Hu Ronghua


Hu Ronghua is a Chinese xiangqi grandmaster. Hu Ronghua has been referred to as the Bobby Fischer of xiangqi. Due to his excellent xiangqi skills, he was given the title of "一代宗师" and was nicknamed "胡司令".

Xiangqi career

Hu Ronghua first won the Chinese National Xiangqi Championship in 1960, at age 15, the youngest record ever. Hu went on to win the next nine consecutive national championships, which gave him a 10-championship streak from 1960 to 1979.
In the 1980s, Hu Ronghua won the national xiangqi championship in 1983 and 1985. By the mid-1990s, people thought that he was past his prime, and that younger generations of top players would eventually replace him. However, Ronghua won yet again in 1997 and 2000.
Hu Ronghua holds the record for the greatest number of national xiangqi titles, the youngest champion and the oldest champion in the history of the game.

Contributing developments to xiangqi

Hu Ronghua has been advocating for a revival of xiangqi. In 2011 he launched a reality show called Let's Play Chess to find a new personal apprentice.
Hu Ronghua has made great additions to xiangqi theory, including pioneer work on the Fly-Elephant opening and the Counter-Palace-Knight opening. He also devised a new xiangqi rule: the chance of playing black is obtained by auctions of two players. The player who offers less time wins the auction. If the xiangqi game finally ends in a draw, black wins. The Hu Rule is aimed at eliminating "negative draw games" and making xiangqi more spectator-friendly. However, the Hu Rule was boycotted by other professional players, one year after its birth.
In 2022, Hu Ronghua made grandmaster live commentary at a major exposition of advanced Artificial Intelligence algorithms, applied directly to xiangqi.

Other interests

In his early years, Hu Ronghua was trained for a short period in weiqi. He also plays a game called daguailuzi，a popular local game of Shanghai.

Titles

Publications

  • ''XIANGQI Grandmaster Hu RongHua and his Elephant Openings''