Bu Xiangzhi (; born December 10, 1985) is a Chinese chess player. In 1999, he became the 10th grandmaster from China at the age of 13 years, 10 months and 13 days, at the time the youngest in history. In April 2008, Bu and Ni Hua became the second and third Chinese players to pass the 2700 Elo rating line, after Wang Yue. Bu was Chinese champion in 2004. He was a member of the gold medal-winning Chinese team at the 2015 World Team Chess Championship and at the 2018 Chess Olympad. Career Early years Bu was born December 10, 1985 in Qingdao. At age six, Bu was first introduced to chess by an elder cousin (his grandfather was a strong xiangqi player), and his interest grew with his compatriot Xie Jun's women's world championship victory in 1991. He began taking chess seriously at the age of nine years and received early training from then on. During this time, the newspaper Qingdao Daily founded a local chess club which many children in the city went to, including the Qingdao Daily'''s chief editor's son. His first chess book was a translation of the famous My 60 Memorable Games by Bobby Fischer, a player Bu admires. By 1993, he had already won the Qingdao Junior Chess Championship. In 1997 this talent became the children's champion of the National S.T. Lee Cup. In 1998 at the age of 12, he captured the titles of national pupil champion and under-14 world champion. In 1999 he finished seventh in the prestigious Tan Chin Nam Grandmaster Invitational Tournament. Youngest grandmaster in history A sponsorship contract with a mineral water producer of his home city Qingdao enabled to him in 1999 with his coach Ji Yunqi to travel to Europe to take part there in several international chess tournaments. In autumn 1999 he achieved within two months the required three norms for the title of Grandmaster (GM), with tournament wins at Paks GM tournament (6/9 points) in 21–29 September, at Kluger Memorial - First Saturday tournament (8½/11 pts) in Budapest in 3–13 October, and coming joint first in the Qingdao Daily Cup (6/8 pts) in 18–23 October. He was 13 years, 10 months, and 13 days old when he scored the final norm, at the time the youngest person to achieve that title. He gave up the running status of the world's youngest grandmaster to Sergey Karjakin