Master profile
Yu Youhua
于幼华
By the Xiangqi Arena editorial team ·
- Games
- 724
- Era covered
- 1990–2008
- Archive record
- 214W · 287D · 223L
The player
Yu Youhua, born in Zhoushan, Zhejiang in 1961, is the 2002 national individual champion - and at forty-one the oldest first-time national champion in the game’s history. Named a grandmaster in 1998, he also won the inaugural Laiqun Cup Mingren event in 2007, becoming China’s first 'Master of Xiangqi'.
His chess was uncompromising and combative - at the 1981 nationals every one of his thirteen games was decisive, not a single draw - which earned him the name 'the Daredevil'. He played for Zhejiang and then the Railway sports team, helping the latter to the 1995 national team title.
The games here show the all-out fighter at work, most of them against the champions who defined his era.
Yu Youhua - Lü Qin, 2005
2005 Qixin Golf Cup National League · 2005 · Lü Qin (red) vs Yu Youhua (black)
Yu Youhua, the 2002 national champion known for a bold, uncompromising attacking style, takes Black against Lü Qin in the league. Two attackers meeting means someone’s king gets exposed - and it is not Yu’s.
First blood is a chariot taking a cannon on move twenty-seven, and the exchanges run hot in the forties, six in ten moves. Yu holds an extra cannon into the ending and closes it out. Beating Lü Qin at his own attacking game was the highest compliment Yu could pay him.
Black won · 47 moves
The starting position.
Key moments
All the moves
- 1.
- 2.
- 3.
- 4.
- 5.
- 6.
- 7.
- 8.
- 9.
- 10.
- 11.
- 12.
- 13.
- 14.
- 15.
- 16.
- 17.
- 18.
- 19.
- 20.
- 21.
- 22.
- 23.
- 24.
- 25.
- 26.
- 27.
- 28.
- 29.
- 30.
- 31.
- 32.
- 33.
- 34.
- 35.
- 36.
- 37.
- 38.
- 39.
- 40.
- 41.
- 42.
- 43.
- 44.
- 45.
- 46.
- 47.
Yu Youhua - Hu Ronghua, 1997
1997 National Team Championship · 1997 · Hu Ronghua (red) vs Yu Youhua (black)
Yu Youhua with Black against Hu Ronghua, a Zhejiang man taking on the greatest player his province ever produced. Yu attacks from the start, as he always did.
A cannon takes the first soldier on move fifteen and the exchanges come early, in the teens and twenties. Yu keeps two cannons pointed at the palace and the last of them delivers check. A characteristic Yu Youhua game: direct, fearless, and finished with the cannons.
Black won · 51 moves
The starting position.
Key moments
All the moves
- 1.
- 2.
- 3.
- 4.
- 5.
- 6.
- 7.
- 8.
- 9.
- 10.
- 11.
- 12.
- 13.
- 14.
- 15.
- 16.
- 17.
- 18.
- 19.
- 20.
- 21.
- 22.
- 23.
- 24.
- 25.
- 26.
- 27.
- 28.
- 29.
- 30.
- 31.
- 32.
- 33.
- 34.
- 35.
- 36.
- 37.
- 38.
- 39.
- 40.
- 41.
- 42.
- 43.
- 44.
- 45.
- 46.
- 47.
- 48.
- 49.
- 50.
- 51.
Study the games yourself
Members replay any archive game move by move with engine analysis, search the opening explorer, and filter every master’s games by opponent and era. A free account includes five archive replays a day.