Early years:

Ni was born in Shanghai and started learning chess when he was six. He won the S.T. Lee Cup for under 14 year-olds in 1996 and 1997 and repeated the performance in a higher age group in 1999. He gained his three GM norms in February 2000 at the 1st Saturday GM Tournament in Budapest with a 7/10 score, at the April 2001 China Team Championship in Suzhou with a score of 6.5/10, and at the Tan Chin Nam Cup with a score of 6.5/9 in Qingdao in July 2002.

Classical tournaments:

Ni has always performed well in the Chinese Championships in which he has participated in every year bar 2003 since 2002, winning in 2006, 2007 and 2008. He played at Aeroflot between 2004 and 2007, his most notable result being =2nd at the 6th Aeroflot Festival (2007) half point behind sole winner Evgeny Alekseev. He also scored 3rd place in the China National Chess King Championships 2009. In 2004, he was second with 5.5/9 behind Nigel Short at the 1st Sanjin International Hotel Cup (GM tournament) in Taiyuan, China, won the 1st Dato’ Arthur Tan Malaysian Open in Kuala Lumpur with 8.5/11 and was =1st in the Kolkata International Open, sharing the honors with Surya Shekhar Ganguly. In 2005, he came =1st in the Singapore International Masters Open.

In 2006, Ni took =2nd with 7/12 at the Railyaway Hotel Cup GM Tournament in China, a point behind Baadur Jobava, and =3rd at 1st Gloria Macapagal Arroyo Cup International Open in Manila. 2007 saw Ni win the Open International de Balagne with 6.5/7, finish with 6.5/9 in the 23rd International Open in France – half point behind 6 joint leaders, come =1st (2nd on countback behind Wang Yue) in the Philippines International Open Chess Championship, win the Asian Indoor Games Classical Individual held in Macau, take =1st (2nd on tiebreak) at the 2nd President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo Cup in Manila, and win the Prospero Pichay Cup in Manila with a score of 7.0/9. In 2008, Ni came =3rd Gibraltar (2008) behind Bu Xiangzhi and Hikaru Nakamura, =3rd behind Zoltan Almasi and Vugar Gashimov in the 50th Reggio Emilia Tournament, the Torneo di Capodanno (2008), and went one better a year later in January 2009 when he won the 51st Reggio Emilia (2008) with 7.5/10, 1.5 points clear of Almasi. In 2009, he came 3rd in the Corus (B Group) (2010) behind Anish Giri and Arkadi Naiditsch. In 2010, he won the 9th Asian Continental/Individual Championship at Subic Bay, Philippines with 7/9 in a field which included 32 grandmasters and scored 6/6 in the Asian Games in November. 2011 has kicked off with =1st (5th on tiebreak) at the 9th Parsvnath International Open Chess Tournament in New Delhi, scoring 9/11, and =1st (3rd on tiebreak) at the Chennai Open GM Chess Tournament. A modest 4.5/9 result at the Aeroflot Open (2011) was followed in July 2011 by outright first at the Biel Chess Festival's Master Tournament with 8.5/11, ahead of 34 other grandmasters and numerous other masters. However, his rating took a major hit in October when he scored only 3/10 (+0 -6 -4) at the Governor's Cup (2011) (his win by forfeit against Nikita Vitiugov did not count for rating purposes).

His 6/9 at the Moscow Open in 2012 was a par performance but his 5/9 at Aeroflot Open (2012) was slightly below par, causing his rating to slide by 5 points to its lowest since November 2010. However, he showed a welcome return to form with an outright win in the 2nd HD Bank Cup Open 2012 ahead of 2nd placed Le Quang Liem, scoring 8/9 (+7 =2) with a TPR of 2791, 3rd place in the Chinese Chess Championships (2012) with 6.5/11 and a win on tiebreak with 7/9 at the 14th Dubai Open (2012), performances that restored him to the top 100 in the May 2012 ratings list. In May 2012, he scored 6/9 coming =4th (7th on tiebreak) at the Asian Continental Chess Championship (2012), qualifying him to participate in the 2013 World Cup. In June, he scored 6.5/9 at the 3rd Danzhou Tournament (2012) placing equal first alongside Bu Xiangzhi, but lost the tiebreak for first prize. However, he fared poorly in the Fujairah International Open in November 2012, scoring only 4.5/9 and shedding 21 ratings points for the December 2012 list. Although he scored 7.5/11 in the Kolkata Open (2012) placing =3rd, he lost more ratings points.

World championship competitions:

In 2001, Ni was =4-9 in the U18 World Championship (won by Dmitry Jakovenko ) held in Oropesa del Mar, Spain and =3rd in the World Junior won by Peter Acs held in Athens. In 2002, he came = 5th-10th in the World Junior won by Levon Aronian in Goa. Ni qualified for the FIDE World Championship Knockout Tournament (2004) by coming =1st in the China Zonal of 2003; he beat Evgeny Vladimirov in round one but lost to Ye Jiangchuan in the second round. He also played in the FIDE World Cup (2005) but was eliminated in round one by Vasilios Kotronias. He declined to play in the World Cup (2009) as he had committed to playing in the London Chess Classic (2009). He qualified to play in the World Cup (2011) through his results in the 2010 Asian Continental Championships, and defeated the Russian GM Ildar Khairullin in the first round. In the second round he faced former FIDE Champion, the Ukrainian GM Ruslan Ponomariov, and drew the classical games. They also drew the 25 minute-rapid-game tiebreaker match before Ponomariov prevailed in the 10 minute rapid-game tiebreaker match to eliminate Ni from the tournament.

Team play:

In 2000 Ni played in his first Olympiad in Istanbul, where he scored 5.5/9 as second reserve, with China coming 9th. At the Bled Olympiad (2002), he played 1st reserve but only scored 2/6, although China improved its position to 5th placing. He missed the 36th Olympiad (2004) in Calvia, but at the 37th Chess Olympiad (2006), he again played Ist reserve, scoring 5.5/9 with China achieving its best result yet, coming second to Armenia. In 2008 at the 38th Olympiad (2008) in Dresden, Ni scored 6/10 playing Board 3, with China coming 7th.

Ni played in the 2001 China-USA Summit Match in Seattle (scoring 3.5/4), and in the 2nd China-USA match in 2002. In 2004, he played in the France-China Match, this time scoring 5.5/8 In 2006, Ni topped the scoring with countryman Bu Xiangzhi with 7.5/9 at the 9th World University Chess Championship in Nigeria. He participated in the Russia-China Matches of 2004, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 and China vs Russia (2010) where he captained the Chinese men's team to a victory over Russia (the men and women's team won the overall margin as well).

Ni Hua plays for Shanghai Jianqiao Academy team in the Chinese Chess League, and in the 2012 season, he scored 13.5/22, helping his team to first place. He is again playing for his Shanghai team in 2013.

Ratings and rankings:

As of 1 May 2013, Ni Hua's FIDE ratings were:

<Classical> 2646, ranking him number 7 in China, number 14 in Asia and 109 in the world. His peak rating was 2724 in April 2009 when he was ranked number 21 in the world;

<Rapid> 2660 (world #70); and

<Blitz> 2572.