Rivalries Among Grandmasters

Grandmaster Wang Tianyi（王天一）, the leading Chinese Xiangqi player, had sometimes lamented rival Grandmaster Zheng Weitong（郑惟桐）of declining to share the point of an obvious drawn game, and to carry on playing a kind of chess grinding（磨）in the endgame stage. He also complained that Zheng Weitong liked to circling around him when he was playing in order to influence his play, further, he even accused Zheng Weitong of once carrying an electronic shielding device as if to prevent him from possible software cheating.

The writer (of the article) felt that Zheng Weitong's above-mentioned three practices seem to be of human nature. In the chess world, quite many players are used to the practice of grinding their opponents (to a halt) in a balanced and even endgame, this is understandable. Take for example Grandmaster Lu Qin（吕钦）, in the 2021 Fortuna Cup also did practice the grinding tactic against Grandmaster 'Siberian Tiger' Zhao Guorong（赵国荣）. In a simply balanced and drawing endgame, Lu Qin moved on and on, in the hope that Zhao Guorong may accidentally step into overtime, this was indeed bordering on unethical chess, since even when an amateur chess player was playing instead, Lu Qin cannot win in a theoretically drawn endgame.

Many chess fans laughed at Lu Qin for getting into the shoes of Zheng Weitong. Even with Grandmaster Xu Yinchuan（许银川）, who has a fairer style of Xiangqi playing, has worn down Grandmaster Meng Chen（孟辰）for more than a hundred moves in an equal and balanced endgame of two Knights versus two Knights, and won in the end by sort of brutal force, picking up a whole point when his opponent lost momentarily concentration. Not a fair and gentlemanly way of winning really.

And Wang Tianyi, though lamenting Zheng Weitong's grinding trickery, he himself grinded his senior Zhao Guorong in a theoretically drawn ending for more than a hundred moves in a 2019 1st Division League's game. It can be seen that grinding your opponents down is something that every chess player will do when opportunity arise, so there is no need to blame Zheng Weitong too much on this matter!

Source ：新浪网 作者 我说车你评论

~ a XIANGQI EN BLOG translation ~