Master profile
Liu Dahua
柳大华
- Games
- 1,121
- Years of the dated games
- 1990–2008
- Archive record
- 317W · 515D · 289L
National titles: Men's national individual champion: 1980, 1981
The player
柳大华 (Liu Dahua) was born in Huangpi, Hubei, in 1950. His national individual titles in 1980 and 1981 ended 胡荣华 (Hu Ronghua)'s run and the southern players' hold on the championship. He received the grandmaster title in 1984 and the international grandmaster title in 1988, and in 2010, at sixty, he won a national champions' invitational. He is famous for his memory: in 1995 he played nineteen boards at once blindfold, a world record until 2011, and he is known as 东方电脑, the Eastern Computer.
Nearly half of his 1,121 games in the archive, 515 of them, ended in a draw. No player in the collection opened with the Rushed Centre Soldier as Red more often. His most frequent opponent was Lü Qin, whom he met 128 times and beat 18 times.
The two games below show him against two other national champions: a win over 徐天红 (Xu Tianhong) in 2002 and a quick win over 胡荣华 (Hu Ronghua) in 1992.
In the archive
| As Red / as Black | 603 games as Red, 518 as Black |
|---|---|
| Score | 55.4% as Red, 46.4% as Black |
| Most played systems | Central Cannon as Red (364 games) · Screen Horses as Black (230 games) |
| Best-scoring system | Five-Six Cannons as Red: 60.9% over 23 games |
| Most frequent opponent | Lü Qin (128 games) |
| Longest game | 301 plies against Hong Zhi |
Liu Dahua - Xu Tianhong, 2002
2002 National Individual Championship, round 3 · 2002 · Liu Dahua (red) vs Xu Tianhong (black)
Liu Dahua, whose blindfold displays made him famous, has red against Xu Tianhong, a former national champion himself. Liu opens with the Flying Elephant and settles in for the kind of long strategic game he played well.
The first capture comes only on move fourteen, a horse taking a soldier deep into a slow game, and the exchanges come around move twenty-one. Liu carries his extra activity into an ending with chariots on the board and wears Black down. It is a quiet lesson in endgame technique.
Red won · 43 moves
The starting position.
Key moments
All the moves
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Liu Dahua - Hu Ronghua, 1992
1992 National Team Championship · 1992 · Liu Dahua (red) vs Hu Ronghua (black)
Liu Dahua has red against Hu Ronghua in a game that never slows down. Both sides go into a sharp Central Cannon fight, and Liu attacks the great champion head-on.
The soldiers clash on move eleven, and the position opens at once, with six captures in ten plies around move twenty. When it is over, Liu's two chariots and two horses are bearing down on a broken defence. The whole game lasts fifty-one plies, a quick win against one of the strongest players of the time.
Red won · 26 moves
The starting position.
Key moments
All the moves
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