Wang Hao becomes Chinese champion in Xinghua!

China is the third strongest nation in the FIDE country rankings, and their national championships are naturally among the strongest around, but were missing their top player Wang Yue, who was busy in Astrakhan.
However their five next strongest players, plus their rising female star Hou Yifan were present, although she found it heavy going against her male colleagues!

The other Wang, and Chinese number two Wang Hao, beat Ni Hua in the final round and thus made it up to equal first with Bu and Zhou Jianchao.

The three tieing for first had performances around the 2680 mark.

Wang Hao was declared winner on the first tie-break which was based on 'results in the same score group' (he drew with Bu and beat Zhou Jianchao, whereas the other two drew their encounter).

The name Xinghua may mean very little to westerners, but this city of 1.6 million souls in eastern China can be found on maps in the centre of Jiangsu province. It is actually the birthplace of Hou Yifan.

Local girl @ Wikipedia

Here are the final positions with the player's relative rankings.

Wang Hao won't have won any rating points here, but his victory last month in the Sarajevo open means that he has gained enough rating points to take him (provisionally) into the World top twenty.

PositionNameElo RatingPointsChinese rankingWorld ranking (top 500)
1GM Wang Hao27227.5223
2GM Bu Xiangzhi26817.5351
3GM Zhou Jianchao26527.5586
4GM Li Shilong2514616-
5GM Ni Hua26676466
6GM Li Chao b26195.56145
7IM Zhang Ziyang2422538-
8GM Ding Liren2547514445
9Lu Shanglei2349553-
10GM Zhou Weiqi25854.511266
11GM Hou Yifan25894.510245 (3rd on women's list)
12Ji Dan2379245-

The two 2300s are untitled and clearly less experienced than the others however Lu Shanglei is still rather young (he was born in 1995) and made a good showing with a 2541 performance. Certainly a name to look out for.

You may also like to investigate the official tournament site. A working knowledge of Chinese would help!

The couple who were equal first, but unlucky on tie-break, are also in the World's top 100.

Bu Xiangzhi
Zhou Jianchao

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