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Tag: Cheating in chess

  • Chinese Chess Champ Stripped Of Title After Taking A Dump In A Bathtub

    Chinese Chess Champ Stripped Of Title After Taking A Dump In A Bathtub

    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.

    Read More: YouTubers Put Anal Bead Chess Conspiracy To The Test

    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.

    Levi Winslow

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  • Chess World’s ‘Anal Bead’ Cheating Saga Quietly Comes To An End

    Chess World’s ‘Anal Bead’ Cheating Saga Quietly Comes To An End

    It felt like this day might never come, but former world champion Magnus Carlsen and grandmaster Hans Niemann have finally put the cheating scandal that rocked the chess world last year, including meme-filled speculation about anal beads, to bed.

    Chess.com and Carlsen reached a settlement with Niemann, who had sued them and Twitch streamer Hikaru Nakamura for $100 million over what he alleged was a “civil conspiracy” to defame him. “We are pleased to report that we have reached an agreement with Hans Niemann to put our differences behind us and move forward together without further litigation,” Chess.com wrote in an update on August 28. As a result, Niemann will once again be allowed to compete on the online chess platform, and Carlsen has agreed to play him in the future should they meet in a tournament.

    “I acknowledge and understand Chess.com’s report, including its statement that there is no determinative evidence that Niemann cheated in his game against me at the Sinquefield Cup,” Carlsen said in a statement. “I am willing to play Niemann in future events, should we be paired together.”

    It was the former world champion’s remarks that initially set the largest cheating scandal in the modern era of the game in motion. After losing to Niemann in a shocking upset during the early stages of the August 2022 Sinquefield Cup, Carlsen resigned from the tournament completely, and tweeted out a Jose Mourinho meme implying Niemann had cheated.

    The accusations took chess message boards and Twitch communities by storm, with viewers in the Chessbrah Twitch chat joking that maybe Niemann had used anal beads to communicate with someone sending him the best moves from the outside using an AI chess engine. Anal beads became a running joke, not because there was any evidence they were ever used, but precisely because there was never any evidence that Niemann ever actually cheated, let alone how he would have managed to, given the Sinquefield Cup’s strict security. It even became the basis for an entire episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

    It was all fun and games until Carlsen doubled-down on his allegations in September and Chess.com released a 72-page report in October accusing Niemann of cheating in several matches played on the website. Niemann fired back with a $100 million lawsuit accusing Carlsen of leveraging his “media empire” and partnerships with Chess.com to try and get Niemann blacklisted from tournaments and shunned from the professional chess world.

    A federal judge tossed out Niemann’s lawsuit in June, but he tried to appeal the decision and now the two sides have settled. While Chess.com said it stands by its previous report, it also admits that there is no “determinative evidence” that Niemann ever cheated in any in-person games.

    “I am pleased that my lawsuit against Magnus Carlsen and Chess.com has been resolved in a mutually acceptable manner, and that I am returning to Chess.com,” Niemann said in a statement. “I look forward to competing against Magnus in chess rather than in court.”

             

    Ethan Gach

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