Shanghai leads in Chinese Chess League

Matchday

Each team in the league is allowed to register seven Chinese players and an unlimited number of foreign players. However, compared to European Leagues there are only a few foreign players who start for Chinese teams.

At the end of last week rounds five to seven of the current season were played and after seven round the team of Shanghai, which plays with Ni Hua and Ju Wenjun, leads the table.

The rating differences between the various teams are sometimes huge though this does not necessarily reflect the real strength of the players, but is partly due to the fact that a lot of Chinese players are underrated because they do not have a lot of opportunities to play in international tournaments against non-Chinese players.

The following game between the unknown 18-year old Liu Manli (Elo 2007) and WGM Tan Zhongyi (2509), who has lots of international tournament experience, was played in the match between Chongqing against Guangdong. It shows how important it is to know your openings well. In this game one player was well prepared while the other did not really seem to know the theory of the line she was playing. This might have tempted her to try a combination that thoroughly backfired. However, in this case, the nominally weaker player was the dominant one.

Round 7 - results

Games - Rounds 1 to 7

Table:

Tournament page...