Master profile
Tao Hanming
陶汉明
By the Xiangqi Arena editorial team ·
- Games
- 744
- Era covered
- 1990–2008
- Archive record
- 180W · 348D · 216L
The player
Tao Hanming, born in Haicheng, Liaoning in 1966, made history as the 1994 national individual champion - the first champion to come from the amateur ranks rather than a professional academy. Named a grandmaster that same year, he was a mainstay of the champion Chinese team at the 1995 World Championship, where he also took individual third.
His chess was unorthodox and self-taught, a fighting style forged outside the formal system, which won him the name 'Chess King of the Greenwood' - the king from the amateur world - as well as 'Changbai Tiger'. He built his career with the Jilin provincial academy as player and coach.
The games here show the outsider who beat the establishment at its own game, against the very best of the 1990s and 2000s.
Tao Hanming - Lü Qin, 2007
2007 Qidouxing Cup National League · 2007 · Tao Hanming (red) vs Lü Qin (black)
Tao Hanming - the 1994 national champion, the first to come up through the amateur ranks rather than a professional academy - meets Lü Qin in the professional league. Tao has red and plays with the freedom of a man who had already made history.
A cannon takes the first soldier on move eleven and the exchanges cluster in the late twenties; Tao keeps both cannons and drives them home, the last of them delivering check. At 125 plies it is a full-length battle, and a fine scalp.
Red won · 63 moves
The starting position.
Key moments
All the moves
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Tao Hanming - Hu Ronghua, 2006
2006 Qixin Golf Cup National League · 2006 · Hu Ronghua (red) vs Tao Hanming (black)
Tao Hanming takes Black against Hu Ronghua and wins with a genuine attack - the sort of game that shows why he broke through the old provincial monopoly on the title.
The soldiers meet on move seventeen and the position immediately catches fire: six captures in the next ten moves. When it settles, Black has the extra material and the safer general, and Hu resigns. Downing the marshal with the black pieces is a game to keep.
Black won · 55 moves
The starting position.
Key moments
All the moves
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