Bu Xiangzhi was born in Qingdao in China.
Early years:
A cousin introduced him to chess when he was six, and he made quick progress, winning the Qingdao Junior Chess Championship in 1993 and the Children's Championship of the National S.T. Lee Cup in 1997. In 1998 at the age of 12, he captured the titles of National Pupil Champion and World U-14 champion. The following year he became the then youngest-ever International Grandmaster at the age of 13 years, 10 months, 13 days and the first to win the title before the age of 14.
Classical tournaments:
Bu won the 1999 German Open and in 2000, also in Germany, he won the International Neckar Open in Deizisau, Stuttgart. In 2002, he was =1st in the Chinese Championship and scored 6/9 at the Aeroflot Open Group A. In 2003, Bu scored 6/9 (=6th, 0.5 points behind joint first place getters) at the Aeroflot Open (2003), and in December 2003, he won the 10th Aceimar International Open in Mondariz with 7.5/9. In 2004, he scored 5.5/9 in the Reykjavik Open (2004) , and in November of that year, he again won the Chinese Championship, this time in Lanzhou, with a score of 9.0/11. In 2005, he came =2nd behind Wang Hao in the 7th Dubai Open, placed =3rd in the Sanjin International Hotel Cup (GM tournament) in China and scored 5.5/9 in the Aeroflot Open (2005). In 2006, also in China, he came equal second in the Railway Hotel Cup GM tournament, behind Baadur Jobava and scored 5/9 at the Aeroflot Open (2006). In 2007, he won the Canadian Open (2007), the International Open in Germany with 8.5/9, the International Neckar Open, again in Deizisau, with 7.5/9, and came second in the Chinese Championship and second at Corus Group B (2007). In 2008, Bu came =1st at the Gibraltar (2008) with 8.0/10 and a performance rating of 2834, but lost the tie-break to Hikaru Nakamura. He won the Antwerp (2008) in Belgium in August 2008 with a score of 7.0/9 (+5, =4, -0) and a performance rating of 2748, came third behind Veselin Topalov and Levon Aronian in the Pu Kou Chess Tournament, Nanjing 2008, and came third in the Chinese Championship (2009) behind Wang Hao and Ding Liren. He came =2nd in the Chinese Championship (2010) with 7.5/11 and won the 1st Danzhou Tournament (2010) in China in June 2010 on tiebreak from Li Chao. He also scored 6.5/10 in the Moscow Open (2010), half a point behind the joint winners, and came 7th in the Aeroflot Open (2010) with 5.5/9, his only loss being to outright winner Le Quang Liem. In March 2011, he came =4th in the 10th Asian Individual Championships (2011) and =2nd in the 2nd Danzhou Tournament (2011). In October 2011, he scored 6/9 in the the 1st Qin Huangdao Open Chess Tournament, placing =6th.
In January 2012, Bu scored 6/9 at the Moscow Open (=15th) and in February 2012, scored 5.5/9 (+2 =7 -0 and TPR 2692) at the Aeroflot Open (2012), placing =9th (10th on tiebreak), thereby maintaining rough parity with his rating for the bi-monthly rating period leading to 1 March 2012. Bu lost some ground, and rating points, in the Chinese Chess Championships (2012) when he came 5th with 5.5/11 but made up lost ground by winning the 3rd Danzhou Tournament (2012) on tiebreak ahead of co-leader Ni Hua to take the prize and the final spot in the Chinese Team for the Chess Olympiad (2012). In August 2012, he easily won the 12th World University Chess Championship that was held in Portugal with a score of 8/9, 1.5 points clear of the field.
World Championship competitions:
In 1998, Bu won the World U14 championship. In 2000, he defeated Teimour Radjabov 6.5-1.5 in an eight game Future World Champions Match competition in New York. In August 2001, he was =5th in the World Junior Championship held in Greece (won by Peter Acs) and in 2003 was fifth in the World Junior Championship (won by Aronian). Also in 2003, he won the Zonal that entitled him to compete in the FIDE World Championship Knockout Tournament (2004) in Libya where he lost in the first round to Ashot Anastasian. He won the 2007 Zonal in China to qualify for the World Chess Cup (2007) in which he reached the 3rd round before losing to countryman Wang Hao. He fell to Yannick Pelletier in the 1st round of the World Cup (2009). Bu won the Asian Zonal Championship 2011, qualifying him to play in the World Cup (2011), where he beat Ahmed Adly, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Abhijeet Gupta in the first three rounds before losing to Vassily Ivanchuk in the Round of Sixteen, and exiting the tournament.
Blindfold:
In October 2007, he won the Bilbao Blindfold Chess World Cup (2007) by a 1.5 point margin, after defeating Veselin Topalov, Magnus Carlsen , Pentala Harikrishna, Judit Polgar and Sergey Karjakin.
Team play:
Bu has played in the Chinese national team since 2001 and has been a fixture at the Olympiads, competing in 2002, 2004, 2006 (where he played top board, scoring 8/12, and leading his country to silver), 2008 and 2012. He has also been a regular member of the men’s team in the Russia vs China matches: In October 2004 he scored 3/6, in August 2007, he lead from board one in the victorious Chinese team in the 4th Russia vs China Match (2007). In September 2008, he scored 2.5/5 at the 5th Russia vs China Match (2008) in Ningbo achieving a performance rating of 2707. In August 2009 at the 6th Russia vs China (2009) in Sochi, he again scored 2.5/5. In the 7th China vs Russia (2010) in Ningbo, he scored 4/5 in the classical games, his best result yet, representing a 2928 performance rating. In 2005, he won an individual and team silver playing top board for China in the 6th World Team Chess Championship at Beer Sheva. He played in the team that won the silver medal at the December 2006 Asian Games in Doha. In 2008, he won a bronze medal on board two when the team won gold at the 2008 15th Asian Team Chess Championship in Visakhapatnam. In April 2008, Bu competed at the Russian Team Championship (2008) in Dagomys, Sochi for the team Shatar-Metropole (Buryatia), where he achieved a score of 6.5/10 (+3=7-0) and a performance rating of 2771. Bu Xiangzhi plays for Shandong chess club in the China Chess League.
Olympiads
Bu has played for China in six Olympiads, including 2002, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010 and 2012, scoring a team silver in 2006 when he played top board. He scored 6/10 on board 3 for China at the Chess Olympiad (2010) and 4.5/8 on board 4 for in the Chess Olympiad (2012) held in Istanbul, helping China to 4th place.
Ratings and rankings
<Classical> Bu's standard rating as of 1 May 2013 was 2662, making him number 6 in China, number 12 in Asia and number 81 in the world. His peak rating was 2714 in October 2008 when he was ranked number 26 in the world, although his peak ranking was world number 22 in April 2008 when his rating was 2708;
<Rapid> 2661 (world #67); and
<Blitz> 2634.
References
Chessbase table of youngest grandmasters: http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail...; Wikipedia article: Bu Xiangzhi
