The rise of Chinese chess - as told in 2015.

It seems an appropriate time, a nice occasion, to post this old Middlegame Musings column of mine from Chess.com's The Master's bulletin  -  it is from the February 2015 issue.  (Soon after, alas, the bulletin came to an end).

China Comes To Town — The Art Of Donner

"Wei Yi is seen as one of the biggest threats to Magnus Carlsen, and Hou Yifan finally surpassed Judit Polgar on the rating list. This month IM Arthur van de Oudeweetering discusses the history of Chinese top chess and the game Wei Yi-Potkin from Wijk aan Zee."

If during the past month tournament play was dominated by one country, I would definitely say it was China. After Yu Yangyi’s victory in Qatar where he beat Giri and Kramnik, Tata Steel saw Ding Liren share second place in the masters behind the world champ, as well as Wei Yi dominating the Challengers event with 10½ out of 13, edging out David Navara. Wei Yi proceeded to break the 2700 barrier at a record age — the boy is only fifteen – in Gibraltar, where Hou Yifan 

(also coming straight from Wijk aan Zee) saw her rating pass Judit Polgar’s and thus the women’s world champion now also occupies the number one position on the world 
list. (By the way, Nakamura scored a clear and convincing win here, Howell came clear second.)
Meanwhile the traditional Hastings tournament saw Zhao Jun reign supreme with out 8 of 9, while Ni Hua took the Australian open (10½ out of 11) and Zhao Xue the New Zealand 
Open (the 122nd, that certainly seems to be a traditional one too) with 8 out of 9.
The Rilton Cup got a Scandinavian winner — Norway’s second player Hammer; however, they did not see any visitors from the far East except for shogi legend Yoshiharu Habu; something to do with the climate perhaps?
As a Dutchman I was warned at an early stage that China was a chess power-to-be. Two small incidents in the 1970s gave a clue. In 1975 Euwe as FIDE president went to China and played two exhibition games against the national Chinese champion Qi Jingxuan. This was just after an 
eight-year period from 1966 to 1974 during the Cultural Revolution when chess was forbidden in China. This will certainly have hampered the development of chess in China, though Euwe stated that the Chinese sure knew how to play chess. Another reason for the late rise of chess in 
China is that Xiang Qi has always been considered the the superior form of chess in that nation, and has therefore been more popular.Anyway, Euwe was quickly overrun in the first game, but managed to win the second one with White, and for a moment putting aside the promotional objectives that led him to visit China. I’m sure Jan Hein Donner approved of Euwe’s handling of the a-pawn in this game, reminding him of his own game against Velimirovic, Havana 1971, which induced him to write a magnificent ode to his “dear pawn on a5” (The King) after his final 
move of the game. Three years later in 1978 China already made a debut at the Olympiad, with the same Qi Jingxuan on the first board. He was beaten by Timman when China met the Netherlands in the eighth round, but the match was drawn 2–2, as on third board the same Donner famously lost against Liu Wenzhe - in only 20 moves after a surprising opening, which was finished off with a nice queen sac .

This also was to become the first game in Liu Wenzhe’s book The Chinese School of Chess. The
introduction indicates that Donner’s fear after the game had come true: He had become Kiezeritsky for the Chinese chessplayers. In his analysis Liu Wenzhe makes an interesting 
observation, which can be transferred to other contemporary openings. After 1.e4 d6 2.d4 Nf6 
3.Nc3 g6 4.Be2 Bg7 5.g4, h6 Liu played 6.h3, which tempted Donner to castle after 6...c5 7.d5, but here after 7...0–0 Liu continued with 8.h4! Liu Wenzhe writes: “…he thought that since I hadn’t dared to push my h-pawn two squares, he had forced me to give up the plan of attacking on the kingside altogether... Donner had made a fatal mistake, above all a psychological one... he drew the wrong conclusion from 6.h3.” These days the early thrust g2–g4 has become much more common, and I have to admit that in the Semi-Slav after 1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3 e6 5.e3 Nbd7 6.Qc2 Bd6 7.g4 h6 my first thought of 8.h3 is: This must be harmless. In general Donner’s sense of danger let him down on numerous occasions, which made him an inconsistent player who produced more miniature losses than other grandmasters. Already in 1971 Tim Krabbé compiled a collection of these.  

By the way, Liu Wenzhe’s win against Donner was not the first Chinese victory against a grandmaster, as some sources claim. Already in the first round of the same Olympiad the Chinese team had surprisingly won against the Icelandic team, with Qi Jingxuan beating GM Sigurjonsson.  Eventually the Chinese team occupied a creditable 20th spot, with their second reserve Zhang Weida even winning the board prize with 6½ out of 8. Not long after China would usually place in the top 10 at the Olympiads. For instance 1990 saw the next generation finishing sixth in Novi Sad with Xu Jun, Ye Ronguang and Ye Jiangchuan on the top boards. The latter was to become the first Chinese player to cross the 2600 border and a longtime well-known representative of Chinese chess in international tournaments. And we all know what he achieved as a coach in Tromsø last year! It would obviously go too far to describe the progress of Chinese chess (also notably Chinese women’s chess!) from 1975 in detail, but I would like to point out that it was Liu Wenzhe himself who was really the first one to beat a grandmaster as early as in 1965. In one of the friendly matches between China and the USSR he beat Nikolai Krogius in a game which he analyzes extensively in his book. Promptly Krogius also lost the very next game in that match, against Zhang Donglu. Psychology in chess... 
In 1994 I myself had to opportunity to cross swords with Ye Rongguang, who had become China’s first grandmaster in 1990. Like Donner I also got knocked down by a queen 
sacrifice. It was in Amsterdam in the second round of the Donner Memorial (weird coincidence): 

1-0

But now let us return to 2015 and watch the young Chinese boy who people are whispering will become the next threat to Carlsen. Here he takes on Vladimir Potkin, the European champion from 2011. This is round two, so everything was still to play for in the Tata challengers.

Liu Wenzhe passed away in 2011. Will there be a Chinese school of Chess as he was envisaging? In any case, considering his age Wei Yi is clearly the most promising one amongst the (Chinese) top players, seemingly progressing even faster than Carlsen at the same age. If you look at the FIDE rating list of the Chinese top 100 you may feel that further down the list there is still some work to do in China, as the strenght of the ratings rapidly decreases. But who knows there is also a much broader national rating list, with even more players like Wei Yi in the make? I guess the Masters Bulletin will need a reporter from the far East to learn more about this. Meanwhile we will just enjoy the great games of the Chinese players known to us.