Bu Xiangzhi

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Bu Xiangzhi bigraphy, stories - Chinese chess player

Bu Xiangzhi : biography

December 10, 1985 –

Bu Xiangzhi ( born December 10, 1985) is a Chinese chess grandmaster. In 1999, he became China’s 10th Grandmaster at the age of 13 years, 10 months, 13 days, at the time the youngest in history. In April 2008, Bu and Ni Hua became the second and third Chinese players to pass the 2700 Elo rating line, after Wang Yue. Bu is ranked 39th globally and 3rd in China.

National team

Bu has played regularly since 2001 in the Chinese national team. With the World Team Chess Championship in 2005 in Beersheba, and with the Turin 2006 Chess Olympiad he achieved on the top board very good results and won individual and team silvers in each event. He played first board in Turin, where the Chinese team finished in second place. He won four games and drew eight, including his games against top Grandmasters Vladimir Kramnik, Viswanathan Anand and Levon Aronian. He has played in two previous Chess Olympiads in 2002 and 2004, both on board four.

He was part of the team that won silver at the December 2006 Asian Games in Doha. He won an individual bronze medal on board two as the team won gold at the 2008 15th Asian Team Chess Championship in Visakhapatnam.

China Chess League

Bu Xiangzhi plays for Shandong chess club in the China Chess League (CCL).

Notable chess games

Career

Early years

Bu was born December 10, 1985 in Qingdao. At age six, Bu was first introduced to chess by an elder cousin (his grandfather was a strong xiangqi player), and his interest grew with his compatriot Xie Jun’s women’s world championship victory in 1991. He began taking chess seriously at the age of nine years and received early training from then on. During this time, the Qingdao Daily newspaper founded a local chess club which many children in the city went to, including the Qingdao Daily’s chief editor’s son. His first chess book was a translation of the famous My 60 Memorable Games by Bobby Fischer, a player Bu admires. By 1993, he had already won the Qingdao Junior Chess Championship.

In 1997 this talent became the Children’s Champion of the National S.T. Lee Cup. In 1998 at the age of 12, he captured the titles of National Pupil Champion and Under-14 World Youth Champion. In 1999 he finished seventh in the prestigious Tan Chin Nam Grandmaster Invitational Tournament.

Youngest Grandmaster in history

A sponsor’s contract with a mineral water producer of his home city Qingdao enabled to him in 1999 with his coach Ji Yunqi to travel to Europe to take part there in several international chess tournaments. In autumn 1999 he achieved within only two months three Grandmaster norms, with tournament wins at the 21–29 September Paks GM (Category 10) tournament (6/9 points) and 3–13 October Kluger Memorial Budapest First Saturday (Category 7) tournament (8.5/11 pts), and coming joint first in the 18–23 October Qingdao Daily Cup (6/8 pts)., TeleSchach : Schach aktuell. Update 24.10.1999. He was 13 years 10 months 13 days old when he scored the final norm, at the time the youngest person to achieve that title. He gave up the running status of the world’s youngest Grandmaster to Sergey Karjakin in July 2002. Also in 1999 he won the German Open.

Bu Xiangzhi at the 2007 Blindfold Chess World Cup in [[Bilbao]]

2000s

In 2000 in Germany he won in his first appearance the International Neckar Open in Deizisau, Stuttgart. Also in 2000, Bu defeated the Azerbaijani chess talent Teimour Radjabov 6.5-1.5 in an eight game Future World Champions Match competition in New York. They played two games a day at a time control of one hour for all the moves. The margin of victory was a little flattering to Bu with Radjabov missing a number of good chances on the first day and then having a bit of a disaster on day two losing both games. Radjabov had beaten Bu in the two game final of a Cadet’s event held earlier in the year on the Kasparovchess.com site. In May 2000, Bu made his first appearance in a United States Chess Federation-rated tournament at the New York Open in New York City. Although one of the favorites to win the tournament, he lost in the first round to American life master Shearwood McClelland III in an upset, before rallying to finish with 5.5/9.http://www.drwoodymc.com/chess.html