IM (2000); GM (2004); Chinese Champion (2005 & 2013).

Preamble

Born in Taiyuan, Shanxi Province, Wang Yue learned to play at the age of four. He is China's 18th Grandmaster, twice Chinese Champion (2005 and 2013), the first Chinese player to achieve a rating of 2700 and the first to make the world top 10.

Championships

When he was 9, Wang Yue joined the National Junior Team and won the Li Chengzhi National Children's Cup.

<National> Wang Yue participated in the Chinese Championships in 2002 and 2004, coming =3rd in the latter with 7.5/11 behind Bu Xiangzhi and Zhong Zhang. In December 2005, he won the Chinese Championship with a score of 12.5/18 in Beijing. Also, in 2005 he also won both the National Youth Championship and the National Collegiate Championship. He also competed in the 2006 Chinese Championship, scoring 5.5/11. In the Chinese Championship of 2007, he came =2nd with 7.5/11, half a point behind the winner Hua Ni in the 2008 edition of the event, he again came =2nd behind Ni Hua this time with 7/11. In the Chinese Championship (2011) he was =6th with 5.5/11 and in 2012 he came 4th with 6/11 in the Chinese Chess Championship (2012). He decisively won the Chinese Championship (2013) with a round to spare.

<Continental> Although he competed in the Asian Continental Championship in August 2001, his first result was in October 2005 when he came in third with 6.5/9 at the Asian Chess Championship (2005) in Hyderabad, India.

<World championship> In 1999, Wang won the World U12 Championship in Oropesa del Mar, Spain. In 2000, he came second in the U-14 World Youth Championship, which was also held in Oropesa del Mar, to Alexander Areshchenko, but failed to repeat that feat in the same event in 2001. At the World Youth U16 Championship in 2002, he scored 7.5/11 to place =5th. In November 2005, he came fifth with 8.5/13 at the World Junior Chess Championship in Istanbul and came sixth with 8.5/13 at World Junior Championship (2006) in Yerevan.

Wang Yue reached the second round of the World Cup (2005) but was eliminated by Ilia Smirin. At the World Cup (2007), he defeated Aleksei Pridorozhni (1.5-0.5), Sergei Tiviakov (2.5-1.5) and his compatriot Bu Xiangzhi (1.5-0.5), only to be eliminated by Ivan Cheparinov (0.5-1.5) in the fourth round. At the World Cup (2009), he was the tenth seed, and defeated Nikolai Kabanov (2-0) and Boris Savchenko (2.5-1.5) before falling to Etienne Bacrot (1.5-3.5) in the third round playoff.

He failed to qualify for the 2011 Candidates through the Grand Prix series but did qualify for the World Cup (2011) through his rating, however, his was a shock exit after falling to Brazilian GM Alexandr Fier in the first round. He did not qualify for the World Cup (2013). He is the 7th rating reserve for the World Cup 2015, and is therefore unlikely to participate in this event unless he qualifies via one of the remaining Asian qualifying events.

Standard Tournaments

In April 2005, he scored 6.0/9 at the Dubai Open, a point behind the outright winner, countryman Wang Hao. In July, he came third on tiebreak with 6.5/11 (+3 -1 =7) at the 2nd Sanjin Hotel Cup (2005) in his hometown Taiyuan. In August 2006, Wang scored 5.0/10 (+1, =8, -1) and came joint third at the Category 15 4th Marx Gyorgy Memorial (2006) in Paks, Hungary. On 7 September, at the 7th Lausanne Young Masters (2006), he came second after having lost to Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in the final rapid game playoff.

In February 2007, he came second with 6/7 behind Hua Ni at the Calvi International Open and immediately following this in March when he successfully participated at the Cappelle la Grande (2007), which hosted 87 GMs, 81 IMs and 465 FIDE rated players; he won the tournament on tie-break ahead of five other players with 7.0/9 points, and a performance rating of 2784. In so doing he achieved an ELO of 2700, the first Chinese player to do so. In April 2007, he won the Philippines International Open Chess Championship in the Subic Bay Freeport Zone with 7.0/9 points on tiebreak from Ni Hua and Zhang Zhong. In July 2007, he came second with 5.0/8 at the 4th Sanjin Hotel Cup in Taiyuan half a point behind Vadim Zvjaginsev. In December 2007, Wang came second on tiebreak behind Francisco Vallejo Pons at the Category 17 XVII Pamplona International (2007) tournament in Spain having scored 4.0/7 (performance rating of 2695). In February 2008, Wang Yue scored 7.0/10 (+4,=6,-0) at the Gibraltar Masters (2008) finishing =10th with a 2653 performance. He followed this at the Reykjavik Open (2008) by scoring 7/9 to achieve a 3-way tie with ultimate winner on tiebreak, Wang Hao and Hannes Hlifar Stefansson a total of 24 GMs and 18 IMs competed. At the NH Chess (2008) (aka Youth vs Experience), Wang Yue scored a stunning 8.5/10 (+7 -0 =3) for a TPR of 2892. In September 2009 he won the Chinese Chess King tournament with 5.0/7 points and a 2797 performance. In September 2010, he won the World University Championship with 8½ points out of 9 games, two points clear of the field, and with a rating performance of 2957. At the 26th Summer Universiade in 2011, he came equal second with 6.5/9 behind Chao Li, who scored an astonishing 8.5/9. However, at the 1st Qin Huangdao Open Chess Tournament that finished in October, Wang Yue scored a poor 5/8, shedding nearly ten ratings points to drop him below the 2700 level for the first time since July 2008. His 5.5/9 at the Indonesia Open 2011 also decreased his rating slightly. He returned to form by winning the Hastings (2011/12) with 7.5/9 (+6 -0 =3 and TPR of 2774), this result boosting him back into a rating of over 2700. Later in the year he scored a par 4.5/9 to place 5th out of 10 in the Karpov Poikovsky (2012).

In July 2015, after somewhat of a hiatus in terms of top flight results, Wang Yue decisively won the powerful category 17 Hainan Danzhou GM (2015) with 7/9 (+5 =4), a full point ahead of runner-up Hua Ni.

<Aeroflot> In 2004, Yue competed in his first Aeroflot Open (2004) at the age of 16, but lost every game. He fared better at the Aeroflot Open (2005), scoring 5.5/9 and at the Aeroflot Open (2006), scoring 4.5/9. In the Aeroflot Open (2007), he made the leader board with joint second and 6.5/9 behind the winner Evgeny Alekseev.

<Super tournaments> In his super tournament debut at the Baku Grand Prix (2008), in April 2008 Wang Yue shared first place (2nd on tiebreak) with Magnus Carlsen and the ultimate winner on tiebreak Vugar Gashimov, scoring 8/13 (+3 -0 =10), with a TPR 2806. In July–August 2008, at the FIDE Grand Prix (2008) in Sochi, he came joint third with Gata Kamsky with 7.5/13 (+2, =11, -0; TPR 2765) behind winner Levon Aronian and second placed Teimour Radjabov. In December 2008, he scored 6.5/13 at the 3rd Elista Grand Prix (2008) and finished his Grand Prix circuit in May 2010 when he competed in the FIDE Grand Prix (2010) in Astrakhan, again scoring 6.5/13, just missing the cut for the 2011 Candidates. From March to December 2008, Wang Yue went 85 consecutive games without a loss, one of the longest streaks on record. His unbeaten run began in the second round of the Reykjavík Open and ended in round 1 of the Elista Grand Prix.

In his debut in 2009 at the category 19 Corus Group A (2009), he came joint 8th with 6.0/13 (+2=8-3) and a 2685 TPR. At his debut in the Linares (2009), Wang Yue finished with 6.5/14 (+1=11 -2) in joint 5th to 7th place. At the M-Tel Masters (2009) , he scored 4.5/10 (+1 -2 =7) to come fourth. At the category 21 Pearl Spring Chess Tournament (2009), he again scored 4.5/10 (+0 -1 =9) to take equal third place with a TPR of 2735; in this competition Magnus Carlsen 8/10 was so dominant that only Veselin Topalov made a plus score. In 2010, Wang Yue played in the King's Tournament (2010) scoring 3/10 (+0 -4 =6) and at Nanjing Pearl Spring Tournament (2010) he again scored 3/10 (+0 -4 =6). In July 2013, he replaced Vugar Gashimov (who had dropped out due to health problems) in a one-off participation in the Grand Prix series to play in the FIDE Grand Prix Beijing (2013), scoring a solid 5.5/11 to place =5th out of 12 in a field in which he was the lowest seed.

Team Events

<Olympiads and World Team Championships> In 2000, in Artek, Ukraine, and again in 2002 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, he competed for the Chinese national chess team at the World Youth U-16 Chess Olympiads. In 2000, the team came 9th, with Wang scoring 6.0/9 (+4,=4,-1) a 2430 performance. The 2002 team won gold and he also achieved an individual gold on first board for his scoring 8.5/10 (+7,=3,-0), a 2657 performance. Wang played second board for China at the World Team Championship (2011), winning a team silver and an individual gold medal, scoring 7/9 for a stunning TPR of 2916. He played top board for China in the Tromso Olympiad (2014), helping China to break through to win its inaugural Olympiad gold medal.

In the Calvia Olympiad (2004), in Calvià, Majorca he scored 8.0/12 (+5,=6,-1) on the first reserve board with a 2621 performance, achieving his last GM norm and becoming China's then youngest grandmaster. In June 2006 at the Turin Olympiad (2006) in Turin, China won silver. Wang, on board four, was undefeated scoring 10.0/12 points (8 wins and 4 draws) and received an individual gold medal for this board four result, as well as an individual silver medal for his rating performance of 2837. In November 2008, he played on board one for the Chinese team at the Dresden Olympiad (2008) in Dresden, Germany (6.5/10 (+3,=7-0; TPR 2773)). The team finished 7th overall. At the Khanty-Mansiysk Olympiad (2010), at which China came 5th, Wang Yue played on board 1, scoring 6/9 and a 2772 performance rating. In the Istanbul Olympiad (2012), Wang Yue again played on board 2 for China, this time scoring 5.5/9 (TPR 2707), helping his country to 4th place.

He played board 3 for China in the World Team Championship (2013), scoring a team silver and individual bronze.

<Continental> At the Asian Games in Doha in December 2006, the national team won silver with Wang Yue on board two scoring 6.0/9 points (+4, =4, -1) with a 2647 performance. In January 2008, at the 15th Asian Team Chess Championship in Visakhapatnam, the national team won gold with Wang on board one scoring 4.5/7 points (+3, =3, -1) with a 2534 performance.

<National Team Summit Matches> Wang has participated in the national team summit matches against the United States (2002), Russia (2004, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2012), France (2006), the UK (2007) and Romania (2014). China has won all these summit matches barring the 2012 match with Russia on overall scores (combining results from the men's and women's teams)

<Asian Teams> Wang Yue won team gold and individual silver playing board 2 for China at the 17th Asian Team Championship held in Zaozhuang, China in May 2012.

<Chinese league> In April 2004, Wang produced the best individual result by scoring 9.0/11 at the Chinese Men's Team Championships in Jinan. He now plays for Tianjin chess club in the China Chess League, and although he did not compete in the 2012 season, he played top board in 2013, helping his team to win gold. (1) In the 2014 Chinese League, Wang Yue played board 1 for Tianjing, helping his team to win silver. In 2015, he is again playing board 1 for Tianjing.

<Other> He played for the city of Wu Xi in the World Cities Team Championship (2012) held in Al-Ain in the UAE in late December, helping the city he represented to win through to the quarter final. His positive results also restored him to the 2700 rating group for the first time since March 2012.

Rating and Ranking

Wang Yue's highest rating to date was 2756 in November 2010 when he was ranked #10 in the world, while his highest world ranking was #8 in May 2010, when his rating was 2752.

Other

His Internet Chess Club handle is yueyue.

References and sources

(1) http://chess-results.com/tnr99752.a...

Live rating: http://www.2700chess.com/; Wikipedia article: Wang Yue (chess player)