Ding Liren and Huang Qian are China Chess Champions

The 2012 China Chess Championships for men and women were held concurrently from 27th March to 7th April in the city of Xinghua.

Both groups were 12-players round robin tournaments. Xinghua is the birthplace of the Women’s World Champion Hou Yifan, who competed in the men’s section.

Last year champion Ding Liren took an early lead and maintained the top position to eventually claim a clear first place for the second consecutive and third overall (after 2009 and 2011) title of the national champion. Liren finished undefeated with 8/11 and left the nearest follower Yu Yangyi a full point behind.

Hou Yifan held the ground against the higher rated players but couldn’t do better than “-1”, her only two defeats coming from the tail-ending IMs Liu Qingnan and Wang Chen.

The average elo of the players was 2595.

Final standings (Men):
1 GM Ding Liren CHN 2660 – 8
2 GM Yu Yangyi CHN 2615 – 7
3 GM Ni Hua CHN 2637 – 6.5
4 GM Wang Yue CHN 2702 – 6
5 GM Zhao Jun CHN 2583 – 5.5
6 GM Bu Xiangzhi CHN 2668 – 5.5
7 GM Li Shilong CHN 2549 – 5
8 GM Hou Yifan CHN 2639 – 5
9 GM Zhou Jianchao CHN 2625 – 5
10 GM Lu Shanglei CHN 2514 – 5
11 IM Liu Qingnan CHN 2461 – 4.5
12 IM Wang Chen CHN 2490 – 3

In the women’s championship WGMs Huang Qian and last year champion Zhang Xiaowen played superbly and finished on the shared first place with 8/11 points each. Huang Qian is declared the new champion, presumably on the higher tie-break.

The 2010 champion and top seed Ju Wenjun is third with 7 points.

The women’s championship boasted the average elo of 2324.

Final standings (Women):
1 WGM Huang Qian CHN 2399 – 8
2 WGM Zhang Xiaowen CHN 2354 – 8
3 WGM Ju Wenjun CHN 2557 – 7
4 WGM Guo Qi CHN 2351 – 6.5
5 IM Wang Yu A CHN 2372 – 6.5
6 WGM Tan Zhongyi CHN 2438 – 6
7 Wang Jue CHN 2366 – 6
8 WGM Ding Yixin CHN 2350 – 5.5
9 Nie Xin CHN 2053 – 4
10 WGM Gu Xiaobing CHN 2257 – 4
11 WIM Wang Xiaohui CHN 2209 – 3
12 Wang Doudou CHN 2186 – 1.5