Chengdu - The City of Mind Sports

Chengdu is a famous city with long history and splendid culture. It is also well-known for its great number of mind sports fans, various mind sports games, booming publishing industries of mind sports, excellent mind sports players and first-class mind sports playing skill in China.

The Chengdu government also pays high attention to the development of mind sports. In the 1980s, the unprecedented prosperous situation arose in the field of mind sports in Chengdu, so it is called the city of mind sports by many sports fans and medias. In 2014, the sports bureau of Chengdu released The Recovery Plan of the City of mind sports (2014-2018).This city will usher in another prosperous period. 

In 2014, three teams in Chengdu from three mind sports-Weiqi,Xiangqi and chess historically took part in China’s League Series A at the same time. Among those teams, Xiangqi team of Chengdu won the runner-up in the league, which became a milestone for the development of Chengdu. What is worth noticing was that Zheng Weitong, defeating many opponents, won his individual national champion which had the highest gold content in his career. He also became the first grandmaster in the western China. In terms of organization, Chengdu hold about a hundred of international and national tournaments, including many influential, large scale and top-level tournaments such as 2014 International Star Mixed Pair Chess Tournament, Go Match between Gu Li and Li Shishi, the Match of Go King in the southwest of China. What’s more, Chengdu also founded its own amateur chess league in 2012, which greatly promoted the development and popularity of mind sports.   

In Chengdu, Chess is also experiencing a new change. More and more promising young chess players are growing up, such as Li Di, the world youth Champion. Now Chengdu has founded fairly sound team composition and training system. In 2014,Board and Cards Administrative Center of General Administration of Sport of China granted the title of “National Board and Cards Culture Education Base” to Chengdu Chess Academy which was jointly founded by Chengdu Chess Institute and Chengdu Vocational and Technical College. It is the first board and cards culture education base in our country and also the first sports education base settled in university.

According to the Recovery Plan of the City of Chess(2014-2018), Chengdu will take five years to build itself as the first-class high ground for mind sports competition, the well-known center for mind sports activities and the leading mind sports culture education base in our country. By 2018, the basic goal of Chengdu is to ensure its three teams from Xiangqi, Go, and Chess to get a firm foothold in the national chess league Series A. Above this, Chengdu will try its best to get its Xiangqi team listed on the top three of our country and Weiqi, top six and get Bridge be qualified in League Series A. It also tries to keep Draughts team the top three in our country, and maintains Renju on the leading level in our country. Finally Chengdu will strive to become the city of mind sports whose overall score of mind sports competition become the No.1 in the mid-west of China and the first-class city in the whole country.

Additional information about the city (link)