Work used to make fun of me regarding chess tournaments. I would always take the day after off to "recover" They would laugh, and ask what am i recovering from???
I would ask them to intensely concentate of something for 8-12+ hours a day for 3-4 days straight, and then tell me how you feel?
P.P.S. Have you ever felt exhausted after a chess game because of a tremendous expenditure of "Nervous Energy"?
I remember my first tournament, it was September 1976 and I was unrated. It was 40 moves in 100 minutes and then 20 in 50, I think. I thought I was going to be a world beater; what a rude awakening. I won 2 and lost 4, and I was lucky with that score.
One of the two games I won was against a fellow who was chain smoking cigs right down to the filter because he was so nervous. At one point he left his queen en prize; I missed it, and as an unintended courtesy I left my queen en prize and he missed it. Talk about awful. How I won this game I don't know, we should have both lost.
In the previous round I had lost to a 1350. I played the Danish as if I didn't have an opponent, making moves automatically and lost to a family fork of king, queen and rook in 14 moves. Then I had to listen to my opponent talk about how he was studying the Danish when the truth was I didn't show up; a corpse could have put up more resistance. Then we played another game in the analysis room and because I was steaming about his blather and was still thinking about the last game I lost again. I wanted to strangle him. Luckily, that game didn't count.
When the tournament ended my brain was fried; I sat there like a crash test dummy. I realized I didn't know a damn thing about this game, and had put all my nervous energy into surviving move to move. I can say I learned a lot from my mistakes and realized I badly needed tactical training. My board vision was nil too.
I never played an OTB tournament again where I was that nervous, but time pressure has always been a problem because I'm a perfectionist, though you'd never know it from my first tournament.
Truth is, it all depends upon your personality.
Work used to make fun of me regarding chess tournaments. I would always take the day after off to "recover" They would laugh, and ask what am i recovering from???
I would ask them to intensely concentate of something for 8-12+ hours a day for 3-4 days straight, and then tell me how you feel?
Suppose a skeptic were to say something along the following lines:
My sons play video games on the weekend for 8-12 hours a day, maybe longer even. My wife yells at them to go outside and then they play ball or skateboard or do nerf wars. They're concentrating on their XBox 360 or Xbox One games and they don't seem that tired.
So what's up with you and your chess tournaments?
P.P.S. Have you ever felt exhausted after a chess game because of a tremendous expenditure of "Nervous Energy"?
I remember my first tournament, it was September 1976 and I was unrated. It was 40 moves in 100 minutes and then 20 in 50, I think. I thought I was going to be a world beater; what a rude awakening. I won 2 and lost 4, and I was lucky with that score.
... When the tournament ended my brain was fried; I sat there like a crash test dummy. I realized I didn't know a damn thing about this game, and had put all my nervous energy into surviving move to move. I can say I learned a lot from my mistakes and realized I badly needed tactical training. My board vision was nil too.
I never played an OTB tournament again where I was that nervous, but time pressure has always been a problem because I'm a perfectionist, though you'd never know it from my first tournament.
Truth is, it all depends upon your personality.
Have you ever done something in another activity where you felt like a crash dummy after it was finished?
What do you think it is about chess that makes it so exhausting?
P.P.S. Have you ever felt exhausted after a chess game because of a tremendous expenditure of "Nervous Energy"?
I remember my first tournament, it was September 1976 and I was unrated. It was 40 moves in 100 minutes and then 20 in 50, I think. I thought I was going to be a world beater; what a rude awakening. I won 2 and lost 4, and I was lucky with that score.
... When the tournament ended my brain was fried; I sat there like a crash test dummy. I realized I didn't know a damn thing about this game, and had put all my nervous energy into surviving move to move. I can say I learned a lot from my mistakes and realized I badly needed tactical training. My board vision was nil too.
I never played an OTB tournament again where I was that nervous, but time pressure has always been a problem because I'm a perfectionist, though you'd never know it from my first tournament.
Truth is, it all depends upon your personality.
Have you ever done something in another activity where you felt like a crash dummy after it was finished?
What do you think it is about chess that makes it so exhausting?
No, I can't say I have, Daniel. Part of it has to do with the time constraints, and part of it has to do with the unrelenting analysis in complicated, analytical type positions to make sure you don't miss a check, miscalculate a capture or fail to see a threat. Perhaps most tiring of all is the idea, at least at our level, that it takes only one bad move to lose your advantage or lose period.
Work used to make fun of me regarding chess tournaments. I would always take the day after off to "recover" They would laugh, and ask what am i recovering from???
I would ask them to intensely concentate of something for 8-12+ hours a day for 3-4 days straight, and then tell me how you feel?
Suppose a skeptic were to say something along the following lines:
My sons play video games on the weekend for 8-12 hours a day, maybe longer even. My wife yells at them to go outside and then they play ball or skateboard or do nerf wars. They're concentrating on their XBox 360 or Xbox One games and they don't seem that tired.
So what's up with you and your chess tournaments?
I may be a bit biased, but video games are a mindless activity. I used to play them a lot, and it was just mindless hand eye coordination. Chess requires intense concentration.
Tournament video game play (which you can watch on ESPN) would be the analogy. There are also documentaries about tournament-level video game players and the way they prepare.
Those documentaries serve as cautionary tale for kids who want 'to be professional video game players.
It becomes a job.
Taking 'a day off' to recover after a tournament (video or chess) doesn't seem like a stretch.
When talking to non-chess players, talk about the mental exertion of a very long exam, like the SAT or LSAT, with huge implications for the players. Tell them "imagine having to take a long, grueling, life changing exam, and then doing it every day for a week". The mental exertion is exhausting, although I don't really like the term "nervous energy" to describe it.
I wouldn't call it "nervous energy".
Your brain needs energy to function, just as the rest of your body does. When you concentrate in a game of chess or while taking a test, you're using up a lot of energy.
As for the test analogy, that's what I use when the question comes up.
"Try taking several final exams for ten hours straight and tell me you're not tired."
I was thinking of a medical-scientific test to see or determine the physical impact of "nervous energy" upon chess players.
1. Have all eight candidate players take brief physical exams and measurements prior to the start of the Candidates Tournament. A Baseline Measurement.
2. Then take physical measurements at the end of the Candidates Tournaments. Then compare measurements from the end of the tournament to the baseline measures. This is just an attempt to gauge and define what is meant by "nervous energy."
It's been said for decades that this or that player or World Champion has "strong nerves" or the players need a break because of "nervous exhaustion" (i.e., the cancellation of the 1st Kasparov-Karpov match). Let's scientifically measure this term that's been bandied about and discussed in the chess community.
Moreover, as a follow-up we can move forward in at least several directions. One, we can see if there are personality traits or attributes that are somewhat immune to depletion of "nervous energy." Or to see what personality types have "strong nerves." And to see if one can acquire these personality traits so as to possess "strong nerves."
Second, which exercise regimen lends itself more readily to "strong nerves"? What about Josh Waitzkin and his Tai Chi regimen? Would a Eastern based exercise program give an ambitious chess player "stronger nerves"?
As an aside, how frequently do blunders occur because of "bad nerves"?
Lastly, there was an attempt to do something like what I'm suggesting at the recent 960 Championship match between Hikaru Nakamura and Magnus when they had heart rate monitors attached to them. That was kind of interesting.
It's Round 6 and watching commentators Chessbrah Commentators Yasser and Aman discuss the terrific fighting spirit of Vladimir Kramnik. He doesn't want to offer draws and he doesn't want to accept draws. They like it!
But then Yasser says that Kramnik is the oldest player in the field, and that his approach is better suited for players in their 20's, and really not for players in their 40's! He doesn't think it's sustainable for Vlad and that Vlad will wear himself out by expending so much nervous energy by going for the win all the time.
Now there have been posts about whether Chess is a sport. And the argument against is that Chess is not a sport because it's not physical exertion. But now we have Yasser saying that there's a lot of nervous energy in chess. And energy requires calories, right? And to burn calories there has to be some physical exertion, right?
Now, I'm curious: How do you define "Nervous Energy"? After you define it, is there an objective measure for it? Moreover, do Chess Players expend more "Nervous Energy" than Basketball Players (it's March Madness in the U.S.A.)? More than Marathoners? More than Triathletes?
In the first World Championship Match between Kasparov and Karpov they cancelled it at 5-3 Karpov because of "nervous exhaustion" by both players, if I recall correctly.
So if I'm talking to a non chess player who's skeptical and incredulously dismissive of chess, and I counter that Over-The-Board chess playing competition takes a lot of nervous energy out of players, and he or she is dubious, how do you explain it to them that Nervous Energy depletion is a real phenomenon?
P.S. As a follow-on question, how do you keep your emotions and nerves in check and in good form when playing tense games?
P.P.S. Have you ever felt exhausted after a chess game because of a tremendous expenditure of "Nervous Energy"?