Dang Guolei

The player

Dang Guolei, born in Xi’an, Shaanxi in 1982, is the 2003 women’s national individual champion and an Asian Cup women’s individual champion, named a grandmaster in 2003. She joined the Yunnan team in 1999, and is one of the few champions to emerge from outside the traditional eastern and northeastern chess provinces.

The game here shows the patient, accurate style that carried her past one of the game’s greatest women to a hard-won victory.

Dang Guolei - Tang Dan, 2007

2007 Yitai Cup National Women’s Championship · 2007 · Dang Guolei (red) vs Tang Dan (black)

Dang Guolei, the accomplished Shaanxi grandmaster, takes red against the great Tang Dan - and beats her, which at the women’s championship of 2007 was as tough an assignment as the game offered.

First blood is late, a cannon taking a soldier on move thirty-one, and the decisive exchanges come in the thirties. Dang keeps two cannons and the marginally better structure and converts a long, close game. A fine scalp.