Master profile
Xu Tianhong
徐天红
By the Xiangqi Arena editorial team ·
- Games
- 894
- Era covered
- 1990–2008
- Archive record
- 234W · 453D · 207L
The player
Xu Tianhong, born in Taizhou, Jiangsu in 1960, was the national individual champion of 1989 and, in 1993 in Beijing, China’s third world champion. Named a grandmaster in 1989 and an international grandmaster in 1991, he was the leading light of the Jiangsu team for years.
His style was refined and remarkably solid - he lost very few games, preferring to 'accumulate small advantages into a large one'. He smiled through his games, which earned him the affectionate name 'Smiling Buddha', and a second: 'the willow that cannot be snapped'.
After his playing career he became a senior administrator of Jiangsu chess. The games here show the patient, unbreakable style that made him so hard to beat.
Xu Tianhong - Lü Qin, 2000
2000 National Team Championship · 2000 · Lü Qin (red) vs Xu Tianhong (black)
Xu Tianhong, the 1989 national champion nicknamed the 'East-China sword', takes Black against Lü Qin - and beats him with the counterattack, which against a player of Lü Qin’s speed is no small thing.
The soldiers clash on move eight, both sides keep their chariots, and the fight sharpens through the thirties with five captures in ten moves. Xu’s defence holds and then bites back, and it is a horse that lands the final check. A reminder that Xu could out-calculate almost anyone on his day.
Black won · 41 moves
The starting position.
Key moments
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Xu Tianhong - Xu Yinchuan, 1990
1990 National Individual Championship · 1990 · Xu Tianhong (red) vs Xu Yinchuan (black)
The reigning champion against the coming one. In 1990 Xu Tianhong was the man to beat and Xu Yinchuan a teenage prodigy; here the elder takes red and shows the youngster there was still a gap to close.
A long, controlled game - first capture not until move twenty-three - that erupts late, seven pieces coming off in ten moves in the fifties. Xu Tianhong keeps the better remnants and converts. One of the era’s great competitive rivalries, caught early.
Red won · 51 moves
The starting position.
Key moments
All the moves
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Study the games yourself
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