Gu Zihao (; born 13 March 1998) is a Chinese professional go player. Gu Zihao was born in

Xiantao Xiantao () is a sub-prefecture-level city in the east of Hubei province, China. Located at the Jianghan Plain in the middle of Hubei province and spanning 112°55' – 113°49' east longitude and 30°04' – 30°32' north latitude, Xiantao City c ...

Hubei Hubei (; ; alternately Hupeh) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China, and is part of the Central China region. The name of the province means "north of the lake", referring to its position north of Dongting Lake. The pr ...

in 1998. He began to play go when he was 6 years old. To further study go, he moved to

Wuhan Wuhan (, ; ; ) is the capital of Hubei Province in the People's Republic of China. It is the largest city in Hubei and the most populous city in Central China, with a population of over eleven million, the ninth-most populous Chinese city a ...

at age 9, and then to

Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...

at age 11. He earned professional 1 dan rank in 2010, when he was 12. He began participating in the Chinese A League in 2012. In 2015, he won China's

National Go Individual The Chinese Go Championship is a Go competition This is a list of professional Go tournaments, for competitors in the board game of ''Go''. The tradition, initiated by the Honinbo Tournament in Japan, is for an event to be run annually, leadi ...

tournament, and the Limin Cup, an under-20 international tournament. He won an international title at the Samsung Cup in 2017, defeating

Tang Weixing Tang Weixing (; born 15 January 1993) is a Chinese professional go player. He has won three international titles, with two championships in the Samsung Cup (2013, 2019) and one in the Ing Cup (2016). Early life Tang Weixing was born in Guiyan ...

in the finals. Gu, who was 5 dan at the time, was promoted to 9 dan for the victory. He won two domestic competitions in 2018, the

Weifu Fangkai Cup The Weifu Fangkai Cup (), also sometimes known as the Qiwang (not to be confused with the defunct Qiwang), is a Go competition This is a list of professional Go tournaments, for competitors in the board game of ''Go''. The tradition, initiated ...

and the

Ahan Tongshan Cup The Ahan Tongshan Cup () is a Chinese Go competition. Outline The Ahan Tongshan Cup is a Go tournament played with fast time controls: Each player has 30 seconds per move, along with 10 one-minute periods of extra thinking time. The format is sin ...

, as well as the China-Japan Agon Cup playoff. In January 2020, while visiting family in his hometown Xiantao, he fell under the

COVID-19 lockdown in Hubei On 23 January 2020, the central government of China imposed a lockdown in Wuhan and other cities in Hubei in an effort to quarantine the center of an outbreak of COVID-19; this action was commonly referred to as the Wuhan lockdown (). The Worl ...

; he continued to compete remotely while staying there until April. He won the

CCTV Cup The CCTV Cup is a Chinese Go competition. Outline The CCTV Cup is the longest running fast game tournament in China and the sponsor is the Chinese CCTV station. The winner and the runner-up qualify for the Asian TV Cup, where they compete agains ...

later that year, followed by several championships in 2021: the Tianyuan, the Ahan Tongshan Cup and China–Japan playoff, and the Longxing. Gu is sometimes nicknamed ''èbà'' 'evil tyrant' (), derived from a username which he used for playing go online, ''Yìnchéng zhī bà'' ' Indianapolis tyrant' (). He originally chose the username because he was a fan of the

Indiana Pacers The Indiana Pacers are an American professional basketball team based in Indianapolis. The Pacers compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Eastern Conference Central Division. The Pacers were first est ...

in the

NBA The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United ...

Titles

International: * Limin Cup 2015 (under-20 tournament) * Samsung Cup 2017 * China-Japan Agon Cup 2018 and 2021 Chinese: *

2015 *

2018 *

2018 and 2021 *

2020 * Tianyuan 2021 * Longxing 2021

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gu, Zihao 1998 births Living people Chinese Go players Sportspeople from Hubei