drunknknite
He was winning,
but he didn't see it
and I escaped - as usual.
-Levon Aronian

Chess and Drugs

By drunknknite

A lot of people have written on the topic of drugs and art and judging by the habits of some of the greatest artists of all time (The Beatles, Grateful Dead, Jimi, Janis, Nirvana, Sublime, William Burroughs, Ken Kesey, etc.), drugs, specifically LSD and Heroin, seem to unleash some creative fury.

So the logical question is, how does this apply to chess?

Drugs did not have a negative effect on the technical ability of these artists, and somehow changed their view to allow for a greater creative ability.

What would happen if a group of Super-GMs started taking LSD or Heroin?

I think some very interesting and beautiful chess would follow.
 

4 comments so far.

  1. Anonymous December 6, 2007 at 5:09 PM
    Now that you've come to my attention, i've added you to my blogroll and feedreader.

    Be seeing ya!

    TCOEM
  2. Liquid Egg Product December 7, 2007 at 6:03 PM
    That's actually interesting--I believe the drugs would hurt more than they helped.

    Sure, there's creativity in chess, but the nuts-and-bolts of it is calculating lines and trying to make the most logical evaluations. Now, never having taken LSD or heroin myself, I don't know the exact effects, but it seems the logical part of the brain is sacrificed.
  3. Pawn Shaman December 8, 2007 at 7:53 AM
    hmm this is an interesting topic. To be honest I have some small experience with it. When I was many years younger I would smoke some grass and try to play with a friend. The games were very creative and fun but somewhere in the middle game we would always realize just how terrible we had been playing. Literally dismissing hung peices and checkmates without any consideration. Also, for a while I was taking some painkillers. Painkillers did wonders for my brain. You know when you have all that mushy stuff muddling up your thought process?...gone. Its easy to focus and hard to get distracted, painkillers always increase my rating by 100 points. For the record I dont endorse using them without a legitimate prescription.
  4. transformation December 12, 2007 at 2:54 AM
    i forced myself to read Burroughs Naked Lunch years ago, but latter found his latter book, The Job, his book of essays,

    where he is toting a shot gun dappled across his lap, looking all gaunt and poetic and post alcohol....

    mabye that is what we need in chess :)

    greetings from the land of towering northern pines, firs, and glaciers and powder and waves.

    dk

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