Rui Naiwei


Rui Naiwei is a Chinese professional Go player, once active in South Korea. She is the strongest recorded female Go player, and is the only woman to have won one of the major open Go titles. She achieved this by winning the 1999 Guksu title, on the way beating Lee Chang-Ho and Cho Hun-hyun, the two strongest players in the world at the time.

Biography

Rui was born in Shanghai, China. After starting to play around 1975 she became a pro for the Zhongguo Qiyuan in 1985, being promoted all the way to 7-dan that year. She reached 9-dan in 1988, becoming the first woman ever to achieve that rank. After that, Chinese Feng Yun and Korean Park Jieun became the second and third female go players to reach 9 dan, following Rui Naiwei.
Leaving China in 1989, she moved to Japan. While the Nihon Ki-in did not allow her to play in any Japanese tournaments, she was able to make it to the semi-finals of the international Ing Cup in 1992. She spent several years in the San Francisco Bay Area.
She then moved to South Korea. She participated actively in Korean tournaments. She dominated the women's events and won two open events, always previously won by men: the Guksu and the Maxim Cup.
She returned to China in 2011.
Rui's style tends to be extremely aggressive, and often characterized by large scale semeai.
Her husband is Jiang Zhujiu, also a 9-dan professional.

Titles & runners-up

Ranks #6-t in total number of titles in Korea.
TitleYears Held
Current17