When you accomplish something big, like winning a major tournament, how do you celebrate? Maybe you jump around in excitement, salty rivulets streaming down your face in a rush of emotions. Maybe you pop a bottle of champagne and spray it around like an NFL player after the Super Bowl. Or, if you’re a 48-year-old Xiangqi (Chinese chess) player who just won a major tourney, you could completely shun tradition and take a shit in a hotel bathroom, for celebration’s sake.
According to reports from Business Insider and Global Times, Yan Chenglong beat an assortment of amateur Xiangqi players on December 17 in the Hainan Province. Stomping his competitors one by one, Chenglong was eventually crowned the “Xiangqi King” (Chinese chess champion) and awarded 100,000 yuan (approximately $14,150 USD) for his triumph. But the next morning, reportedly after a night of partying, staff at the hotel where players were staying said Chenglong defecated in the bathtub. It’s strange and gross, yes, but that’s not where the story ends. Far from it, actually.
Of course, anal beads might’ve been involved
After the incident, Chenglong’s victory was also called into question, particularly because of his behavior throughout the competition. As The Independent reports, Chinese social media posts accused him of “clenching and unclenching rhythmically” to share data about the chess board to a faraway computer via anal massaging device, which would then tell him which moves to make on the board. According to Business Insider, the device was allegedly found in the bathtub excrement by a hotel employee.
Chenglong denied the accusations, though, saying he’d been playing high-level chess for over 40 years and that, on the morning of December 18, he suffered from diarrhea after drinking alcohol. According to Chenglong, he couldn’t make it to the toilet in time and simply opted for the bathtub because…I guess it was right there?
The Chinese Xiangqi Association, the country’s chess overlords, responded on December 25 to the allegations against Chenglong, explaining that any investigation into his actions yielded little to no provable results.
“Based on our understanding of the situation, it is currently impossible to prove that Yan engaged in cheating via ‘anal beads’ as speculated on social media,” the CXA said in a statement, according to The Guardian. “Yan consumed alcohol with others in his room on the night of the 17th, and then he defecated in the bathtub of the room he was staying in on the 18th, in an act that damaged hotel property, violated public order and good morals, had a negative impact on the competition and the event of Xiangqi, and was of extremely bad character.”
The governing body stripped Chenglong of his championship belt, forced him to forfeit an undisclosed amount of his earnings, and disqualified him from participating in any Chinese chess competitions for one full year. Oof, now that’s a shitty punishment.
This isn’t the first time anal beads have popped up in a chess cheating scandal. Over here in the States, Grandmaster Hans Niemann was accused of using a rectal insertable to beat World Champion Magnus Carlsen in a shocking upset in September 2022. Niemann has denied the cheating allegations profusely, resulting in a lawsuit between to the two players that was ultimately settled in August 2023. It’s ridiculous, but apparently, people will do anything and everything to get the W.
