2009
As of April 2009, he is still competing in the FIDE Grand Prix 2008–2009, which is part of the current World Chess Championship cycle. Wang qualified by being one of the four FIDE president nominees, along with Peter Svidler, Ivan Cheparinov, Étienne Bacrot.
On 16 January – 1 February, Wang in his debut at the event, became the second Chinese player to compete at the Group A Corus after Zhang Zhong in 2004, in Wijk aan Zee, Netherlands. He came joint 8th with 6.0/13 (+2 −3 =8) and a 2685 performance in the Category 19 (average 2716) event. All of his decisive games were with the white pieces; He lost to Ivanchuk, Adams and Radjabov, and had wins against Morozevich and Carlsen. In Round 2, he blundered early with 9.Na7?? in a what was to be a wild and scrappy game against Ivanchuk in an early deviation of the Queen's Gambit Declined:
Yue–Ivanchuk 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 d5 4. Bg5 dxc4 5. Qa4+ Nbd7 6. Nc3 a6 7. g3 b5 8. Nxb5 Rb8 9. Na7?? A unexpected blunder. 9... Rb4 White must have missed this move. 10. Bxf6 gxf6 11. Qa5 Bb7 The knight on a7 is now trapped. 12. Bh3 Qb8 13. Qh5 Ke7?! 13...Rb6 was much safer. 14. d5 Qxa7 14...Bxd5! 15.Qxd5! exd5 16.Nc6+ Kd6 17.Nxb8 Rxb8 leaves Black with a better ending. 15. dxe6 fxe6 16. Bxe6! The black king's cover is broken, and Wang has almost reached equality. 16... Kxe6 17. Qe8+ Be7 18. Qxh8 Nf8 19. Qg8+ Kd7 20. 0-0-0+? This allows the black king to find safety, whereas 20.Qg4+ offered good chances of a perpetual check or 20.Qf7! Qc5 21.Rd1+ Kc6 22.0-0! would have allowed play to go on. 20... Ke8 21. Qg4 Qc5 22. a3 Rxb2! There are no more attacks for White, and Black finishes with a mating net. 23. Kxb2 Qxa3+ 24. Kb1 Qb3+ 25. Ka1 c3 0–1 White resigned.
At the 26th Linares chess tournament (February 18 – March 8) Wang Yue made his debut at the eight-player event and became the first ever Chinese player to participate. Wang Yue finished with +1 −2 =11 in joint 5th to 7th place on 6½ points with Radjabov and Aronian, 5th on performance rating (2729), and sixth overall on tiebreak. He had his two losses to Grischuk and Anand, and a win over Carlsen.
In 2009, he also participated at the 18th Amber Blindfold & Rapid tournament in Nice (March 14–26) in his debut event and as a second Chinese player (after Xie Jun in 1996), 5th M-Tel Masters in Sofia (May 12–23) (Topalov, Carlsen, Ivanchuk, Wang, Dominguez and Shirov) debut event and second Chinese player after Bu Xiangzhi in 2008, 22nd León Rapid León June 4–7, 4 player rapid with Ivanchuk, Morozevich, Carlsen; 20m+10s, the Russia v China match and the Maotai Prince Cup China National Chess King & Queen Championships.
In September he won the Chinese Chess King tournament with 5.0/7 points and a 2797 performance.
He made his debut at the 2nd Pearl Spring chess tournament (category 21) in Nanjing. He came third out of six players with 4.5/10 (Elo perf=2735); the tournament was won by Magnus Carlsen.
At the FIDE World Cup in Khanty-Mansiysk, in November, Wang was the tenth seed, and defeated Nikolai Kabanov (2–0) and Boris Savchenko (2.5–1.5) before falling to Étienne Bacrot (1.5–3.5) in the third round playoff. His loss was notable in that both he and countryman Li Chao were forfeited from their respective playoff games for tardiness, as they were smoking outside the tournament hall and consequently arrived two minutes late for each player's second playoff game, warranting an automatic forfeiture by the FIDE regulations.
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