Player profile
A sourced Li Laiqun profile: four national individual titles, the 1982 first title north of the Yellow River, the Wuyang Cup and Chess King records, five replayable games, video references and flagged source discrepancies.
Career record at a glance
Player and method
Born in 1959 in Handan, Hebei, Li Laiqun is a Chinese Special International Grandmaster who served as deputy head and coach at the Hebei Chess Academy. He won the national individual championship four times (1982, 1984, 1987, 1991), and the 1982 title in Chengdu was the first to carry the cup across the Yellow River. He also won the 1984 Wuyang Cup, the 1989 Shaolin Cola Cup and the Chess Sage title for it, took the Chess King title in 1989 and defended it in 1990.
Sachess separates facts, sources, study samples and editorial interpretation. This page also flags two source disagreements: the 1991 Wuyang Cup media claim is not evidence of a title, and Dongping's "at least two national titles" is an approval condition rather than a record. The five games span 1979 to 2026 and include three wins, one loss and one draw, each with a complete annotated record.
Six photographs are shown, each cropped from a source that granted redistribution rights: Baidu Baike, Sina News, Sohu and a KKnews photo file. Wikimedia Commons holds no licensed image of Li Laiqun, so every caption names the page it came from.
Fact layer
The timeline below verifies the dated milestones first, then explains how they connect into a career path.
The Dongping player record lists Li Laiqun as born in 1959, based in Hebei, with both current address and ancestral home recorded as Handan, Hebei, and his English name as Li Lai Qun.
Dongping player record: Li Laiqun (profile 42) ↗The Baidu Baike biography states that in 1977 he became the first registered player of the Hebei provincial xiangqi team and became a student of Special International Grandmaster Liu Dianzhong.
Baidu Baike: Li Laiqun ↗The Dongping record lists him as a key member of the Hebei squad that won the national team championship in 1983, 1985, 1997 and 1998. The 24 April 1979 team-event game included on this page is a playable sample from that period.
Dongping record: 1979 national team event, Li Laiqun beats Zang Ruyi ↗The xiangqi archive placings table lists the top six of the 16th edition in Wenzhou in 1981 as Liu Dahua, Li Laiqun, Xu Tianli, Wang Jialiang, Yang Guanlin and Yu Youhua, placing him second at the country's highest individual event.
Xiangqi game archive: national individual top-six placings by year ↗Wikipedia's winner list and the xiangqi archive both record Li Laiqun winning the 17th edition in Chengdu in 1982, whose top six were Li Laiqun, Hu Ronghua, Lu Qin, Qian Hongfa, Zhao Guorong and Guo Changshun. Sohu Sports, reprinting Nanhai Net, calls it the moment the xiangqi throne first crossed the Yellow River.
Wikipedia: National individual championship winners by year ↗The Dongping record lists his 1984 Wuyang Cup title. Wikipedia's Wuyang Cup winner list names January 1984 as Li Laiqun's only Wuyang Cup title. The xiangqi archive placings table records his second national individual title in the same year.
Dongping player record: Li Laiqun (profile 42) ↗The Dongping record lists him as a key member of the 1985 Hebei national team champions and as part of the Chinese squads that won the 2nd, 3rd, 5th and 7th Asian Cup team titles.
Dongping player record: Li Laiqun (profile 42) ↗The xiangqi archive placings table lists the top six of the 22nd edition in Bengbu in 1987 as Li Laiqun, Zhao Guorong, Liu Dahua, Yan Yusuo, Liu Xing and Yu Youhua.
Xiangqi game archive: national individual top-six placings by year ↗The Dongping record states that he won the 1989 Shaolin Cola Cup and received the Chess Sage title for it, and that he won the same year's Chess King challenge to take the Chess King title.
Dongping player record: Li Laiqun (profile 42) ↗The Dongping record states that he defended the Chess King title successfully in 1990. Together with his 1989 challenge win this forms a two-year Chess King run.
Dongping player record: Li Laiqun (profile 42) ↗The xiangqi archive placings table lists the top six of the 26th edition in Dalian in 1991 as Li Laiqun, Lu Qin, Xu Yinchuan, Xu Tianhong, Yan Wenqing and Lin Hongmin. The Dongping record also states he was runner-up in the individual event of the second World Xiangqi Championship and part of the Chinese team that won the group title.
Xiangqi game archive: national individual top-six placings by year ↗The Wikipedia entry states he founded the Hebei Zhiye real estate company in 1996, serving as both chairman and general manager, and gradually withdrew from competitive play. Sohu Sports, reprinting Nanhai Net, describes Hebei Zhiye Real Estate Development Co. as the company he built. This page uses only these verifiable appointment facts and drops the personal wealth descriptions in that report.
Wikipedia (zh): Li Laiqun ↗The Dongping record lists him as a key member of the 1997 and 1998 Hebei national team champions and of the Chinese squad for the 7th Asian Cup, and records his runner-up finish at the 1999 Shenyang Daily Cup world event.
Dongping player record: Li Laiqun (profile 42) ↗The xiangqi archive records Li Laiqun playing in the veterans group of the 32nd Wuyang Cup national championship in 2026, including a slow draw with Xu Tianhong in round two. The Dongping record adds that he served as deputy head and coach at the Hebei Chess Academy, and the archive lists Liu Dianzhong, Li Laiqun, Shen Peng and Lu Weitao as Hebei's four Special International Grandmasters.
Xiangqi game archive: 2026 Wuyang Cup, Li Laiqun draws Xu Tianhong ↗Career in context
The Dongping player record lists Li Laiqun as born in 1959 with ancestral roots in Handan, Hebei, gives his epithets as "Yanzhao Beauty" and "Stratagem Star", and lists his four national titles in 1982, 1984, 1987 and 1991. Those four years also appear in Wikipedia's winner list and the xiangqi archive placings table, which makes them the hardest facts in this profile; the timeline is built on them directly.
Dongping player record ↗Wikipedia's winner list records Li Laiqun winning the 17th edition in Chengdu in 1982, whose top six were Li Laiqun, Hu Ronghua, Lu Qin, Qian Hongfa, Zhao Guorong and Guo Changshun. The Dongping record states that his first title in 1982 made the men's championship cross the Yellow River for the first time, ending southern dominance. Sohu Sports, reprinting Nanhai Net, phrases it as the first time the xiangqi throne crossed the Yellow River; this page uses that sourced phrasing.
Wikipedia winners list ↗Baidu Baike records that in 1977 he became the first registered player of the Hebei provincial team and became a student of Special International Grandmaster Liu Dianzhong. The xiangqi archive lists Liu Dianzhong, Li Laiqun, Shen Peng and Lu Weitao as Hebei's four Special International Grandmasters, and the Dongping record adds that he served as deputy head and coach at the Hebei Chess Academy. These nodes explain his early place in Hebei chess.
Baidu Baike biography ↗The Dongping record states he won the 1989 Shaolin Cola Cup and received the Chess Sage title, won the Chess King challenge the same year, and defended the Chess King title successfully in 1990. That run belongs to a different generation from the Lu Qin profile, where the fourth Chess King tournament title came in 1994 and was defended in 1998. Each page states its own sourced version rather than merging them.
Dongping player record ↗The xiangqi archive placings table lists the top six of the 26th edition in Dalian in 1991 as Li Laiqun, Lu Qin, Xu Yinchuan, Xu Tianhong, Yan Wenqing and Lin Hongmin, with Li Laiqun first and Lu Qin second. The Dongping record also lists his individual runner-up at the second World Xiangqi Championship, with a Chinese group title alongside.
Xiangqi archive placings table ↗The Wikipedia entry records that he founded the Hebei Zhiye real estate company in 1996 as both chairman and general manager and gradually withdrew from competitive play. Sohu Sports, reprinting Nanhai Net, describes Hebei Zhiye Real Estate Development Co. as the company he built, and the Dongping record lists him as a Hebei People's Political Consultative Conference member. This page uses only those verifiable appointment and role facts and omits the personal wealth descriptions in that report.
Wikipedia entry ↗Wikipedia's Wuyang Cup winner list names January 1984 as Li Laiqun's title and January 1991 as Lu Qin's, and the Dongping record likewise lists only a 1984 Wuyang Cup title. The two sources agree, so this page does not claim a 1991 Wuyang Cup title. A public video index does carry an entry titled as a 1991 Wuyang Cup game won by Li Laiqun against Liu Dahua, but that describes one game inside that edition and cannot imply a title; the page records it as a source discrepancy rather than a result.
Wikipedia Wuyang Cup winner list ↗Dongping's Special International Grandmaster register lists "at least two national titles" among the approval conditions, while the Li Laiqun entry itself also states four national titles in 1982, 1984, 1987 and 1991. An approval condition is not a career record, so the page treats the four titles as fact and the register condition as a framing note.
Dongping grandmaster register ↗The five games span 1979, 1990, 1992, 1997 and 2026, are all marked slow play, and include three wins with Red plus one loss and one draw with Black. The label has to be checked against these games rather than treated as settled.
Dongping player record ↗The 24 April 1979 national team event, round four, ran 151 half-moves with Li Laiqun as Red beating Zang Ruyi of Beijing from an Immortal Guide structure with mutual right horses. It is both the oldest and the longest game in the sample.
Dongping record ↗The 20 June 1990 Congtai Cup national team event, round thirteen, ran 113 half-moves with Li Laiqun as Red beating Li Aidong of Sichuan after an eloped elephant with a right horse against a left through-palace cannon. It is the longest attacking process in the sample.
Dongping record ↗The 20 October 1992 Chess King Cup individual event, round one, ran 55 half-moves with Li Laiqun as Red beating Liu Jun of Jiangxi from an Immortal Guide with a right horse against a flying elephant. It is the shortest game here and suits reading how he fixed a direction quickly.
Dongping record ↗Two games in the sample share an opponent: Xu Tianhong beat Li Laiqun in the 1997 Guangyang Cup, and Li Laiqun drew him in the 2026 Wuyang Cup. The same opponent produced a loss and a draw across 29 years, and the later one documents that he still appeared at the top invitation level. Keeping both avoids a sample that only shows flattering results.
Xiangqi game archive ↗
Fact layer
Wikipedia's winner list and the xiangqi archive placings table cross-check these four titles. The 1982 title in Chengdu was the first to carry the cup across the Yellow River.
The Dongping record lists him as a key member of the Hebei squads that won those four editions.
The Dongping record lists his individual runner-up at the second World Xiangqi Championship, where he also formed part of the Chinese group-title team.
Wikipedia's Wuyang Cup winner list names January 1984 as his sole title there, and the Dongping record also lists only 1984.
The Dongping record states he won the 1989 Shaolin Cola Cup and received the Chess Sage title for it.
The Dongping record states he won the 1989 Chess King challenge and defended the title successfully in 1990.
The Dongping record lists core squad membership in those four Asian Cups.
Current-status note
The four national individual titles (1982, 1984, 1987, 1991) are cross-checked between Wikipedia's winner list, the xiangqi archive placings table and the Dongping player record. On the Wuyang Cup, Wikipedia's winner list names January 1984 as his only title and January 1991 as Lu Qin's, and the Dongping record likewise lists only 1984; a public video titled as a 1991 Wuyang Cup game won by Li Laiqun describes one game inside that edition, so this page does not claim a 1991 title. The "at least two national titles" wording in Dongping's grandmaster register is an approval condition, not the same thing as his four titles. On the business years this page uses only the verifiable appointment facts: founding Hebei Zhiye in 1996, serving as chairman and general manager, and being a Hebei People's Political Consultative Conference member. Personal wealth descriptions in media reports are not used.
Sample note
Three of the five games open with a pawn or an eloped elephant, including a 1990 elephant-for-chariot trade and a 1992 Immortal Guide with a right horse. The sample suggests he preferred opening flexibility over committing to a central cannon line.
The Dongping record gives him the epithet "Stratagem Star", and public video indexes frequently build titles around his sacrificial attacks. The 113-ply 1990 Congtai Cup win is the longest attacking process in the sample.
All five games are marked slow play and three exceed 100 half-moves. The 151-ply 1979 team-event game is the window for watching how he allocates stamina and chances over a long game.
The 104-ply 2026 Wuyang Cup draw against Xu Tianhong and the 71-ply 1997 Guangyang Cup loss are the only two games with Black in the sample. Two games against one opponent 29 years apart suit studying transitions rather than opening habits.
Baidu Baike records him as a student of Liu Dianzhong, the Dongping record lists him as deputy head and coach at the Hebei Chess Academy and a Hebei People's Political Consultative Conference member, and the archive lists four Special International Grandmasters on the Hebei squad. This measures his coaching and public role, not playing strength.
These values are Sachess reading labels built from the five public game records on this page. They are not official ratings, engine win rates, or a complete career statistic.
Use the 151-ply record of Li Laiqun as Red beating Zang Ruyi to watch how a right horse develops in an early Immortal Guide structure.
The 113-ply record studies the path from an early elephant-for-chariot trade into a middlegame attack.
This 55-ply individual game is the shortest opening sample here and shows how quickly he fixed a direction.
The 71-ply record of Li Laiqun as Black losing to Xu Tianhong is the sample's only defeat.
The 104-ply record with Li Laiqun as Red drawing Xu Tianhong shows how he handled a bishop-cannon to central-cannon transition in slow play.
Sample note
Five games are a study sample, not every famous game; style labels are editorial observations, not official scores.
Enable JavaScript to load the in-page replay board here, or open the endgame puzzle set。
1979 · Li Laiqun won
This 151-ply slow record of the 24 April 1979 national team event shows Li Laiqun as Red beating Zang Ruyi from an Immortal Guide structure with mutual right horses. It is both the oldest and the longest game in the sample.
Study path: Study question: at which move did the right horse start to shape the whole position?
1990 · Li Laiqun won
The 20 June 1990 Congtai Cup national team event ran 113 half-moves with Li Laiqun as Red beating Li Aidong after an eloped elephant with a right horse against a left through-palace cannon. It is the longest attacking process in the sample.
Study path: Study question: after the early elephant-for-chariot trade, how was the middlegame direction reset?
1992 · Li Laiqun won
The 20 October 1992 Chess King Cup individual event ran 55 half-moves with Li Laiqun as Red beating Liu Jun from an Immortal Guide with a right horse against a flying elephant. It is the shortest game in the sample.
Study path: Study question: how many moves did he need to fix an attacking direction in a short game?
1997 · Li Laiqun won
The 1997 Guangyang Cup slow record ran 71 half-moves from a central cannon with a river-crossing chariot and mutual seven pawns against the Screen Horse with a central cannon for a chariot trade. Li Laiqun played Black and lost, the only defeat in the sample.
Study path: Study question: what does including a loss actually test about style claims?
2026 · Opponent won
The 26 February 2026 32nd Wuyang Cup veterans round ran 104 half-moves with Li Laiqun as Red drawing Xu Tianhong after an Immortal Guide into a left central cannon against a bottom-cannon flying left elephant. It is included because the opponent matches the 1997 game 29 years earlier, so one loss and one draw sit side by side.
Study path: Study question: where do the two games against one opponent 29 years apart differ in the middlegame?
Featured videos
Videos are external YouTube and Bilibili indexes that Sachess does not host. Bilibili cards use a local placeholder image as context, not a video still; playback belongs to the original platform.
Bilibili embeds can be unreliable in third-party pages; use the thumbnail or link to watch on Bilibili.
A public game-video index. Its title describes one game inside the 1991 Wuyang Cup; this page does not treat it as evidence of that edition's title.
Watch on original site ↗A public game-video index recording Xu Yinchuan's win over Li Laiqun at that Wuyang Cup edition.
Watch on original site ↗A public game-video index whose title uses a descriptive phrase for his style. That phrase is video-title wording, not a factual source.
Watch on original site ↗A public activity-video index evidencing that Li Laiqun still appeared as a veteran when the Wuyang Cup returned.
Watch on original site ↗A public game-video index for a later Li Laiqun game against Hu Ronghua.
Watch on original site ↗A public game-video index for Li Laiqun against Lu Qin. The 2026 Wuyang Cup draw between the two is included on the Lu Qin profile page, so the two pages can be read together.
Watch on original site ↗An outside biographical video index whose subject matches Li Laiqun's public identity after leaving competitive play. The video title is not treated as a factual source.
Watch on original site ↗An outside game-video index whose title points at the 1987 national individual championship period. Year and edition were not verified item by item; facts follow the sources listed on this page.
Watch on original site ↗An outside game-video index against Hu Ronghua, useful for watching how two top players met.
Watch on original site ↗An outside game-video index pointing at the 1999 national individual championship. Li Laiqun placed sixth that year; the nature of the game follows the event record.
Watch on original site ↗An outside game-video index against Xu Yinchuan, from a commercial event Li Laiqun played late in his career.
Watch on original site ↗An outside game-video index. The epithet in its title matches the one in the Dongping player record, which makes it a documented instance of that epithet in public video.
Watch on original site ↗Key moments
Wikipedia's winner list records him winning the 17th edition in Chengdu in 1982, the first time the cup crossed the Yellow River.
Both Wikipedia's Wuyang Cup list and the Dongping player record name January 1984 as his single title there.
The Dongping record lists the Shaolin Cola Cup win, the resulting Chess Sage title and a successful Chess King challenge in the same year.
The Dongping record lists a successful defence of the Chess King title in 1990.
The xiangqi archive placings table records him first and Lu Qin second at the 26th edition in Dalian in 1991.
The Dongping record lists his individual runner-up at the second World Xiangqi Championship, with a group title alongside.
The Wikipedia entry records that he founded the Hebei Zhiye real estate company in 1996 as chairman and general manager.
Study path
The Dongping record shows that his 1989 Shaolin Cola Cup win brought both the Chess Sage and Chess King titles. The page presents that one line rather than counting two separate event championships.
Two games in the sample share Xu Tianhong as opponent, 29 years apart, one loss and one draw. Two meetings with one opponent reveal differences in choice more clearly than two unrelated games.
The 1991 Wuyang Cup claim and the grandmaster register's approval condition are both written up as disagreements rather than silently resolved in favour of one source.
The 1997 Guangyang Cup game has no round and no calendar date, so the page leaves them blank. A missing field is itself information.
FAQ
Public career records list four: 1982, 1984, 1987 and 1991. Both Wikipedia's winner list and the xiangqi archive placings table support those four years.
Wikipedia's Wuyang Cup winner list names him champion of the January 1984 edition, and the Dongping record also lists only a 1984 Wuyang Cup title. The two sources agree, so this page records one.
A public video index does carry an entry titled as a 1991 Wuyang Cup game won by Li Laiqun against Liu Dahua, but that describes one game inside that edition, and winning a game is not winning the event. Wikipedia's winner list names Lu Qin as the January 1991 champion. This page records the claim as a source discrepancy rather than a result.
No. Dongping's Special International Grandmaster register lists "at least two national titles" as one of the approval conditions, while the same Li Laiqun entry also states four national titles in 1982, 1984, 1987 and 1991. An approval condition is not a career record, so this page treats the four titles as fact.
No. They are five study samples chosen by Sachess for event, opponent, year, time control and replayability, and they include one loss and one draw, all marked slow play.
Sources and boundaries
Five games are a study sample, not every famous game; style labels are editorial observations, not official scores.
Fact-check date: 2026-10-02. DhtmlXQ move strings are converted to ICCS at build time for replay; event fields follow the source record, and rounds or dates a source omits are left blank rather than guessed. The page adds no private details or income figures, and treats no video title as a factual source.
