The first IMSA World Masters Championship was held in Hengshui, China from 13th to 18th May 2019. Hosted by the International Mind Sports Association and organized by Hebei Provincial Sports Bureau and Hengshui Municipal People’s Government, the event included five sports: Bridge, Chess, Draughts, Go, and Xiangqi, organised into 17 categories.
In the Xiangqi Men’s Individual category, the final took place between GM Cao Yanlei (Macao) and GM Wang Tianyi (Beijing). They drew the normal first game. In the play-off fast game, Cao played Red and chose and rather steady variation of Central Cannon attack. On the 10^th move, Wang chose an aggressive variation R8+3, Cao must have done his homework for this detour from the book and won the game brilliantly under 23 moves, as you shall see in the video.