Master profile
Liu Dahua
柳大华
By the Xiangqi Arena editorial team ·
- Games
- 1,129
- Era covered
- 1990–2008
- Archive record
- 323W · 517D · 289L
The player
Liu Dahua, born in Hubei in 1950, is the two-time national individual champion of 1980 and 1981 - the man who dethroned Hu Ronghua in 1980 and ended two decades of southern dominance. He was named a grandmaster in 1984 and an international grandmaster in 1988.
His prodigious memory and calculation earned him the name 'Eastern Computer', and his blindfold displays became legendary: his 1995 record of one player against nineteen boards stood for sixteen years. He was still winning national-level events at sixty.
The games here show the calculating machine at work against the strongest opposition of the 1990s and 2000s.
Liu Dahua - Xu Tianhong, 2002
2002 National Individual Championship, round 3 · 2002 · Liu Dahua (red) vs Xu Tianhong (black)
Liu Dahua, whose blindfold simultaneous displays made him a household name, takes red against Xu Tianhong - himself a former national champion. Liu opens with the Flying Elephant and settles in for the kind of long strategic fight he reads better than almost anyone.
First blood is a horse taking a soldier on move twenty-eight, deep into a slow game, and the exchanges cluster in the late thirties. Liu holds the extra activity into a heavy-piece ending and grinds it down. A quiet masterclass from a player who could see the whole board with his eyes closed.
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 with red against Hu Ronghua, in a game that never slows down. Both sides pour into a Central Cannon fight, and where many players tightened up against the great champion, Liu simply attacked.
The soldiers clash on move twenty-two and the position detonates - six captures in ten moves around move forty. When the smoke clears Liu has two chariots and two horses bearing down and Hu’s position is in ruins. At fifty-one plies, one of the shortest decisive games in the whole collection, and against the toughest possible opponent.
Red won · 26 moves
The starting position.
Key moments
All the moves
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