- What is it about chess and sex toys?
It was supposed to be a great day for Yan Chenglong. He had just won the Chinese national championship contest in xiangqi, a strategy game in the same vein as chess.
Naturally, the freshly crowned Xiangqi King also received a nice little cash prize. Sadly for him, he didn’t get to enjoy the glory or the money for very long.
Yan ended up celebrating his victory a bit too hard. Over the course of the following night, he drunkenly desecrated his hotel room’s bathtub by taking a massive poop in it.
Due to the resulting scandal and damages, the Chinese Xiangqi Association (CXA) felt that Yan had soiled the game’s good name, in addition to the bathtub. Following the incident, Yan was stripped of his championship title and prize money.
Yet, there’s a slight silver lining to Yan’s poop incident. You see, he was accused of cheating in his games — by wearing a string of anal beads up his backside.
CXA concluded its statement regarding Yan by saying the organization had no reason to believe he had cheated. Yan’s drunken poop certainly supports that view.
After all, no one has come forth declaring they recovered any kind of butt toys from the bathtub.
‘Extremely Bad Character’
Xiangqi is an ancient Chinese game where two players try to outmaneuver their opponent’s various pieces. It is also called elephant chess or Chinese chess, and it belongs to the same family of similar strategy games found around the world.
The game is very popular in China. Just like with chess in the Western world, there are also various official tournaments where top Xiangqi players compete to see who’s the most cunning strategist of them all.
Yan Chenglong is undoubtedly one of the best Xiangqi players in the world. He proved his mettle at the national CXA tournament on December 17, where he bested dozens of other contenders to win the title of Xiangqi King.
You can hardly blame anyone for celebrating such a great achievement. However, Yan seems to have let moderation fly out the window during his post-tournament party.
After consuming what we can only assume to be an excessive amount of alcohol, Yan felt the need to answer nature’s call. Unfortunately, he didn’t use the appropriate receptacle for his waste.
“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,” the CXA said in a statement.
We don’t know (and don’t want to know) what exactly happened in that bathtub, but it was enough to cause physical damage to hotel property. The CXA declared Yan had violated public morals, smeared Xiangqi’s reputation, and displayed “extremely bad character” in general.
As a consequence, the CXA stripped Yan of his championship title on December 25. He also has to pay back his cash winnings.
Baseless Rumors
The CXA clearly wasn’t impressed with Yan’s drunken antics. However, they did have to say something in his defense — they didn’t believe he had cheated to win the tournament.
You see, rumors had started circulating on Chinese social media sites claiming Yan had used a… Rather bizarre cheating method.
According to the rumors, Yan had inserted a string of Wi-Fi capable anal beads up his butt. The sex toy was supposedly connected to a remote computer.
Yan has claimed to have reported his game’s current state to the computer by, uh, clenching in a specific sequence. The computer then delivered the best possible moves to him by activating the anal toy’s vibration feature.
The whole thing sounds outlandish. Indeed, the CXA said there was no proof that Yan had turned his rectum into a means to cheat in strategy games.
“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.
Identical Accusations
Bizarrely, this isn’t the first time a chess player has been accused of cheating with anal beads. The accusations laid at Yan mirror those Hans Niemann faced last year.
In the 2022 Sinquefield Cup chess tournament, Niemann beat chess superstar Magnus Carlsen in a game. Niemann’s victory was a shocker, as no one believed the relative newcomer had any chance against Carlsen.
The unlikely nature of his victory got people wondering if Niemann somehow cheated. One of the theories circulated online posited that Niemann wore a computer-connected set of anal beads to receive instructions.
No one has ever shown any actual evidence that Niemann cheated (whether with an anal sex toy or otherwise). Additionally, an official inquiry has declared Niemann won his game fair and square.
We can’t help but wonder if the rumors about Niemann had an effect on the accusations directed at Yan. Or maybe there’s something about chess-type games and anal vibrators that we don’t really want to learn more about.