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Master profile

Hu Ronghua

胡荣华

By the Xiangqi Arena team ·

Games
1,359
Years of the dated games
1990–2007
Archive record
546W · 553D · 260L

National titles: Men's national individual champion: 1960, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1974, 1975, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1983, 1985, 1997, 2000

The player

胡荣华 (Hu Ronghua), born in Shanghai on 14 November 1945, won the national individual championship a record fourteen times: all ten championships held from 1960 to 1979, then 1983, 1985, 1997 and 2000. He was fifteen at his first title and fifty-five at his last, the youngest and the oldest champion in the event's history, and the chess world calls him 胡司令, Commander Hu. He received the grandmaster title in 1982 and the international grandmaster title in 1988, and he won the Five Rams Cup five times in the 1980s. He was also a mainstay of the Shanghai team's five national team titles and of the Chinese team at the first World Championship in 1990.

He has 1,359 games in the archive, second only to 吕钦 (Lü Qin), and he scored 63.8% as Red and 57.2% as Black. No player in the collection opened with the Flying Elephant more often, and after the Central Cannon it was the opening he played most as Red. As Black he answered most often with the Screen Horses. Against Lü Qin, his most frequent opponent, he won 35, drew 82 and lost 37 of 154 games.

The two games below are wins from the archive's years, when he was past forty and still beating the champions of the next generation.

In the archive

In the archive
As Red / as Black672 games as Red, 688 as Black
Score63.8% as Red, 57.2% as Black
Most played systemsCentral Cannon as Red (312 games) · Screen Horses as Black (200 games)
Best-scoring systemPalace-Corner Cannon as Red: 79.4% over 17 games
Most frequent opponentLü Qin (154 games)
Longest game299 plies against Li Laiqun

Hu Ronghua - Liu Dahua, 1992

1992 National Individual Championship · 1992 · Hu Ronghua (red) vs Liu Dahua (black)

Hu Ronghua against Liu Dahua, a player famous for his blindfold displays. Hu has red and opens quietly with the Flying Elephant, a patient system that he did much to bring into top-level play.

The soldiers clash first, on move five, and Hu builds up slowly until the position opens with five captures around move eighteen. He keeps both cannons into the ending, and in the end a horse gives the final check. The game is a good model of how a quiet opening turns into a concrete attack.

Ply 0 of 107

Red won · 54 moves

The starting position.

Key moments

All the moves

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Hu Ronghua - Lü Qin, 2000

2000 National Team Championship · 2000 · Lü Qin (red) vs Hu Ronghua (black)

Nine years after their 1991 game, Hu Ronghua and Lü Qin meet again at the same event and with the same colours: Lü Qin has red and the Central Cannon, and Hu has Black. In his fifties, Hu was still a match for the younger champion who had taken over from him.

Lü Qin's chariot makes the first capture on move eight, but Hu holds the Screen Horses position with his usual accuracy, absorbs the attack and turns it around. By the end Black has an extra soldier and the initiative, and Lü Qin, who beat him at this event in 1991, resigns. The 1991 game went to Lü Qin, and this one goes to Hu.

Ply 0 of 122

Black won · 61 moves

The starting position.

Key moments

All the moves

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Study the games yourself

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