I actaully read an article the other day that said professional poker players very commonly use drugs that are usually prescribed to kids who have add/adhd and that contributes to their ability to focus. While it's true no drug can definitely help your cognitive thinking, being mentally alert is obviously the best way to avoid blundering and to have the best overall picture of the game. I really don't think caffeine is good for a chess match unless you're going to be continually ingesting it during the whole match due to the crash and headaches commonly associated with it.
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Originally posted by stockton1984The time scale of the chess match probably dictates how good caffeine generally is as an aid, in blitz-rapid play it could probably give you a nice edge.
I actaully read an article the other day that said professional poker players very commonly use drugs that are usually prescribed to kids who have add/adhd and that contributes to their ability to focus. While it's true no drug can definitely help your cognitive thinking, being mentally alert is obviously the best way to avoid blundering and to have th ...[text shortened]... gesting it during the whole match due to the crash and headaches commonly associated with it.
The human mind consciously processes about 40 bits of information a second out of the 11,000,000 or so recieved so anything which can make you more focused on the problem in front of you and less prone to distaction is pretty good.
I credit my great play to beer! I once drank lots and had double queens on the board. I was sure to slaughter my opponent. When I woke up sober the very next day to make my next move I only had the one original queen on the board. See how badly I play without alcohol!
I quite often drink and eat lots of sugary foods while playing long games but that is usually because I have had to pay in order to be playing those games in the first place and it gives me a chance to recoup some of my losses by gorging on the free biscuits and drinks the hotels tend to provide.
Originally posted by pijunfdlmao
I credit my great play to beer! I once drank lots and had double queens on the board. I was sure to slaughter my opponent. When I woke up sober the very next day to make my next move I only had the one original queen on the board. See how badly I play without alcohol!
There was alot of controversy over the first Karpov-Kasparov match dealing with amphetamines as well as the color of glass that Karpov was getting them delivered to him into.
As for them helping your average player...there was quite a few tourneys where i stayed up late into the evening in the bar going over games and then got 2 hours of sleep and if it wasn't for Coke ( the drink!! ) and a few ephedrine hydrochloride pills I never would have been able to finish out the next day.
Dave
Originally posted by pijunMasicampo, E. J., & Baumeister, R. F. (2008) Toward a physiology of dual-process reasoning and judgment: Lemonade, willpower, and expensive rule-based analysis. Psychological Science, 19, 255-260.
it's been proven that no drug can improve your cognitive thinking.
Thus there is still no drug testing in chess.
Compares the effects of lemonade sweetened with sugar versus lemonade sweetened with Splenda. Confirms that "ingestion of sugar can reduce reliance on intuitive, heuristic-based decision making".
If you insist on drinking coffee, add lots of sugar. Until, that is, FIDE institutes testing for blood glucose level.