Lai Ly Huynh (Lại Lý Huynh) became the first non-Chinese men's xiangqi world champion in 2025. His background, his titles and the road to Shanghai.
Lai Ly Huynh (Lại Lý Huynh) is a Vietnamese xiangqi grandmaster, born on 16 May 1990, who won the men's title at the 2025 World Xiangqi Championship in Shanghai. He was the first player from outside China to do so in the event's 35-year history, and he has won Vietnam's national championship six times.
In Vietnam, where the game is called cờ tướng, he had been the country's top player for years before that win. Fans know him by the nickname Nam Phương công tử, roughly the young gentleman from the South. His career, as reported by Vietnamese and Chinese media, runs from provincial age-group events in the Mekong Delta to a final played beside the Huangpu River.
From Cà Mau to the national team
He was born in Vĩnh Long province and moved as a child with his family to the U Minh area of Cà Mau, in Vietnam's far south. According to VnExpress, he learned cờ tướng at nine with his father as his first teacher, and family hardship meant he left school early.
In 2002 his father took him to Nguyễn Thanh Khiết, a coach with the Cà Mau provincial sports department, and he was accepted into the province's team. He went on to win national age-group titles from under-13 to under-18, a silver medal at the Asian youth championships in 2008, and a team silver at the 2009 World Championship alongside Nguyễn Thành Bảo. At that 2009 championship, aged 19, he also finished seventh in the men's individual standings.
He was an early adopter of computer training. VnExpress reports that he began using xiangqi software in 2005 and at times spent up to ten hours a day studying games and practising against programs, at a time when not every top player liked practising against a computer, which many found boring. After each game, the same report says, he would check his play with software and study his opponents' ratings, form and style.
Six national titles
His first national championship came in 2013, and he won again in 2014, 2016, 2018, 2021 and 2025. Six titles puts him second in Vietnamese history, behind the seven won by Trềnh A Sáng. For much of his career he represented Bình Dương, and he has also collected many national rapid and blitz titles.
His record at home is not spotless. At the 2026 national championship in Yên Bái he topped the qualifying Swiss rounds of the standard event, then lost his quarter-final to Phí Mạnh Cường after a drawn standard game, a drawn rapid game and a lost blitz decider. He still won the rapid event at the same championship.
Testing himself in China
Lai has spent much of his career looking for stronger opposition across the border. In 2016 he became the first foreign player invited to compete in China's national team league, known in Vietnam as Giáp Cấp Liên Tái, and he has been invited back regularly since. In 2023 he was part of the Hangzhou team that won the league, playing alongside Wang Tianyi, then China's top-ranked player.
In March 2026, as reigning world champion, he reached the final of the 32nd Wuyang Cup in Guangzhou, a prestigious Chinese event. He drew the first game of the final against Cheng Yudong and lost the second, finishing as runner-up.
Close calls at the World Championship
After 2009 his world championship results climbed steadily: fifth in Munich in 2015, fourth in Vancouver in 2019 and fourth again in Kuching in 2022. Kuching brought his first world gold medals. He and Nguyễn Thành Bảo won the men's team title, which is decided by the combined placings of each country's two best men, and Lai won the new rapid event.
Houston in 2023 was the near miss. Lai and China's Meng Chen tied for first after eight rounds on 13 points and met in a final. Their standard game was drawn after almost four hours, and Meng won the rapid tiebreak, leaving Lai with silver. He did defend his rapid title at the same championship, with six wins and three draws.
There were other medals in this period: individual bronze and mixed-team silver at the Asian Games in Hangzhou in 2023, and gold in the men's individual standard event at the 2023 SEA Games in Cambodia.
Vietnam's long wait
Vietnamese players had been knocking on the door for a long time. In the early championships the World Xiangqi Federation ran a separate division for players from outside China, and Vietnamese players won it three times running: Mai Thanh Minh in 1993, Võ Văn Hoàng Tùng in 1995 and Mai Thanh Minh again in 1997. From 1999 that division was restricted to players from outside both China and Vietnam.
In the main men's event, the best Vietnamese result before 2023 was Nguyễn Thành Bảo's second place behind Zhao Xinxin in 2009. Bảo also took the individual bronze in Kuching in 2022, the year he and Lai won team gold together. So when Lai reached his second world final in a row, he was carrying more than his own ambitions into it.
Shanghai, September 2025
The 2025 championship was played in Shanghai from 22 to 27 September. China's team was unusually young. With many of the country's leading grandmasters banned after the match-fixing scandal, China sent Yin Sheng, aged 20, and Meng Fanrui, aged 17.
Fifty-one players entered the men's standard event. Lai went through the eight Swiss rounds unbeaten, with five wins and three draws, including draws with both Chinese players, and finished on 13 points level with Yin Sheng and Meng Fanrui. Yin had the best tiebreak score, and Lai edged Meng by a single tiebreak point to take the second place in the final.
The final was played on 27 September near the Bund. Lai had the black pieces. Yin opened with an aggressive central cannon attack and even gave up a cannon for both of Lai's elephants, but he later miscalculated and lost a horse. Lai then pushed soldiers across the river to support his chariot and cannon, and Yin eventually resigned.
It was the first time a player from outside China had won the men's title. Nguyễn Hữu Luận, who led the Vietnam Chess Federation from 2011 to 2015 and watched the final in person, awarded him a bonus of one billion đồng on the spot. Vietnam also took the men's team silver, with Nguyễn Thành Bảo finishing fifth.
How he plays
Vietnamese coverage describes Lai as an all-round player rather than a specialist. VnExpress compares the attacking style of Nguyễn Thành Bảo with the patient, endgame-minded approach of Nguyễn Vũ Quân and says Lai blends the two, strong in the opening, middlegame and endgame alike. His systematic preparation with software, which started when he was a teenager, is a large part of that reputation.
Why it matters
For cờ tướng in Vietnam, his title is probably the biggest international moment the game has had, and it came from a player who learned at his father's board in the far south. If his story makes you want to play, XiangqiPlay has 5,000 engine-proven mate puzzles to practise with, and a free account lets you take on the computer at eight levels, from Easy to God.
XiangqiPlay Team
XiangqiPlay newsroom
