Drugged chess players?

Running Chess Tournaments
1

Okay, I still want to explore this.

While I don’t agree that the USCF should be involved in this, the word is out and can’t be taken back. In fact, I think I heard about this drug from the newspaper instead of from USCF.

My thoughts are that as long as something like this is produced and other chess players have heard about it, there are going to be some who are going to try it. The drug company no doubt will seek testimonials for advertising. They may buy mailing lists of chess players from various companies and organizations. And hoping the USCF doesn’t do this doesn’t mean other players will never learn about it.

And the result is going to be that some players are going to try it, thinking that it might just help them, just as some think certain rituals or other mind-enhancing drugs or supplements will help them.

So, my question is this: is there enough of a threat felt by players concerning mind-enhancing drugs like this to start doing drug testing?

Having asked that, I don’t feel threatened myself only because I don’t think anyone needs to be drugged to beat me! :slight_smile: But I could see someone thinking they are tired of being low-rated all the time and wanting to gain an edge the easy way.

If we are so concerned about clocks deciding games instead of the ability of the chess player deciding games, shouldn’t we also be concerned about the mind-enhanced player winning because of drugs instead of their ability? I could see someone being able to think faster than usual during those last few minutes actaully winning than someone who has taken the natural way and is not up to speed, so to speak!

Just my few thoughts, not all of them rational, but all meant to provoke responses. Your mileage may vary.

Radishes

2

The problem with the drug like brainspeed, the USCF is in bed with the company that makes brainspeed. If people feel chess is a sport, we understand how some sports have been hurt with drugs. There is not going to be any drug testing, as I’m not going to ask the players to pee in a bottle.

If someone has a better rating then myself, I have no problem with that. The rating is about the players personal skills, not because they are on some drug. If the non-chess community has the feeling tournament players are on drugs, would have to leave the federation and never play again.

3

The closed thread said that the USCF president (I forget her name offhand) “posted that she’d made a mistake”. Where was that posted?

-Matt

4

I got an email from Randy Bauer stating that Pres Marinello said that it was a mistake. I’ve also seen a similar email to the one he sent me, posted on some chess blogs.

I’d rather not post it here. But if you want a copy of the email you can pm(personal message) me and I’ll copy it to you.

The one thing I will say, is that I emailed all the current members of the board and the President on tuesday, and Randy Bauer was the ONLY person to write back to me. Irregardless of wheher or not his email was a prepared response, it was nice to get A response.

5

President Nixon made a mistake too.

6

I’d still like to see some sort of public apology, or at least an admission of error, from her.

I emailed the new Executive Director, Bill Hall, on this topic literally on his first day, and he responded right away. He didn’t have any info or insight as he just started, but he did reply almost immediately.

-Matt

7

Not going to happen.

8

So you don’t believe a player might have a better tournament result than normal because he took drugs? You don’t think a player might accuse his opponent of taking a drug to increase his chess-playing ability? If that happened, what would you do?

As you said, some sports have been hurt with drugs. And there have been several mind-altering drugs on the market before that alter the way we think. Why can’t some of these actually affect the way a person plays chess?

Let’s say, for an extreme example, that a player didn’t play as well in one game because he stayed up too late the night before. In fact he loses his game to a lower rated player. Realizing that, he decides to take a diet pill that contains a small amount of dextroamphetamine. This perks him up and the next game he does better, in fact so much so that he is able to beat someone he’s never been able to beat before.

So did the drug make him play better? It cerrtainly did given the condition he was in. Should he have taken the drug to help him get over his sleepiness, or gone ahead and played no matter how bad off he was?

Without the drug he probably would have played worse than his rating indicated, simply because of his mental and physical condition. So this isn’t about the rating being an indicator of anything other than the guy was in a slump because of something adverse.

Hey, I had to fire someone once because he didn’t load up on coffee before starting work one night, came in drunk, made a lot of mistakes and was incoherent when he called me. His drug of choice was caffeine, and when he used it he was a fine employee. Had he used it that night, he would still have a job.

Radishes

9

Stan Booz, co-chair of the USCF Finance Committee, has suggested on Yahoo that USCF Secretary Don Schultz said that USCF “will get a lot of funding from these folks” (Natrol), and that those who wonder how the Natrol alliance came about should “ask Don Schultz.”

Schultz called the charges by Booz “an outright lie” and submitted a
motion by objections procedure calling for the Board to ask President
Beatriz Marinello to “explain how the deal came about, who was involved
and who if anyone said we’ll get a lot of funding from these folks.”

An objections procedure passes if no one objects, but Elizabeth
Shaughnessy quickly objected. Schultz has now asked for a conference call. For further information, see checkmate.us.

Bill Goichberg

10

Contrary to popular opinion, coffee does NOT sober up a drunk. All it does is make him a wide-awake drunk.

11

Bill, if Don wants to post his denials himself, I think that’s within the right of a Board member.

I think it is inappropriate for you to post statements that you do not have first hand knowledge of.

Others may disagree, but I think your post was an inappropriate use of this forum for political gain.

12

I certainly disagree. Others on this forum have expressed interested in what was behind the decision to partner with Natrol, and I am pointing out to them where to read about new developments. I have received the statements directly from Booz and Schultz on Yahoo and consider that sufficient “first hand knowledge” that these statements were indeed made.

Bill Goichberg

13

The time it takes to play one single game, is only short term not long term. John I am bipolar, have been since childhood without knowing about it till 1994. Feel I have a better understanding of mind altering drugs, the legal and illegal mind-altering drugs on my fellow bipolar friends. Have been manic, at that time play around a class B rating. Have been depressed, at that time play around a class D rating.

For a normal person, the drug can change the over all rating of the player by 25 to 75 rating points. If I take the drug every day, it could change my rating gain by 200 - 300 points. If I take way to much of the drug, I would be so annoying to everyone. Would be sleeping around 10 - 15 hours per-week. Long term, if the mania is not under control it can end in death.

The down side of not being manic, I will be back to my rating floor. When I’m not manic or depressed I play around 1400 - 1600, my rating floor is 1500. When I am depressed I play around 1200 - 1400, so my past mania has lead to a great deal of rating inflation for a number of people.

The long term problem with drugs, if it does make you gain rating points. When you do go off the drug, your rating floor can be higher then your real rating. Then it would only be a problem of rating inflation for everyone you play. Example: say a drug makes you play 400 points higher then you play now. When you stop the drug, your rating floor will be 200 points higher then your current rating. The long term problem would be rating inflation, as your rating floor would make everyones rating be inflated.

There is nothing any director can do. If the USCF says its ethical to take brainspeed, how can I over turn the result of the game or forfeit the player from taking the drug. Even if it was not brainspeed, how can a director say one drug is ethical the other not. As brainspeed is a drug to increase chess-playing abilities, how can I say some other drug that does the same be unethical. If the USCF says brainspeed is ethical, how can I say some other drug with the same results be unethical.

Even if it was a illegal drug, the directors do not have the right to take blood and urin samples from the players. Even if I could, what director/organizer has the money to test the samples for drugs. If I did, it would be days before the drug test came back.

14

Tell that to our security guard. He told me the guy would come in barely able to walk a straight line and write his name, but after a gallon of coffee, acted as sober as anyone. All I know is, he wa a drunk, but somehow was able to do the job of running complex programs on a computer system by himself.

Now I don’t know what you think of when you call a person sober, but I would have to say he was sober, in my opinion, in order to have done the job properly. He was more often drunk than sober, from what I heard, when he came into work, but sobered up.

I didn’t fire him because he came into work drunk, or even was able to verify at any time that he was drunk in my presence, but instead got him on job performance.

So getting drunk makes you sleepy, huh?

Radishes

15

There are a number of medical research papers on the subject of sobering up drunks. Try researching on the Internet for them. (The MADD site discusses this myth as well.)

My guess is that his system metabolized alcohol fairly fast. Pushing a gallon of fluids might speed the process up a bit, so in the time that it took him to drink a gallon of coffee, he sobered up, at least enough for his performance to appear to be unimpaired. If so, it wasn’t the coffee, he could have been drinking anything non-alcoholic and probably had the same results.

However, I think we’re off the subject here. This isn’t about chess-impairing products. :slight_smile:

16

Dude you are crazy after all.