The French Lebanese GM, Bachar Kouatly, once commented on how ugly my chess style was. Hopefully it has improved a bit in this respect (especially with my ever greater leaning towards positional play) but there may still be a lot of truth to what he said. I’d like to reply with Nimzovitsch’s remark that the beauty of chess lies not in a move’s appearance but rather the thought behind it, but when you see a game by Capablanca, Rubinstein, Smyslov, Karpov or Kramnik there is often an aesthetic appeal beyond this.

Of course an ugly style of play does not prevent one from being effective, and there may even be a case that ugly chess is MORE effective than the aesthetically pleasing variety because the only reason for playing that way would be the results. Lasker played ugly chess but was World Champion for 27 years whilst Viktor Korchnoi’s games would not win many prizes for grace or elegance.

Similarly you can find some ugly martial arts styles, the uglies of which may well be Yiquan. It has no form and little  grace, but the originator, Wang Xiangzhai, was one of the top fighters in China.

Here’s a clip from a Yiquan tournament. Ugly, really ugly.