The xiangqi match fixing scandal: how a 2023 recording led to lifetime bans for Wang Tianyi and Wang Yuefei, prison sentences and 49 disciplined players.
The xiangqi match fixing scandal is the largest integrity case Chinese chess has seen. After a recording leaked in 2023, the Chinese Xiangqi Association banned world champion Wang Tianyi and his teammate Wang Yuefei for life in September 2024. More players were punished in 2025 and 2026, and a Hangzhou court convicted six grandmasters.
This account is drawn from reports by Caixin, VnExpress and Chess.com, and from Wikipedia. Where the reports give different figures, both are shown, and every number is attributed to the outlet that published it.
The recording that started it
According to Chess.com, the affair became public through about twelve minutes of leaked audio that fans called "Recording Gate". In the clips, Wang Yuefei and another player, Hao Jichao, discussed arranging results. VnExpress dates the leak to April 2023, and Chess.com reports that it set off a wider investigation by the association and by the police.
VnExpress reported that Wang Tianyi and Wang Yuefei had been in custody since August 2024, after police investigated the two for manipulating domestic competitions.
September 2024: two lifetime bans
In September 2024 the Chinese Xiangqi Association (CXA) announced that Wang Tianyi and Wang Yuefei had manipulated the results of games over a long period, either paying opponents to lose or taking money to lose themselves. Both were banned for life from every event organised or authorised by the CXA and its affiliates, and both lost their grandmaster titles.
The names explain the shock. Wang Tianyi, born in Beijing in 1989, had won the national championship four times and the World Xiangqi Championship three times, in 2013, 2017 and 2022. Wikipedia records that he held the number one ranking from 2014 to 2024, and that in May 2023 he became the first xiangqi player to pass a rating of 2800. Wang Yuefei, his teammate at the Hangzhou club, had been national runner-up in 2010.
Early reports put the money involved at around US$113,000, the figure given by VnExpress and Wikipedia. Chess.com put the bribes Wang Tianyi accepted at 800,000 yuan, about US$110,000. VnExpress placed the bans within a wider anti-corruption drive in Chinese sport, noting that the Chinese Football Association had announced its own bans for match-fixing, bribery and gambling earlier that month.
January 2025: the circle widens
The case did not end with two players. Chess.com reported in January 2025 that China's General Administration of Sport had announced penalties for 41 players after further findings of match-fixing and bribery, some dating back to 2012. Grandmasters Zhao Xinxin, Wang Yang and Zheng Weitong were among them, banned for life and stripped of their titles.
A disciplinary official quoted by Chess.com said these practices had distorted results, the sharing of prize money and player promotions for more than a decade. That is the part that reaches beyond the people involved: a bought result can also shift rankings and prize money for players who had no part in the deal.
The criminal trial
The case also went to court, in Hangzhou's Shangcheng District. VnExpress reported in May 2025, after a closed-door trial on 9 May, that Wang Tianyi had been found guilty of paying a total of 942,000 yuan, about US$130,700, to opponents to lose 22 games, and of accepting 116,000 yuan to throw two. He was convicted of offering and accepting bribes involving non-state employees and, after first denying the charges, pleaded guilty. His sentence was two years and nine months in prison, plus a fine.
The same report gave the other sentences. Wang Yuefei, who VnExpress said was the go-between in 19 of the 22 bought games, received one year and a fine. Zhao Xinxin received the heaviest term, four years and nine months. Xu Chao, national champion in 2017, and Xie Jing, champion in 2013, each received two years and six months with fines. Hong Zhi, a former national champion whom VnExpress describes as a whistleblower in the case, did not accept the charges, and his lawyers disputed their legal basis. VnExpress added that the court had not issued a public statement.
Caixin reported on 25 September 2025 that the Shangcheng District Court had delivered its verdict on 24 September, convicting six grandmasters of crimes related to "buying and selling games". Five pleaded guilty and accepted their sentences. Hong Zhi contested the charges and was sentenced to two years and seven months in prison, according to his defence lawyer. Caixin described the case as the legal culmination of a corruption probe that had implicated every national men's champion of the previous decade.
What the reports leave open
Some details remain unclear in English-language reporting. VnExpress reported the sentences in May 2025, after the closed-door trial, while Caixin dates the court's verdict to 24 September 2025; neither report explains the gap. The money is described in different ways, too: about US$113,000 in the 2024 reports, 800,000 yuan in Chess.com's account, and in the trial reporting, 942,000 yuan paid out and 116,000 yuan received by Wang Tianyi alone. These are best read as different measures from different stages of the case rather than a single agreed total.
April 2026: a third round of bans
On 13 April 2026, VnExpress reported, the association announced another round of penalties. Jiang Chuan, a former national number one, was banned for five years, and Hong Zhi, Xie Jing and Xu Chao received lifetime bans. By VnExpress's count, 49 players were disciplined between September 2024 and April 2026, with penalties ranging from reprimands to lifetime bans, on top of the prison terms.
The same report describes the motives as money and status. A player's ranking, it notes, is tied to prize money, advertising and livestreaming income, and it says some players paid opponents to lose to protect their rankings while others took money to lose.
Why it matters for the game
Xiangqi rests on a simple promise: the result on the board is the result. A rating, a title or a championship is only a summary of games, and if some of those games were sold, the summary is wrong for everyone, including players who never took part. Young players measured themselves against records that were partly arranged.
Commercial club play added pressure. Cai Yi, a former player who is now a lawyer, told China Central Television, as quoted by Chess.com, that the temptation was strongest in games between commercial clubs, where a high-ranked player wanted to keep his place and a lower-ranked one wanted to earn more. The response, from lifetime bans and stripped titles to prison sentences, shows the authorities treating that pressure as no excuse.
For the record books, the position is uncomfortable but clear. Wang Tianyi's games are still studied for their calculation and preparation, and his results before the scandal remain part of the historical record. They now sit beside the ban and the conviction, and they can no longer be read as a simple success story. Our profile of Wang Tianyi covers his career in more detail.
For everyone else, online or over the board, the lesson is plain. A rating is worth only as much as the honesty of the games behind it, so treat every rated game as one that counts, and report results that look arranged through the proper channels.
XiangqiPlay Team
XiangqiPlay newsroom
