Wang Yue (; born 31 March 1987) is a Chinese chess player. In 2004, he became China's 18th grandmaster at the age of 17. He is China's first player ever to break into the top 10 of the FIDE world rankings and was the highest-ever rated Chinese player, with a peak rating of 2756, until August 2015, when this record was broken by Ding Liren.

In October 2007, Wang became the first Chinese player and third Asian player to cross the 2700 Elo rating mark. In October 2008, he became the world No. 11, the highest-ranking a Chinese player had ever achieved, surpassing the previous record of 17th by Ye Jiangchuan set in 2000. In January 2010, he became the first Chinese world top-ten player with a world ranking of 9. His highest world ranking to date is No. 8 in the May 2010 rating list with a rating of 2752.

In the FIDE Grand Prix 2008–2010, he was a last round victory over Teimour Radjabov away from joining Levon Aronian as an automatic qualifier for the Candidates Tournament of the World Chess Championship 2012 cycle; however, Radjabov secured a draw which allowed him to win the final qualifying position.

In 2008, Wang was a Communication Studies student at the College of Liberal Arts of Nankai University in Tianjin.Players' portraits 2008 NH Tournament He also played for his university club chess team.

Early life Wang was born in Taiyuan, Shanxi, where he learned to play chess at the age of four. He would during summer every day after dinner watch people play xiangqi in the streets. When he was 5, with the support of his parents he started to receive chess training at school and made rapid progress. When he was 9 he joined the National Junior Team and won the Li Chengzhi () National Children's Cup. At 12, he joined the National Team and at 15 he joined Tianjin City Club.

Career Wang has participated in several national team summit matches, including against the United States (2002), Russia (2004, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009), France (2006) and the UK (2007).

1999–2005: Junior player

In 1999, Wang won the under-12 category of the World Youth Chess Championship in Oropesa del Mar, Spain.

In 2000, he came second in the U-14 category World Youth Championship, which was also held in Oropesa del Mar, to Alexander Areshchenko. That year, in Artek, Ukraine, and again in 2002 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, he competed for the China national chess team at the World Youth U-16 Chess Olympiads. In 2000, the team came 9th, with Wang scoring 6/9 (+4−1=4) with a 2430 performance.OlimpBase :: World Youth U16 Chess Olympiads :: Wang Yue The 2002 team won gold and he also achieved on first board an individual gold medal for his stunning result of 8½/10 (+7−0=3) with a 2657 performance.World Youth U16 Chess Olympiads (2002) - Wang Yue, www.olimpbase.org (archived) He was supported by teammate Zhao Jun who had an 80% score on board 2.

In July–August 2002, at the Second China–USA Match in Shanghai, Wang scored 2½/4 (+1−0=3) with a performance of 2526. He played Hikaru Nakamura once in the last round which was a draw, and all the other first three games were against Vinay Bhat. China won 20½–19½ overall.

In April 2004, Wang scored the highest with 9/11 at the Chinese Men's Team Championships in Jinan.CHN Men Team Ch.2004 – CHN: 2004-04-16 In August of that year, at the 2nd China–Russia Match in Moscow, Wang scored 3/6 (+1−1=4) with a 2670 performance. China won the match 37½–34½. Continuing, from October 14–31, when Wang became a FIDE master, he competed in his debut Olympiad in Calvià, Mallorca, Spain, scoring 8/12 (+5−1=6) on the first reserve board with a 2621 performance. The team finished in 24th place and Wang finished on 16th in the individual board standings. At this event he achieved his last GM norm and became China's then youngest grandmaster. December 18–23 saw him at the Tigran Petrosian Memorial Internet Tournament, with games starting at 12:00 noon in Paris, 14:00 in St. Petersburg. 15:00 in Yerevan and 19:00 in Beijing. Each country faced each of the other three countries two times for a total of six rounds. Fischer time control will be used (1 hour 30 minutes plus 15 minutes added at move 40; 30 second increments are added after every move). The event took place on ICC. China won the Tigran Petrosian Memorial Internet Tournament. Their final round match against Russia came down to the wire. The Russians led 2–1 but Wang beat Vadim Zvjaginsev to tie the match and win the event for the Chinese. Final Scores: China 14–France 13–Russia 13–Armenia 8. China players: (average rating: 2590) GM Bu Xiangzhi 2615 GM Ni Hua 2611 GM Zhang Zhong 2596 GM Wang Yue 2536

In February 2005, Wang scored 5½/9 at the Aeroflot Open. In April, he scored 6/9 at the Dubai Open. It was won by 16-year-old Wang Hao. In July, he came third on tiebreak with 6½/11 (+3−1=7) at the 2nd Sanjin International Hotel GM Cup in his hometown Taiyuan. Pendyala Harikrishna won with 8½/11 a point clear of Alexander Motylev. In October, he also came third with 6½/9 at the 5th Asian Individual Championship in Hyderabad, India. In November, he came fifth with 8½/13 at the World Junior Chess Championship in Istanbul, and reached the second round of the FIDE World Cup having beaten and lost to Karen Asrian and Ilya Smirin, respectively.

In December 2005, he became the youngest National men's Champion of China, with a score of 12½/18 in Beijing. Also, in 2005 he won both the National Youth Championship and the National Collegiate Championship.

2006: Becomes a 2600 Elo player In February, Wang scored 4½/9 at the Aeroflot Open. In June at the 37th Chess Olympiad in Turin, the national team, seeded 12, came second winning silver. Wang, on board four, went undefeated scoring 10/12 points (8 wins and 4 draws) and received an individual gold medal for this board four result, as well as an individual silver medal for his rating performance of 2837 (the second highest of all players after Vladimir Kramnik of Russia).OlimpBase :: Men's Chess Olympiads :: Wang Yue

On July 10–22 at the Taiyuan Scheveningen Event, the Chinese team won 36½–35½ against the foreign side with Wang scoring 6½/12. From 28 July to 7 August, at the 4th Marx György Memorial (Category 15 av 2622 of July'06 ratings) in Paks, Hungary, Wang scored 5/10 (+1−1=8) and came joint third with Zoltán Almási. The tournament was won by Pendyala Harikrishna. From 10–20 August, at the 3rd Russia–China match in Erguna, Wang scored 5½/10 (+3−2=5) with a 2711 performance. China won the match 51½–48½.

On September 4–9 at the Trophée MULTICOMS China–France Match, he scored 4/6 with a performance rating of 2712, the highest in the competition. On 7 September, at the 7th Lausanne Young Masters, he came second after having lost to Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in the final rapidplay playoff. In October, he came sixth with 8½/13 at the World Junior Championship in Yerevan.

At the Asian Games in Doha in December, the national team won silver, with Wang on board two scoring 6/9 points (+4−1=4) with a 2647 performance.OlimpBase :: Asian Chess Games :: Wang Yue

2007: Becomes a 2700 player In February, Wang came in joint second with 6½/9 at the Aeroflot Open in Moscow.FIDE Online. Archive – Tournament report April 2007 In March, he won both the Calvi Open (6/7) in France and the Cappelle la Grande tournament – which hosted 87 GMs, 81 IMs and 465 FIDE rated players – on tie-break, ahead of five other players with 7/9 points and a performance rating of 2784, achieving his goal of crossing 2700 Elo rating (China's first).

In April, he won the Philippines International Open Chess Championship in Subic Bay Freeport Zone with 7/9 points. In July 2007, he came second with 5/8 at the 4th Sanjin Hotel Cup in Taiyuan. In July at the 4th Taiyuan Scheveningen Event, the Chinese team lost 17–15 against the foreign side; Vadim Zvjaginsev finished 5½/8 to top the score in the event, Wang made 5/8 to top the score for the Chinese team. In 18–31 August at the 4th China–Russia Match in Nizhniy Novgorod, Wang scored 5½/10 (+2−1=7) with a 2714 performance. China won the match overall 52½–47½. In 3–9 September at the UK–China Match in Liverpool, Wang scored 4/6 (+2−0=4) with a 2722 performance. China won the match 28–20.

At the FIDE World Cup in Khanty-Mansiysk, in November, Wang defeated Aleksei Pridorozhni (1½–½), Sergei Tiviakov (2½–1½) and his compatriot Bu Xiangzhi (1½–½), only to be eliminated by Ivan Cheparinov (½–1½) in the fourth round. In December, Wang came second on tiebreak at the Category 17 XVII Ciudad de Pamplona (Magistral A) tournament in Spain having scored 4/7 (TPR 2695). It was won by Francisco Vallejo Pons.

2008: Becomes a Top 20 player

In January, at the 15th Asian Team Chess Championship in Visakhapatnam, the national team won gold with Wang scoring on board one 4½/7 points (+3−1=3) with a 2534 performance.OlimpBase :: Men's Asian Team Chess Championship :: Wang Yue In February, he scored 7/10 (+4−0=6) at the Gibraltar Chess Festival Open finishing 20th with a 2653 performance. In March, Wang finished shared first at the Reykjavík Open, together with compatriot Wang Hao (who won on tiebreak) and Hannes Stefánsson.

In his super-tournament debut in April–May 2008 at the 1st FIDE Grand Prix in Baku, he came joint first place with Vugar Gashimov and Magnus Carlsen, scoring 8/13 (+3−0=10) with a performance rating of 2806. Wang called it a "nightmare start" when his planned flight departure from Beijing on the 18th was delayed because of bad weather and did not arrive in Azerbaijan until the early morning of the 21st, thereby missing the opening ceremony as well as having to face the top seed (Magnus Carlsen) with black later on the same day.

In July–August 2008, at the 2nd FIDE Grand Prix in Sochi, he came joint third with Gata Kamsky with 7½/13 (+2−0=11; elo performance 2765) behind winner Levon Aronian and second placed Teimour Radjabov. He was featured on the cover of New in Chess magazine's July 2008 issue., www.newinchess.com On August 20–30, 2008 in Amsterdam, Wang won the NH Chess Tournament—"Rising Stars" (Wang, Cheparinov, Caruana, L'Ami, Stellwagen) vs. "Experience" (Agdestein, Bareev, Ljubojević, Korchnoi, Jussupow)—with 8½/10 points (+7−0=3; rating performance 2892) remaining undefeated.NH Chess Tournament, www.nhchess.comRising Stars: Carlsen, Karjakin, ... who’s next? 17.08.2008, ChessBase As the Rising Star winner of the tournament he won an invitation to the March 2009 Amber Blindfold and Rapid Tournament in Nice, and immediately after having won all of his first six games, he was invited by Jeroen van den Berg to Group A of the January 2009 Corus Chess Tournament.Wang Yue hits them for six

In September 2008, he competed at the 5th Russia–China Match in Ningbo where he scored 3/5 (+1−0=4) with a performance rating of 2767 for the men's team (with Li Chao, Wang Hao, Ni Hua, Bu Xiangzhi). China won the match 26–24.5th Russia-China match: Ningpo 2008

In November 2008, he played on board one for the Chinese Open team at the 38th Chess Olympiad in Dresden, Germany (6½/10 (+3−0=7) and performance rating 2773). Other team members were Ni Hua, Bu Xiangzhi, Wang Hao and Li Chao. The team came 7th overall. On December 13–29, 2008, at the 3rd FIDE Grand Prix in Elista, Russia – moved from Dohar, Qatar – he came joint fifth-ninth with 6½/12 (+2−2=9).

From March to December 2008, Wang went 82 consecutive games without a loss, one of the longest streaks on record. His unbeaten run began in the second round of the Reykjavík Open and ended during round 1 of the third FIDE Grand Prix 2008–2010 tournament.Elista Grand Prix starts, with wins by Jakovenko and Gashimov, Chessbase, December 14, 2008 (See List of tournaments and List of world records in chess.)

2009