Danzhou: Wang Yue wins with 2887 performance

The 6th Hainan Danzhou tournament is being held from the 2nd to 11th of July 2015 in Danzhou. The major attractions of the tournament are the top rated Chinese player and the guy who has worked with Magnus Carlsen Ding Liren; the winner of the Capablanca Memorial and the strongest open tournament ever held, the Qatar Masters Yu Yangyi; and the youngest person in the world to break into 2700 Wei Yi.

Wang Yue wins 6th Danzhou GM

When the 6th Danzhou tournament began on 2nd of July 2015, a friend and I decided to predict the winner of the event. Though Ding Liren was the top seed, I decided to put my money on the winner of the recently concluded Capablanca Memorial Yu Yangyi. The Chinese player had had a phenomenal performance of 2862 in that event, and had won it by a huge margin of 1.5 points. The friend went for Wei Yi who at the age of just 16 years has a mind-blowing Elo of 2724. My confidence in Yu Yangyi’s success increased manifold when he won a fine game against Sasikiran in round one, and my friend’s excitement knew no bounds when Wei Yi created his wonderful brilliancy against Batista Bruzon in round two. But as the tournament progressed both these players slowed down and it was the experienced 28-year-old GM Wang Yue who began to score one victory after another to win the 6th Hainan Danzhou GM tournament.

With a 2887 performance and a score of 7.0/9,, Wang Yue won
the tournament a point ahead of the second place [photo by Fred Lucas]

With this achievement Wang Yue gained 19 Elo points and moved ten spots up the rating chart to number 22 in the world. After winning a fine positional game against Lu Shanglei, Wang Yue drew the next game with Ni Hua with ease. The third round was a huge test for him as he faced Wei Yi, who had just demolished Bruzon in the previous round. Wang Yue used all his experience to select a very quiet Anti-Grunfeld system against the youngster. This turned out to be a superb decision as he slowly but surely outplayed his opponent in a double rook endgame. A solid draw followed against Bu Xiangzhi in round four. In the fifth round he had the white pieces against the King’s Indian expert and top seed of the tournament Ding Liren. This time Wang Yue didn’t shy away from a battle and after a complex middlegame, he steered the fight into his strong point, which is the endgame. Although we have already shown you that game in our previous report, the brilliance of the idea employed by Wang Yue surely requires an encore!

Wang Yue won with 55.Bd1! Kh6 56.b4!! cxb4 57.Bb3!, trapping the bishop on a5 and taking his king over to the kingside and queening one of his pawns.

In the sixth round, employing the quiet Petroff Variation against Bruzon, he managed to outplay his Cuban opponent and had already taken a healthy lead with a score of +4. This could well have been enough for the title, but not being content he scored his fourth win on a trot with the white pieces in the seventh round against Wang Chen. This was followed by draws in eighth and ninth rounds against Yu Yangyi and Sasikiran. 7.0/9! A remarkable performance!

Wang Yue went back home richer by 100,000 Yuans (US $16,100)

Wang Yue had a career high rating of 2756 back in November, 2010. Since then his rating has been around the 2700-2720 mark. With this victory we might well see a resurgent Wang Yue who will aim to once again break into the top ten players of the world. In 2010, our news page reported on Wang Yue’s victory as the World University Champion and you can read an enlightening interview taken in that article by Philipp Kaufmann and Richard Forster over here.

Though Wang Yue is known as a positional and endgame expert, his game against Wang Chen in the seventh round was a nice tactical battle worthy of closer inspection.

Tryfon Gavriel on Wang Yue at the 6th Hainan Danzhou Tournament

This is a Playchess lecture from last night analysing Wang Yue's wins.
it is 1h 40min long – definitely something for a reclining chair and a nice glass of wine.

The only other player in the tournament apart from Wang Yue who performed above his Elo was Ni Hua,
who with three wins and 6.0/9 finished second, gaining eleven Elo points [picture by Amruta Mokal]

The Chinese number one, Ding Liren, lost a crucial encounter against the winner Wang Yue, but then covered the lost ground and finished third with 5.5/9. His victory against Lu Shanglei is must see for any player who would like to acquaint himself with the tactics that arise in an IQP structure.

Fourth place finish for Wei Yi who scored 5.0/9 [picture by Amruta Mokal]

Wei Yi might not be exactly happy with his performance in this tournament. But I would say that the youngster played two sublime games. One was, of course, his much acclaimed game against Batista Bruzon. Here he played with great energy and an excellent combinative vision. But equally impressive was his last round bout against Bu Xiangzhi. This game escaped the eyes of the chess fans for two reasons: one because it was a technical game where Wei Yi tried to milk a miniscule advantage; and two because he botched up a completely winning position and the game ended in a draw. Yet I would ask the readers to look over the game with great attention, as it shows how versatile this young lad is.

Yu Yangyi who has been having an excellent year failed to impress at this event
and ended with 4.5/9 [picture by Dmitry Rukhletsky]

Sixth: Super solid Bu Xinagzhi drew all his games! [Picture by Gu Xiaobing]

Recently Krishnan Sasikiran has not been doing too well. His rating has slumped from 2682 in March 2015 to 2640. In Danzhou, however, he was able to maintain his rating and played some interesting games. One of them was his win against Lázaro Bruzón with the black pieces.

The Cuban number two didn’t have a great event. Apart from finishing seventh, he also lost nine Elo points. The only silver lining for him was his win against the current World Junior Champion Lu Shanglei. The interesting part about the game is that until move number 22 it was all equal. But a blunder from Lu Shanglei and the game ended on the 23rd move! Why the Chinese player threw in the towel was also not at all obvious as no real threats were visible. But when you look deeper you find that the resignation was completely justified.

The two lower seeds, Lu Shanglei and Wang Chen had a forgettable event
with both them scoring 2.5/9 (five draws and four losses)

Links Official tournament site All games in PGN The games are being broadcast live on the official web site and on the chess server Playchess.com. If you are not a member you can download a free Playchess client and get immediate access. You can also use ChessBase 12 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.