused, he added,
"After he loses again tomorrow, he will have another day
[for the trip] after that." He did not plan any wins for
his opponent.
The second night after he returned from Seoul with the world
championship trophy, Ma Xiaochun invited his family and
friends to a feast at a Beijing restaurant. Holding a glass of
"Louis 13", he spoke to the guests, "This glass is for Mr.
Kobayashi Koichi. If it was not for him, I wouldn't have played
till today."
Kobayashi was his most hated enemy, and Kobayashi was his most thanked
friend.
One day at the end of 1991, the fourth China-Japan
Mingren-Meijin duel matches were held in a hotel in Beijing. I
went to see the games. Ma once again lost the matches with the
same old score of 0-2. Sadness, perhaps even horror, covered the
faces of the Chinese players who were observing. When it was
time for replay, we entered the playing room. Sitting noble and
straight, Kobayashi Koichi pointed at a few moves on the board
before he got up and left in the style of a king. Facing the
board, a stunned Ma seemed to have lost his senses.
Many fans had bought tickets to come to watch the game in the
hotel. Two of them stopped Ma at the front door on his way out.
"Couldn't you just win once -- or even just one game?!"
said one of them.
"You just have to tell us clearly today," said another,
"Are you capable of teaching Kobayashi a lesson? Is it
problem with money? If I pay you 100,000 yuan, would you go
ahead and win once?"
Speechless, Ma escaped from the fans and got onto a shuttle bus.
Hua Yigang, one of the team leaders, stopped the two fans and
said, "He's feeling more terribly than you!" On the
shuttle bus, Ma hid his head under his clothes...A chilly scene.
Kobayashi Koichi, the thron in the eye to the Chinese players,
was a go machine with the label "Made in Japan," nearly
faultless. Regarding to Mingren-Meijin matches, he claimed,
"If the Chinese player wins one game, I would accept the
defeat [of the whole matches]." Nie Weiping had the record
of defeating Kobayashi, so some people wrote to the Chinese Go
Association and to Ma, asking him to yield the match seat to
Nie. Chen Zude received the letter and tore it to pieces. Ma
treated the letter insane and also threw it in the wastebasket.
This was where Ma was special; he could overcome any frustration
and humiliation. "I earned the match seat. If someone could
not pass me, not much chance to face Kobayashi either." he
said.
It was said that Ma would remain speechless a week after losing.
Some players would lose themselves after losing games, but not
Ma Xiaochun. He could always find a way out, keeping himself
up. Facing Kobayashi, from losing by two points, to losing by
one point, then to losing by half a point, he saw lights. The
sparkles came from hits, and one morning, Ma's first thought
after waking up was, he had found a way to beat Kobayashi!
December 18, 1992, in Tokyo, Ma Xiaochun charged through the
thick wall, forcing Kobayashi Koichi to sign the defeat letter
with a long awaited score of 2-1. The sky suddenly brightened.
Ma Xiaochun and Nie Weiping had known each other very well,
but in a sense, Ma knew Nie more deeply. It was like a student
knowing his teacher better than a teacher knowing one of his
students.
Ma noticed that Nie often had trouble against Cho Hunhyun, so he
studied the games record of Cho. (Previously against Cho, he had
successfully learned from the play of
Lee Changho (16).)
He also
found that Nie was not at his best handling invading stones --
unable to swallow, nor was he able to get rid of them. Nie often
made muddle-headed moves later in the game, and based on Ma's
understanding, a player's best ages are between 28 and 35, while
Nie had passed the period -- muddle-headed moves was another
way of saying declining strength. With these study results, Ma
couldn't feel better to go to Seoul with Nie.
On May 22, Ma played black in the third game and won by resignation.
On May 24, Ma was victorious again with a 6 1/2-point margin in
the final game to win the championship.
According to Chen Zude's saying, "He prepared too well
against Nie." Especially the second game [actually the
fourth and the final game], which was played out almost the same
way as the first game of Tianyuan matches [in which Ma also
defeated Nie]. Ma started out gaining plenty of territory, then
lightly landed a move over Nie's big moyo. Nie could not plan
a good counter attack, and he looked tired. Although he was
still ambitiously moving forward his stones, and although he was
able to gain the upper hand in the first halves of both games,
mistakes were proven costly in both second halves. Approaching
the endgame of the second game, Rin Kaiho and
Wu Songsheng (17)
calculated that if both sides played out the best sequence, Nie
would post a close win. But he missed the opportunity. For both
games, he said, "The loss was too strange."
Some had said, in the past Nie-Ma matches, whenever Nie let Ma
taste some sweets, blind spots would surface in Ma's play. It
was totally different this time.
Ma later said, "I knew I would make the world champion,
but I did not expect to be the first [Chinese player to do
so]."
The night after the final game, a friend called Nie from home,
"Will you quit playing from now on?" Nie said, "No!
Not only I will continue to play, I still have chances to win
the world championship!"
A Korean reporter asked Ma, "Who will be your biggest opponent
next?"
"Myself," replied Ma. Thinking closely, it was an
answer too proud, yet very clever.
[Originally published on New Sports magazine, China, July 1995]
[Translated by Jim Z. Yu, San Jose, California, December 1995]
Notes on go players:
- Ma Xiaochun, 9-dan, China, world champion.
- Nie Weiping, 9-dan, China, Chinese team captain and anchor.
- Yang Hui, 8-dan, China, female, married to Cao Dayuan 9-dan.
- Liu Xiaoguang, 9-dan, China, national champion, Tianyuan.
- Cho Hunhyun, 9-dan, Korea, world champion.
- Kato Masao, 9-dan, Japan, "the Killer," Honinbo.
- Yoo Changhyuk, x-dan, Korea, world champion.
- Rui Naiwei, 9-dan, China, female, married to Jujo Jiang 9-dan,
women world champion.
- Kobayashi Koichi, 9-dan, Japan, Honorary Kisei and Meijin.
- Cao Dayuan, 9-dan, China, national champion.
- Luo Xihe, x-dan, Chinese go prodigy discovered with Chang Hao.
- Chen Zude, 9-dan, China, one of the first Chinese 9-dans,
chairman of the Chinese Go Association.
- Fujisawa Shuko, 9-dan, Japan, Honorary Kisei.
- Ryu Shikun, x-dan, Japan, born in Korea, Tengen.
- Rin Kaiho, 9-dan, Japan, from Taiwan, Meijin, Honinbo.
- Lee Changho, 7-dan, Korea, world champion, one of the greatest
prodigies in go history.
- Wu Songsheng, 9-dan, China, one of the first Chinese 9-dans.
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