The reason why it caused such an unprecedented sensation is because many people did not really expect his dream of success can be realized anymore now or ever.
Firstly, the world of Xiangqi is full of talented young and not so young players, they either progressed very rapidly or hold on steadily, and the 34-year-old Wang Yang is obviously not dominant in terms of age.
Secondly, Wang Yang is known as the "second person" and the "uncrowned king" of Xiangqi. He has nearly won the individual championship, for a total of five occasions, sadly all of them ended in near failures. And today, the uncrowned king suddenly burst into life, when people thought that there was no drama, causing an unexpected sense of joy to everyone.
In the individual championship this year, the format is a single knock-out match to move ahead, losing a game means out and finish, in the end the final champion must be a ruthless character who does not lose a single set from beginning to end.
At that time, among the 64 participating players, there were 16 grandmasters (8 of them previous individual champions), 37 masters, and 11 strong amateur players. It was as if ten of thousands of troops had to force their way across a single wooden bridge, the momentum was magnificent, the atmosphere was terrific and dramatic.
This time, Wang Yang forged ahead all the way, and 6 Xiangqi grandmasters or masters were left behind him, all defeated. They were Wan Chunlin（万春林）, Xie Gui（谢岿）, Xu Guoyi（许国义）, Hong Zhi（洪智）, Jiang Chuan（蒋川）, and Chen Hongsheng（陈泓盛）.
In the quarter finals, Wang Yang faced his senior Hong Zhi. They are team mates and also fierce rivals. In the final stage of the 2005 Taiyuan National Individual Championship, Wang Yang lost to Hong Zhi due to excessive nervousness in a favorable winning situation.
In the process of the final match against Chen Hongsheng, Wang Yang was neither hesitant nor reckless, he firmly attacked the weakness of the Red side of the 7th file back-rank Elephant, and took advantage of the right wing Rook and Knight-Cannon superiority to occupy a good position, forced the Red side to exchanged two Rooks for one, and finally defeated the Red with the siege tactic.
Afterwards, a reporter interviewed Wang Yang, knowing the final opponent was Chen Hongsheng instead of Zhao Xinxin, was he glad in a way? To this, Wang Yang replied: "No, no such idea at all. Of course I was really eager for the championship, but at that time I only focus on the game, I was very calm, maybe because I had experienced so much in the tournaments over the years."
That's true. In a thoughtful way, the only way to succeed in anything is to concentrate on the thing itself, not its added value.
If instead what Wang Yang thought at that time was: "Finally I reached the final again, this time if I do not win there may not have opportunity for me again, I must beat him, he is not as good as me, oh yes I want to thank him for eliminating several strong opponents, clearing up my way. If I win this championship, I can participate in several national championship invitational tournaments in the future, so that I will have more income, I can move my family to a bigger house, by the way, I plan to take the whole family to the Maldives for holidays next summer..."
If Wang Yang thinks about these undeserved distractions, then the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity will be missed again, and the title of today's article is likely to be "Super dark horse Chen Hongsheng won the 2018 individual championship!".
But Wang Yang didn't let that happen.
After winning the championship, Wang Yang confessed that he was very happy that his dream for many years had finally come true. Ten years ago, he would have been so excited he would not know how to handle the situation, but he is more calm now. This kind of calmness is a mature mentality that has slowly turned from fanaticism to cool and collected.
He believes that winning the individual championship is just a natural result of his hard work. As in the sentences:
"Here he lies where he longed to be;
Home is the sailor, home from sea,
And the hunter home from the hill."
This is the famous quote of the British poet Robert Louis Stevenson, and it is also Wang Yang's favorite poem, every time reading these sentences, surely they created a sense of peaceful belonging, a sense to go with the flow of time after all the dust and fuss have settled.
Generally speaking, when a person is in great joy or in great sorrow, it is difficult to maintain peace of mind, and almost nothing can be done (who can sleep after winning the championship). But Wang Yang, after the individual championship game, he mostly would as usual proceed to eat, play, and train as if nothing special has happened.
As the beneficiary of the single-elimination system, Wang Yang also talked about his views on the championship format, he felt that the previous individual competition adopted, winning the championship depended too much on the fortune of other players, the fate is not completely controlled by oneself in a way. In the elimination system, fate is basically determined by the players' own strength. Winners stay, losers out, no opponent's points in the equation, clean and simple.
Wang Yang said: "In fact, it is the same way to do things as a person, thinking too much is to court troubles, simply to live, and simply to pursue one's own thing. Although I have fulfilled my dream in the competition, I still plan to continue to play the game seriously in the future, do a good job of everyday live broadcasting, and have the opportunity to visit various places of the world. I want to play ten thousand games, and also want to travel ten of thousands of miles."
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Source : 樱伝圣殿
2019-April-28th
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