Zhao Zong-Yuan
CountryAustralia
Born (1986-06-26) 26 June 1986
Beijing, China
TitleGrandmaster (2008)
FIDE rating2486 (January 2024)
Peak rating2592 (March 2010)

Zhao Zong-Yuan (simplified Chinese: 赵宗辕; traditional Chinese: 趙宗轅; pinyin: Zhào Zōngyuán; born 26 June 1986)[1] is an Australian chess Grandmaster. As of September 2019, he was the third-ranked active chess player in Australia.[2]

Early life

Zhao was born in Beijing. He grew up in Coffs Harbour, Australia, a pharmacy graduate from the University of Sydney.[3] He has since completed his degree in medicine at the same university.

Chess career

Zhao became the youngest Australian international master at the age of 14, and was a member of the NSW Junior Chess League.[4]

Zhao won the 1999 Queensland Under-18 Championship with a score of 8/8 and then finished just half a point behind Darryl Johansen in the Australian Championship proper, ending with a remarkable 4/4 burst. In 2000, he finished second to Aleksandar Wohl in the Oceania Zonal and in 2001 won the Australian Junior Championship. He played in the 2001 British Championship and scored 6/11. In 2004 he won the Doeberl Cup with 6/7 ahead of Ian Rogers, David Smerdon, Johansen and Gary Lane. In 2005 he won the Australian Junior Masters with a 9/9 score. He has represented his country in three Olympiads and in 2006 was on board three.

In January 2007, Zhao won the Australian Open with 9.5/11 points with a 2673 performance rating.[5] In May 2007, he was first at the 2007 Oceania Zonal in Fiji with 7/9 points, ahead of New Zealander Puchen Wang. This enabled him to qualify for the 2007 FIDE World Cup in Khanty Mansiysk, Russia,[6] where he was knocked out in the first round by Magnus Carlsen (0–2). In July 2007, he won the Australian National University Open with a score of 6/7.[7] He won the Oceania Chess Championship again in 2011 with a score of 8.5/9[8][9] and represented the Oceania Zone at the Chess World Cup 2011 where he was eliminated by Evgeny Tomashevsky.[10]

Zhao achieved all three of the required grandmaster (GM) norms over two months in December 2007 and January 2008. Zhao scored 7/9 earning his first GM norm in the First Saturday chess tournament (1–10 December 2007) in Budapest, Hungary.[11][12] Zhao earned his second GM norm by convincingly winning with 6.5 points the VII Festival Internacional de Ajedrez GEMA tournament (10th category round-robin) which was held from 26 December 2007 until 5 January 2008 in Mondariz Balneario (Pontevedra), Spain.[13] In his third attempt, which was unsuccessful, Zhao played in the 33rd Seville Open/XXXIII Abierto Internacional "Ciudad de Sevilla"[14] (5–12 January 2008) Sevilla, Spain finishing with 6.5/9 points (=10th place). In 22–31 January 2008 he managed to achieve his final GM norm at the 2008 Gibtelecom Chess Festival[15] in Gibraltar. By also achieving a rating over 2500 he thus qualified for the title of Grandmaster. Zhao is Australia's third grandmaster, after Ian Rogers and Darryl Johansen.

After GM Rogers, Australia's previous #1, retired, Zhao played top board in the 2008 Chess Olympiad in Dresden, where he scored 6.5/10 with a performance rating of 2620, the best performance rating of the team.[16] He again played top board for Australia in the 2010 Chess Olympiad held in Khanty Mansiysk, Russia where he scored 5/9.[17]

References

  1. ↑ "newinchess.com".
  2. ↑ "Zhao, Zong-Yuan". ratings.fide.com.
  3. ↑ Profile at ChessGames.com.
  4. ↑ "NSWJCL Links". www.nswjcl.org.au.
  5. ↑ "The 2006-07 Australian Open" (PDF). actjcl.org.au. 9 January 2007. Retrieved 7 March 2023.
  6. ↑ "Oceania Zonal 2007". Fiji Chess. Archived from the original on 27 September 2007.
  7. ↑ "chessexpress". chessexpress.blogspot.com.
  8. ↑ Oceania Zone Champions Archived 26 April 2012 at the Wayback Machine Oceania Chess Confederation
  9. ↑ Tournament Crosstable Archived 29 January 2016 at the Wayback Machine, Official site of the 2011 Oceania Zonal
  10. ↑ November 2011 FIDE Rating Calculations for Zong-Yuan Zhao from www.fide.com
  11. ↑ "Software & Services". sas.hu.
  12. ↑ Gardiner Chess Newsletter No 63 Archived 19 November 2008 at the Wayback Machine
  13. ↑ VII Festival Internacional de ajedrez GEMA. Grupo de Empresas Marcote. Mondariz Balneario. Pontevedra. 2007 Archived 31 December 2007 at the Wayback Machine
  14. ↑ "Federación Sevillana de Ajedrez". www.fsajedrez.com.
  15. ↑ "The Gibraltar Chess Festival – A Detailed Guide to an Amazing Event".
  16. ↑ Australian Team Performance, Chess Olympiad official site
  17. ↑ Personal Results for Zong-Yuan Zhao, Official Site of the 2010 World Chess Olympiad
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