Hou Wins First Gold Medal at Mind Sports Games

From People's Daily Online: China's hopeful Hou reaps first chess gold at World Mind Games 09:27, October 13, 2008 China's ace chess player Hou Yifan claimed her first title at the World Mind Sports Games here on Sunday as the 14-year-old promising star paced the host's pairs toa convincing victory in the rapid finals. Hou, combined with her teammate Ni Hua, whitewashed their Vietnamese counterpart 4-0 in the two round finals, presenting China's chess team the second gold of the 15-day Games. Though winning the gold, Hou said it was only her start. "It feels great to win my first gold medal. But there are still two team events in the following days. They are more important than the pairs competitions." said Hou, adding that the coach's timely directions helped her back to track. "I wanted to say 'thank you' to my coach. He helped me a lot and made me feel less pressure today. I was in good form and played better than I did in the blitz round. I hoped to win more golds in the following days." said the winner. China's leading pairs witnessed a slump in blitz chess on last Wednesday. They failed to advance to the finals after their upset defeat to Ecuador in the preliminaries. China's head coach Ye Jiangchuan said lacking experience was the reason to their failure. "Both of them played less blitz chess before and they were still not used to it. Take Hou for example, she lost both in the individual and pairs competitions though she played much better in the slow chess in other world tournaments. We will do more trainings on this event after the Games," said Ye. Hou is the highest ranking player in China's women team. In last month's world championships, the wunderkind could have become the world's youngest chess queen by a finger's breadth. In the final, Hou lost to Russian pinup player Kosteniuk, who is ten-year-older than her Chinese opponent. However, China's coach still showed his confidence to the hopeful girl. "She is a talented player with good potentials. In the preliminaries, she collected nine straight victories, which is not common in the world's top level competitions. Besides, her steady performance is the key to the pairs' victory today. I hope she can learn some lessons from the Games and do better in the oncoming tournaments." said Ye. In the third-place playoff, Iran beat Indonesia to wrap up the bronze. The 1st World Mind Games have attracted more than 3,000 players from 143 countries and regions. Bridge, Chess, Go, Draughts and Xiangqi were on the program. Source: Xinhua

First World Mind Sports Games

Xiang qi - Chinese chess - variously translated as "elephant game," something akin to "ambassador game" and "star" or "celestial" game." It has a lot of similarities to western chess, but has enough differences to require learning a whole different set of pattern-recognition and, of course, basic piece moves and rules. The pieces are different from western ches pieces, too. The modern game of xiang qi is played with flat pieces (like checkers) that have their symbols painted or printed on them. The xiang qi board is not checkered like a western chess board; the pieces are placed on the intersections of the squares and not within the squares, and there is a "river" that divides the xiang qi board in half - so a xiang qi board has 72 squares, but the number of playing pieces is 16 to each side because of their placement. Pieces are distingished entirely by color and by subtle variations in the names of the pieces. I'm no expert, that's for sure! The extent of my knowledge is very limited, basically gleaned from a few articles read when I researched the meaning of the name of xiang qi in English ("qi" basically can mean "man" - as in a "playing piece" - but it can also, more intriguingly, refer to the "qi" that is, to put it into popular venacular, rather like "The Force," that invisible yet palpable "something" that forms the very essence of the universe, from "Star Wars." Thre are several different siang qi events taking place side by side with western chess events. Here is news about one of the women's events. Unfortunately, the photograph of the chessboard and pieces in the article is a western chess set with a checkered board! Lan Huong brings home xiangqi bronze 14:06' 10/10/2008 (GMT+7) VietNamNet Bridge – Ngo Lan Huong yesterday secured a bronze medal in the women's individual xiangqi (Chinese chess) event at the first-ever World Mind Sports Games, held in Beijing, China. Huong beat Tan Min Fang Fiona from Singapore in the last round to grab a spot in the top three. The 2007 Asian Indoor Games title-holder pocketed 10 points after seven matches, finishing behind China's Wang Linna and Zhao Guanfang. In a near tie-break for gold, Wang and her compatriot Zhao both accumulated 13 points. Wang was finally awarded the medal because of better rival points, suggesting she encountered stronger opponents during the tournament. "I am so excited with the results," said 28-year-old Wang. "After all, this is the World Mind Sports Games, and in some sense it is just like the Olympic Games for the mind. So being the champion means a lot to me." Ranked as one of the best female xiangqi players in China, Wang earned six victories during, the competition. A native of Heilongjiang Province in northeast China, Wang is a veteran in the sport, having started learning xiangqi at the age of eight. She bagged her first national title in 1997. But facing Zhao was a close call, Wang said. "I did not play well in that match. I left too many chances for my opponent. I think Zhao was too nervous to beat me at that time, or I could not have earned one point from that match." The champion said she hoped her gold medal will be a good start for Chinese female xiangqi players, adding: "Hopefully, my teammates will win another gold for China in the women's team event." The competition was also a hard-won battle for silver medallist Zhao: "Foreign female xiangqi players have made great progress in recent years. Competitors from Viet Nam, the Netherlands and Britain have posed a huge challenge for us during the matches." On the men's side, Vietnamese Nguyen Thanh Bao and Nguyen Hoang Lam are both in the top ten. The duo finished round five with six points. The competition for men has nine rounds and will conclude tomorrow. In the chess event's mixed pair blitz, Ecuador secured gold after tense games against India. In the play-off for third place the Ukraine proved too strong for Iran, winning 3-1 to take the bronze. Vietnamese duo Le Quang Liem and Hoang Thi Nhu Y did not play well, earning only 13 points after 11 rounds, which was not enough to qualify for the semi-final. In the mixed pair rapid event which kicked off yesterday, Dao Thien Hai and Le Kieu Thien Kim of Viet Nam took two points from two first matches and were in the middle of the ranking table. The first World Mind Sports Games attracted more than 3,000 players from 143 countries and regions. Masters compete for 35 medal sets divided into five events: bridge, chess, go, draughts and xiangqi. (Source: VNS/XINHUA)