Master profile
Xu Yinchuan
许银川
By the Xiangqi Arena editorial team ·
- Games
- 1,092
- Era covered
- 1990–2008
- Archive record
- 443W · 567D · 82L
The player
Xu Yinchuan, born in Guangdong in 1975, is one of the most complete players the game has produced - a six-time national individual champion (1993, 1996, 1998, 2001, 2006, 2009) and three-time world champion (1999, 2003, 2007). He joined the Guangdong provincial team at eleven after winning the national youth title, and was named a grandmaster in 1993.
Celebrated for the precision and clarity of his play and revered above all as an endgame virtuoso, he became one of the very few players to hold the world, Asian and national titles at the same time - a 'triple crown king'. With Lü Qin he formed the 'Two Heroes of Lingnan', and he held China’s number-one rating for years.
A graduate of Sun Yat-sen University, he brought a scholar’s rigour to the board. The games here catch the elegance the fans admired: nothing wasted, and an opponent given nothing to hold.
Xu Yinchuan - Hu Ronghua, 2000
2000 National Individual Championship · 2000 · Xu Yinchuan (red) vs Hu Ronghua (black)
The 'Elegant Chariot' against the marshal. Xu Yinchuan - prodigy, multiple national and world champion, the smoothest positional player of his generation - takes red against Hu Ronghua and steers into his favourite kind of position: clear, controlled, and quietly crushing.
A soldier falls as early as move eight, the exchanges come in the twenties, and Xu’s chariot ends it with a clean checking finish. Everything about the game is characteristic: no wasted motion, no unnecessary risk, and an opponent given nothing at all to hold. Xu against Hu was the passing of an age, played out on the board.
Red won · 50 moves
The starting position.
Key moments
All the moves
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Xu Yinchuan - Zhao Guorong, 1994
1994 National Individual Championship · 1994 · Xu Yinchuan (red) vs Zhao Guorong (black)
Two champions, both at their peak, in a Same-Direction Cannons - the oldest and sharpest cannon fight in the book. Xu Yinchuan has red and does not shy away from the complications for a moment.
A cannon grabs the first soldier on move twenty-three and the exchanges follow immediately, five in ten moves, the position racing toward a decision. Xu comes out with the extra chariot activity and a won ending, and closes it inside seventy plies. Beating Zhao Guorong in a sharp game was rare; Xu made it look natural.
Red won · 35 moves
The starting position.
Key moments
All the moves
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