Guo Liping

The player

Guo Liping, born in Harbin in 1974, is a two-time women’s national individual champion - in 2002 and 2004 - and a two-time women’s world champion, named a grandmaster in 1998. She was a main player of the Heilongjiang team that won the national team and Sports Meet double in 2000, and one of the three world champions trained by Wang Jialiang.

Beyond the board she became one of the game’s best-known faces as the long-serving presenter of CCTV’s xiangqi programme from 2000, widely described as the channel’s first female chess presenter. The game here shows the sharp middlegame play behind her titles.

Guo Liping - Zhang Guofeng, 2001

2001 National Individual Championship · 2001 · Guo Liping (red) vs Zhang Guofeng (black)

Guo Liping, the strong Heilongjiang player, takes red against Zhang Guofeng in a short, sharp Same-Direction Cannons - fifty plies, decided in the middlegame.

A horse takes a cannon on move twenty-one and the sharpest play comes just before, five captures in ten moves in the twenties. Guo keeps two chariots and the better structure and wins quickly. A tidy demonstration of the shunpao’s cutting edge.