Dao Thien Hai – a Vietnamese chess record holder

Dao Thien Hai – a Vietnamese chess record holder
Quoted from Chess by NhanDan Online.

Dao Thien Hai is the top Vietnamese chess player, who
became the first Vietnamese international grandmaster
and the first Vietnamese world champion. On the
occasion of the New Year of the Pig, Tu Tran from
Sports profiles him.

Dao Thien Hai won the first ever Asian silver medal at
the Asian Games.

In the cold weather of March in Hanoi, a man and a
little boy, aged around five, quietly walked down a
small street to the Hoan Kiem Lake. After walking for
a while, the child started to cry. Failing to sooth
him, the man carried the child on his back, walking to
a bus station.

It was a story of 23 years ago, when Vietnamese
international grandmaster Dao Thien Hai and his coach
Bui Van Binh arrived in Hanoi to attend the 1984
national contest for children in Nhon. The trip to
Hanoi marked the beginning of Thien Hai’s career as
the most successful chess player, to date, in Vietnam.
He is a real record holder of Vietnamese chess.

Born into a family with eight sons and daughters,
whose father soon died leaving their mother with a
burden of supporting the children, Thien Hai, the
youngest, knew about a hard life, so he did not ask
any special care and attention from his mother and
siblings.

Thien Hai started to play chess with his elder brother
Dao Thien Lan for one year before he joined the 1984
national contest for children. Seeing Thien Hai’s
potential, coach Bui Van Binh, who was coach of the
Dong Thap team, penciled Thien Hai’s name into his
team for the contest.

On his debut, Thien Hai finished 14th out of 38
contestants at the age of six. After his great
achievement, Thien Hai, sponsored by the Dong Thap
Department of Physical Education and Sports, had one
month’s training in the National Sports Training
Centre in Hanoi under the instruction of Russian
expert Chechman. Thien Hai worked very hard and it
paid him off. Two years later, at the age of eight, he
finished third in a national contest for top ten
players in Vietnam. Seeing good potential in Thien
Hai, chess expert from the Vietnam General Department
of Physical Education and Sports Hoang My Sinh
introduced Thien Hai with Ho Truc, deputy minister of
education and training and president of the Vietnam
Chess Association. Mr Truc then proposed the General
Department of Physical Education and Sports to have a
long-term plan to foster Thien Hai’s talent.

In 1988, during his training in former Soviet Union,
Thien Hai, at the age of ten, surprised the chess
circle as he beat six international grandmasters. In
January 1990, Thien Hai finished top the age group of
12 in Opklodi. In early 1991, Thien Hai finished
runner-up at the Petrosian team contest in the Soviet
Union. In the same year, Thien Hai gained another
surprise victory at the world contest for pioneers in
Warsaw, Poland, when he finished fifth out of 243
players from 51 countries. He was named a prodigy by
the president of the World Chess Federation. A coach
of the Ireland team said that the 12-year-old player
would become famous if he received good training.

Thien Hai's next target is to be in the world top 100
players.

The Dong Thap Department of Physical Education and
Sports continued to send Thien Hai to Hungary where he
trained for five years from 1992 to 1997 and the young
player proved his great ability. In 1993, Thien Hai
became the first Vietnamese player to have won the
world championship with a gold medal at the under-16
contest. He won the first norm for an international
grandmaster title became an international master and
ranked 102nd in the world. At the 1994 World Chess
Olympiad in Moscow, Russia, Thien Hai beat three
international grandmasters, one of whom was a top
favourite to win the world contest. In 1996, he won
three norms to become an international grandmaster at
the age of 18. Such an honourable title was presented
to the first Vietnamese player as a forecast of expert
Chechman when he visited Dong Thap in 1989 that Thien
Hai may become an international grandmaster when he
was 20 years old become true.

In December 2006, Thien Hai became the first
Vietnamese chess player to win a medal at the Asian
Games. With six wins, two draws and one defeat, Thien
Hai won a silver medal in men’s rapid chess event. A
defeat to Bu Xiangzhi from China in game seven cost
him the gold medal. If he had drawn the game, he would
have won a gold medal.

Expert Anatoly remarked: “Among Vietnamese players,
Thien Hai is top class.” Thien Hai received praises
from his colleagues as international grandmaster
Nguyen Thi Thanh Anh said: “Thien Hai deserves to be a
leader in Vietnamese chess.”

Thien Hai is now 283rd in the world, so his future
plan is to join the top 100 players in the world.

Tu Tran
Sports

Thien Hai’s achievements in 2006

- April 2006: silver medal at the national
contest;

- May 2006: gold medal at the national rapid
chess contest;

- August 2006: gold medal at the Dato Arthur
Tan/Malaysia Open contest;

- September 2006: gold medals in individual
and men’s team event of the National Sports Games;

- December 2006: silver medal at the Asian
Games in Doha, Qatar; and

- 2006 Vietnamese outstanding athlete.