刘忆慈仙人指路第一人

Liu Yici and the "Angel's Guidance" Opening

Liu Yici（刘忆慈）was a renowned Xiangqi player, people first knew him in "Xiyutai"（喜雨台）of Hangzhou city, Zhejiang province. In the mid-fifties, he participated in the National Xiangqi Championships, won twice third place and once fifth place. He played the "Angel's Guidance“（仙人指路）Opening, with rich characteristics and new innovation, and he was known as "Immortal Liu". Until his death in 1982, he was a celebrity in Shanghai, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Guangzhou, Beijing, Tianjin and all over the country for more than 40 years.

Liu Yici was 1.75 meters tall, big ears, well built, was kind and helpful towards people. Born in Hangzhou in 1916, he loved Xiangqi since childhood. In 1928 his parents sent him to Xu Chunquan's（徐春泉）oil paper umbrella shop as an apprentice. Xu Chunquan was already a famous chess master in Hangzhou, nicknamed the "leopard", one of the "five tigers and one leopard" in the "Xiyutai" chess arena. When Xu played the game in the shop, he kindly allowed the apprentice Liu to watch from the sidelines, which also led to the improvement of Liu's Xiangqi skills. Later on, Xu asked Liu to try his hand. Since then, Liu's Xiangqi skills got further improved. When Liu Yici went to Xiyutai, he studied under the guidance of Zhang Guanyun（张观云）and Xu Chunlin（徐春林）.

Once, the boss Xu Chunquan and Liu Yici playing a game, Liu started with the "Flying Elephant Game"（飞象局）Opening, and soon entered a close range battle, the "leopard" after exerting all his strength, still could not make any headway, and the boss was defeated by Liu. Xu was not that happy, but later on he realized Liu was a talented player with great potential.

Xu Chunquan had a younger daughter, Liu and she got along well in the store. The romance built up gradually. In the autumn of 1933, Liu became the son-in-law of Xu. In addition to helping Xu taking care of the store, he had more time to play chess, and his skills were further improved. He also ventured to Shanghai and the surrounding towns.

Around 1936, the Chengnan Club held the "Hangzhou Celebrity Players Invitational Tournament", those invited were Li Jiachun（李嘉春）, Zhao Jinrong（赵金荣）, Cai Ah Fu（蔡阿福）, Zhang Yirong（张益荣）, Feng Meisun（冯楣荪）and Xu Chunquan（徐春泉）(Leopard), as well as rookies Dong Wenyuan（董文渊）and Liu Yici（刘忆慈）. During the competition, the umbrella shop was temporarily closed, Xu and his son-in-law both joined in. As Liu Yici came out second in the competition, he was recognized as a celebrity player of Hangzhou.

When in Shanghai Liu played friendly exchange match with famous players such as Zhu Jianqiu（朱剑秋）, Zhu Shouyi（朱寿颐）, Li Wushang（李武尚）, Ye Jinghua（叶景华）and others. Because of Liu's solid style and nice manner, he was having good influence in Shanghai and other places. For this reason, the Shanghai chess community knew that in addition to Dong Wenyuan, there was also a Liu Yici in Hangzhou, they were the two emerging Xiangqi pillars of the famous city south of the Yangtze River.

At that time, compared with Dong Wenyuan, Liu was better at opening and positional game, Dong was better known for his clever moves in mid-game. In the endgame stage, Liu was more of academic style, Dong was good at the free style of unexpected. From the late thirties to the sixties, one was known for his wit and fairy play, the other for his solidity.

Preparing for an invitation tournament in Guangdong, Liu and another young player, Li Yiting（李义庭）of Hubei, planned to go to Guangzhou to play against Yang Guanlin（杨官璘）and Chen Songshun（陈松顺）, two leading players in the South. Liu and Li were playing in a warm up match game in Shanghai, in the endgame, Li had a Rook, a Knight and two Guards, and Liu had two Rooks, the game was generally regarded as a theoretical draw. At that moment, Li Yiting suddenly stood up and accepted defeat. Hundreds of spectators in the auditorium demanded an explanation why. For a while, Liu didn't know what to do, Li had already replied: This end game refers to the classic case of a single Rook winning against a Knight and a pair of Guards. This explanation satisfied the vast number of chess fans. On the way home, Liu said to Li : "Although I won the game, I can say honestly that I have won only half of it." They both respected each other very much.

In 1956, the first national championship was held in Beijing. In the early autumn of that year, after a series of preliminary rounds and the semi-finals, Liu Yici, Chen Xuanyuan（陈选源）, Wei Senkun（卫森坤） and Jin Hucheng（金虎城）competed for the finals.

The competition was a high-level one. Leading players including "Invincible" Yang Guanlin of the south, "Northeast Tiger" Wang Jialiang（王嘉良）of the north, "Sichuan Swordsman" Liu Jianqing（刘剑青）of the west, and He Shun'an（何顺安）of the east. In order to excel in national competition, in addition to excellent technique and good physique, if one has new moves in the opening, that will help a lot. Liu Yici thought of "Angel's Guidance", which he had studied for many years, and it was time to show his skills. Liu Yici finally won the third place in the competition.

In the final stage of the second national competition in 1957, Liu met "Yang Invincible" again, so he went for the advance of the seventh file Pawn, the now famous "Angel's Guidance". For this kind of start, "Yang Invincible" was no stranger. Liu Yici centralized his Cannon, positioned his Knight to the side, advanced the other Cannon up the river bank front, thus obtaining a more favorable situation, Yang was under a lot of pressure, later the game was tied, thus proving the practical value of the new Opening. Liu Yici's play immediately caused a sensation, because it opened up a new passage, a new system from the past three or four hundred years. In the game against Li Yiting, Liu used the same again, and in the end won third place in the competition. As a result, the world has since called him "Liu Xianren".

Looking back at Liu's innovation, we should not only see his painstaking research, but also the influence of his Xiangqi teacher and coach. When Liu was a teenager, there were two Xiangqi teachers in Hangzhou, Zhang Guanyun and Xu Chunquan who guided him. Zhang was very interested in "Angel's Guidance", in addition to teaching him a few hands, he also said to Liu: "The chess path is endless, I can't afford to spend time because my family is too poor to support me all the way, but you can carry on the study further." These words had a great impact on Liu, and after his relentless research and study, he truely innovated, at least in the Opening, and it can be said that he was worthy of Zhang the teacher.

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Source: 棋谱88