Chinese Chess Champion Stripped Of Title, Granted New One: Worst Hotel Guest Ever

The man crowned national champion of Chinese chess had his title stripped after being granted another honorific: world’s worst hotel guest, including “defecating in a hotel bathtub.”

Yan Chenglong “overdid celebrations” after his victory, and is now also under investigation for cheating… with anal beads?

Xiangqi, or Chinese chess, has been hugely popular for hundreds of years across Asia – and 48-year-old Yan Chenglong beat dozens of contenders last week to win the title of “Xiangqi King” at a national tournament hosted by the Chinese Xiangqi Association.

But his joy was short-lived, with the CXA on Monday announcing that Yan would have his title revoked and prize money confiscated after had been caught “disrupting public order” and displaying “extremely bad character”

The association was also forced to address rumours circulating online that Yan had cheated during the competition by using anal beads equipped with wireless transmitters to send and receive signals.

I desperately had to know how exactly the cheating supposedly worked. The claim is that Yan “clenched and unclenched 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.”

I cannot even. I have literally lost my ability to even. But the cheating and hotel behavior are two entirely different issues. Whether winning fair and square or with some kind of Christopher Walken-style assistance from a gold watch, his behavior after securing the title reflecting badly enough on the activity for the tournament to distance itself from him.

“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 association said.

Chinese chess is distinct from ‘chess’ as most of us know it.

Yan has been banned from competing for one year and had his prize money taken back. No word on whether he received points and elite night credit for the hotel stay.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. Although defecating in the bathtub is very bad behavior, I doubt it would damage the bathtub any more than a person that didn’t clean their butt properly before taking a bath would. Are hotel room floors damaged when someone pukes on them or a baby’s poop gets on them but they are properly cleaned? The cheating with a hidden communication device is a much more serious situation. I wonder if the pooping was to recover the beads and dispose of them so they couldn’t be found. Or was that the way they were found?

  2. “No word on whether he received points and elite night credit for the hotel stay.“

    Lol best closing ever

  3. Delta is a for profit company that is unmatched in everything it does. It is the most inovative and best airline in the world. If one of its non union employees had moved their bowels in a hotel bathtub, it would be a gold bar.

  4. I will second the notion that the pooping was to recover the device. I doubt he was really communicating the whole situation, though–simply transmit the opponent’s move and then receive back the move he was to make. It’s played on a 9×10 board, no unit promotion. Thus 16 bits (use a short or a long) communicates any possible move. With enough practice you could do it with 13 but that would require encoding/decoding. There might be more efficient systems but I doubt it.

  5. @Loren, 12 bits is child’s play. The board is 64 squares or 2^6 squares. The first 6 bits is location of piece to move. The second six bits is location to move to. Standard chess play could probably reduce the second six bits but maybe having a consistent code for both would be better. Octal coding would work great. 3 bits wide then three bits forward.

  6. @jns:
    Look more carefully. I agree standard chess can be encoded in 12 bits. I think you could play games with encoding the move to get 11 but I don’t think you can go below that given what the queen can do.

    However, this is **Chinese** chess. It’s got similarities but it’s a very different game, the board is **not** 8 x 8.

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