Will the way out for Go players be to fully transform into an anchor?

Go, a sport that is a little far away from most people’s lives, has been popular on Bilibili for a while.

Since Ke Jie, the eight-time champion of Go, retired from Weibo and entered Station B, the “celebrity effect” has brought a lot of fresh traffic to the Go content on this platform. But if you search for Ke Jie on Bilibili, you will find it difficult to find content about him playing Go seriously. The most prominent ones are often a large number of live sliced ​​videos. These videos are usually linked to words such as “abstract” and “against the sky”, and the number of views is also considerable. Remarkable, easily tens of millions.

The success of Ke Jie’s live broadcasting career is not unrelated to his status as a world-class player, but as a leading figure in today’s chess world, his “abstract Go” still has a real impact on the status quo of the Chinese Go live broadcasting industry: the second-level chess player Zhan Ying, The number of fans has increased tenfold by live broadcasting. On the occasion of Christmas, she successfully entered the “Thousand Ships Hall of Fame”; Lian Xiao, a nine-dan chess player, once left the world of Go live broadcasting. Now he has mastered abstract Go. Ye Kuang slashed 2,600 captains, and once topped the B station live broadcast popularity list.

Sina Chess selected Zhanying as the 2022 Go Person of the Year

In the past few months, Go live broadcasts have sprung up suddenly, creating a new wave of abstract live broadcasts in the Chinese Go circle. These live broadcast rooms usually have one thing in common: Although the live broadcast content is still mainly about Go, almost no one is seriously discussing Go.

Go is on fire, but it doesn’t seem to be Go.

1

Except for Ke Jie, the eight-time champion, the top player in the Chinese Go world today may be Zhan Ying, a “marginal” player.

According to GoRatings, a statistics website for Go ratings, among the 874 active players who have recently participated in the competition, Zhanying ranks 697th with a rating of 2,856. This result is definitely not very good for professional players.

The rating of the war eagle has been declining, and the debut is the peak

During Zhanying’s career as an anchor in the past few years, she has experienced the obscurity during the Huya live broadcast period, and also experienced the ignorance after moving to station B. It was not until an unintentional ridicule a few months ago that her live broadcast improved. .

The fame of Zhanying is actually a very accidental opportunity. Judging from the statistics of the growth of fans at station B, the first wave of Zhanying’s popularity exploded around October 16. This time period is exactly when she sharply commented on Ke Jie’s “talented but not virtuous”. “The period when the live broadcast clips began to receive attention. Zhanying himself probably didn’t expect that after so many years of broadcasting diligently, he would finally become popular because of this method.

“Rubbing” Ke Jie’s popularity is not Zhanying’s original intention. After all, Ke Jie is an unavoidable topic when talking about Go in China. In the live broadcast, it was mentioned that Ke Jie’s live broadcast accounted for 115. Now the composition of Zhanying’s fan base is largely related to Ke Jie’s abstract live broadcast.

Of course, just relying on comments on Ke Jie is destined to not go far. After that, Zhanying quickly found his own live broadcast style, and did a good job enough to get out of the circle: he was so angry that he broke his defense.

The thing is like this, after the first battle of Zhanying became famous, all the friends in the Go post bar noticed this little-known chess player. Considering the unsatisfactory performance of Zhanying in the competition, the comments of the old buddies on Tieba will certainly not be too pleasant to listen to. Fans who don’t think it’s a big deal to watch the excitement encourage Zhanying to go and see how Xiao Heizi on Tieba criticizes him sharply. The result is naturally predictable. Know.

In many people’s minds, Go is a competitive sport with a certain “force”. The mental journey of turning into silence and then covering his face and crying subverted the public’s stereotypes of chess players. It turns out that things like “anchor being scolded and crying alive” will really happen to a professional Go player.

Wang Tianyi, the number one player in Chinese chess, also noticed the incident of Zhanying breaking the defense, and thus the meme of “marginal chess player” was born.

After the incident of breaking the defense, the image of the war eagle in the eyes of the audience and fans has become more and more clear. In the subsequent several consecutive online interactions with Ke Jie, Zhanying endured the high-intensity torture of the abstract brother in the live broadcast room and the number one Go player in a low profile. Her naturally enthusiastic and funny character was even more amplified invisible Comedy effect.

The Warhawk show was abstract enough before it was famous

The effect of abstract Go is immediate, but Zhanying, whose number of fans is soaring, has not completely let herself go. Tricky interaction with the audience is her specialty, and the appearance of adhering to the dignity of a chess player is also the reason why everyone likes her. After getting out of the circle, Zhanying started a “small class for beginners in Go”. Through simple and easy-to-understand teaching videos, he popularized the basic rules of science for audiences who do not understand Go.

“Happy Go”, “Adult Go”, and “Abstract Go” are all just means of drainage. Zhanying has repeatedly emphasized that her ultimate goal is to spread the Go culture and let more people get in touch with Go, although most of the people in the live broadcast room The audience didn’t come here for Go at all.

Leaving aside whether Zhanying’s live broadcast has successfully promoted Go, at least on the platform of Station B, Go anchors have found a new way out.

2

The story of abstract Go didn’t stop at War Eagle’s Christmas ship. On the New Year’s Eve a few days ago, Lian Xiao, a nine-dan chess player, won 2,641 captains. On the number.

Different from the “entertainment anchor” Zhanying, Lian Xiao is a veritable technical anchor. “Tianyuan”, “Celebrity”, and “Chess Master”, these famous titles belonged to Lian Xiao; on the ranking list of Go levels, Lian Xiao, who is no longer at the top, can still be ranked 26th in the world, although he failed to surpass the world. The honor of the champion is in the bag, but Lian Xiao’s record is already dazzling enough.

At his peak, Lian Xiao won 10 domestic championships in a row

But even if he is as strong as Lian Xiao, in the bloody live broadcast industry, he still cannot help but feel powerless. According to Lian Xiao’s live broadcast on December 30 last year, he signed a live broadcast contract with Station B to spread and promote Go culture. The conscientious Lian Xiao has concentrated on chess and science popularization in the past live broadcasts, but due to the boring content of the live broadcasts and his poor speech, his popularity has slumped. In the end, Station B chose to terminate the contract, and Lian Xiao lost his part-time job as a Go anchor.

It is not uncommon for Lian Xiao’s live broadcast to be cold. You must know that ordinary passers-by know about Chinese Go players. Apart from Ke Jie, there are probably only veteran players such as Nie Weiping and Gu Li left. In fact, before Zhanying became famous, her live broadcast data was already more eye-catching than Lianxiao. Zhanying still knows how to please the audience, while Lianxiao really only plays Go.

There is a consensus in the chess circle that the more chess you play, the less traffic you get. Ke Jie and Zhan Ying successively proved this iron rule with their actual actions, and Lian Xiao joined the army of “doing nothing proper”.

Abstract Go has indeed brought a brand new opportunity to Lian Xiao. He gave up the traditional live broadcast of Go and can do anything but play Go. Under the joint drainage of Zhanying Ke Jie, Lian Xiao’s live broadcast data is no longer comparable. On the occasion of New Year’s Day, without prior preparation, Lian Xiao only verbally announced that “signed fan will be given away when boarding the ship”, unexpectedly The number of captains in the live broadcast room increased wildly in seconds, and accidentally became the top streamer in the live broadcast of station B that night. This night was known as the “Abstract Night” of the Weiqi circle in history.

Autographs and signature fans are traditional gifts in the Go circle. The Go magazine “Go World” sold the signature fans of many famous players more than ten years ago. Although the handwriting on these fans is mass-produced printed matter signed by chess players, they can still be sold at a high price of 150 yuan in that era.

It costs 138 yuan to open Station B for one month. Even ignoring the inflation over the years, spending this money to buy a signature fan of a top chess player is definitely a “big mistake”.

Not only the captains who showed up in groups, but also the audience who offered an admiral worth 1998 yuan for Lian Xiao, and got the qualification to guide the next game with Lian Xiao. Judging from the prices offered by professionals from all walks of life, the starting price of the guiding chess provided by a player of Lian Xiao’s level is probably several thousand yuan.

But no matter what, Lian Xiao still became popular with his abstract Go game after all. If he was still the one who patronized playing chess in the past, he would definitely not be able to reproduce today’s achievements in the live broadcast industry. Lian Xiao’s success proves a truth: even if you are not as good as Zhan Ying, abstract Go can still make you famous. From the time when the data was too poor and the contract was terminated, to the current Lightspeed 2000 Ship, the Go anchor at Station B, it has begun to develop in an abstract direction.

3

It is not a fantasy for professional chess players to fully transform into an anchor. Considering the status quo of Chinese Go in recent years, live broadcasting is likely to be a “survival path” for chess players.

Since the epidemic, all walks of life in China have not been very prosperous. Among them, the already depressed Go industry has made things worse. The epidemic has restricted the travel of a large number of chess players, making it difficult for offline Go competitions. Although online Go is a feasible way, problems related to cheating and equipment have been difficult to solve.

The previous epidemic had a particularly obvious impact on Chinese chess players. In the whole year of 2022, Yu Zhiying, the number one Chinese women’s Go player, played only 4 official games. In contrast, Cui Jing, the number one Korean women’s Go player, played 104 games in one year, a total of 100 more games.

Such an example also happened in men’s Go. For example, Ke Jie, a more active player, played 50 games last year, while Korean Go player Kim Eun-ji had 136 games.

If there is no competition, there will be no prize money. At the same time, the technical decline caused by the absence of competition will directly affect future performance. Top players like Ke Jie and Lian Xiao can support themselves in the absence of competition, but what should those marginal players do after losing their jobs?

According to the statistics of the Zhihu user “Tao Teacher Tao’s Cabin”, among the 957 chess players who have been assigned a period from 1982 to 2022, only 44 have left the industry, and the remaining players are still engaged in chess after their chess skills have declined. Work related to Go, and Go anchor, of course, can also be a brand new track.

In fact, on platforms such as Huya, Douyu, Station B, and Douyin, there are indeed a group of anchors who specialize in Go. Among them are pure Go enthusiasts, and there are also professional players like Zhanying. It’s just that everyone knows that it is difficult for an anchor who focuses on Go to wait for his day of success.

According to Zhanying, she had invited several professional chess players to Station B to join this abstract Go circle, including Shen Zhenzhen, the number one active Go player; Lian Xiao also revealed in the live broadcast that he was considering whether to Pull professional chess players around him, such as Yang Dingxin, into the anchor industry. This situation has the potential to develop into the era of Go’s great abstraction.

In the discussion community of Go lovers, there have been more and more topics about anchors in recent months. Some people think that abstract Go is ruining the industry. It is understandable to use popularity and influence to make money, but the main job of a chess player is to play chess in the final analysis. It is a pity to waste time on abstract live broadcast during the golden period of his career. Ke Jie, once the number one player in Chinese Go, experienced a dismal five-game losing streak in the second half of last year. Many chess fans blamed it on “only playing abstract and not Go”.

At the same time, among the passers-by audience attracted by abstract Go, there are indeed many new chess players trying to get in touch with Go. Before that, most of them had no interest in Go. In order to understand the chessboard in the abstract Go live broadcast room, they began to actively learn this difficult board game.

The live broadcast has undoubtedly shortened the distance between professional chess players and ordinary chess players. Netizens on the Internet can buy the attention of top chess players at a relatively low price and learn professional knowledge that they have never known. Perhaps after the popularity of abstract Go, there will be fewer anchors who concentrate on playing Go, but if this industry can really survive and grow, you can always find one or two live broadcast rooms that only play Go.

The anchor has gained traffic, the fun people have been happy, chess fans have learned skills, and passers-by have become interested in Go. Each group takes what it needs, and chats about different things in these divided live broadcast rooms, but at least, Go has gained unprecedented attention.