There's playing dirty, and then there's celebrating dirty, and allegations of both have gotten the newly crowned king of Chinese chess unceremoniously dethroned. As AFP reports, Yan Chenglong on Dec. 17 won the national title of "Xiangqi King," or king of Chinese chess, a hugely popular game in Asia dating back centuries. Things get a bit scatological from there, else the West would perhaps have paid the victory no mind: On Monday, the 48-year-old was relieved of his crown and his prize money, which the Telegraph reports was about $14,000, after what the Chinese Xiangqi Association called Yan's "disrupting [of] public order" and "extremely bad character," per AFP.
What isn't confirmed: allegations that Yan used anal beads to cheat in the competition, "allegedly [clenching and unclenching] rhythmically to communicate information about the chess board via code to a computer, which then sent back instructions on what moves to make in the form of vibrations," per AFP. What is confirmed: that Yan got the party started in his hotel room the night of being crowned No. 1 and took a No. 2 in his hotel tub.
Per the CXA: "It is currently impossible to prove that Yan engaged in cheating via 'anal beads' as speculated on social media," but "Yan consumed alcohol with others in his [hotel] 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 acts that "damaged hotel property" and "violated public order and good morals." Yan calls the cheating claim "nonsense," per the Telegraph, but says "it was very wrong for me to have diarrhea in the bathtub." He's banned from play for a year. (More chess stories.)
,
uBlock 
,
and
Ghostery 
)
