Adhd: how to play with it

I'm the same as you. I used to go to competitions and play quite regularly when I was younger. However the older I've got the harder it's been for me to play or to properly think ahead while I play. Quite a shame really but it's just one of those things you've got to deal with I suppose. 

I was diagnosed with ADD as a kid and kinda of brushed it off and forgot after a while. Only recently started thinking about how that might be effecting me as an adult. I definitely employ the OP's strategy of playing until i feel tired or losing it or don't care as much. Sometimes, this is just after 1 or 2 games honestly.

As someone 65 years old who was never diagnosed, because there was no diagnosis when I was a child, and no one ever thought to check it as an adult. An ADHD diagnosis and treatment can be a revelation, and a miracle. I figured it out and sought treatment because of chess. I simply cannot complete an entire move when there are lots of pieces on the board. I get distracted and make a move, often a wrong move. Those who think it is not a real problem in adults, have not been in our heads. It's a mess up there.

If you are frustrated with your play, read back over this thread. You may find you have a disordered mind, and trust me, I have ten years of meditation practice, just sitting and watching my mind. If there were a way to control it without meds, my life would have turned out differently. It is a true affliction and 90% of people who get on the right meds are helped.

Good luck. It's a journey, not an end.

ADHD and chess are an amazing combination. I can chart my progress by ELO.  

You know little about ADHD yet you have the chutzpah to tell somebody who has it how it works and what neurotransmitters are in play? You're wrong bud, on a very basic level. Sorry to break it to you. 

Adult onset ADHD does not exist, by definition.

Adults can /have/ a new ADHD diagnosis because symptoms were missed as a child - but that's not what you are describing.   You are saying that the troubles concentrating started as an adult, which completely rules this out.

If what you had going on in college isn't just due to habit / practice / other stuff in your life - if it's some kind of brain thing - it definitively isn't ADHD, and you will not get a diagnosis if you did not have those symptoms in your childhood.

(BTW I get the same thing you describe - "glazed over brain blanks" - when I play a bunch of games without rest, esp. if I have been sedentary.  I think this is a familiar experience to most players.  You just take a breath for a second, catch up with yourself, and start again.   Unless you're playing Blitz, in which case you probably lose, haha)

I'm not allowed to take my methylphenidate for chess (tournaments). And I don't know if my ADD affects my chess a lot. I do stare at the board with no thoughts sometimes.

Just in case, I am manager of ADHD & Chess project, where we try to use chess a complementary and (very) useful tool to help ADHD diagnosed persons. Focus on attention, concetration, memory and chess board visualization skills, it turns out to improve all these parameters in our users, not only their chess skills. If you are interested, just let me know.

Kind regards!

José Sanz

I usually wouldn't approve of someone responding to such an old post nor would I do so myself but good lord that was dumb. Well said.

u shouldnt play w/ ur adhd. they say its pretty serious stuff. 

I started playing chess at the beginning of the year. I’ve made strides here and there. Admittedly, it took me six weeks to even recognize or move into checkmate.  I have severe ADHD and I take 30-40mg of Ritalin each day.  In the time I’ve played I’ve discovered a couple of things. I separate chess study days from chess play days.  Adhd minds can’t manage what you’ve learned and practice it all in one day.  I watch YouTube videos for chess instruction because I’ve found some instructors that give you think time during their instruction.  Even if I am losing big some days, I always remember when I told myself, “You could never play chess,” and I smile and pat myself on the back for fighting the good fight.

Severe ADHD as well. Can't really watch the videos, or read the books, or study the annotated PGNs, or do the lessons, though I try every day. So I just do chess stuff. Working *with* PGNs, or collecting the books. Or putting my own videos together. I have my own website.  Busy work is easy if you're really into it, and it can teach an unteachable person, IMO, via the miracle of "contact knowledge". :-) One has to readjust their expectations, that's all.

From my experience as no two people are the same you also cannot find the exact same ADHD in two different people.

When I was younger I once took part in the U18 chess event of our district. I won the tournament with classic time controls but got second to last at the blitz tournament with the exact same participants at the exact same location in the exact same week. This was also at the time when I was still undiagnosed and unmedicated.

By now, compared to other players, my Blitz skills are still worse than my Classical skills but thankfully not by that much anymore.

Just the typical ADHD thing I guess, excel at one thing, utterly fail at something else.

However, overtime I looked more into how to improve focus for the blitz. "Focus" is like an amazing "mind muscle", the more you develop & strengthen it with "mental workouts" or chess games, the better it gets, just like muscles in the gym. Supplements & medication helps too, there are some guys with ADHD diagnosis and can't play otb unless medicated.

Here is a good thread on reddit regarding focus,

thank you that was so helpful like you understand how my brain works while playing chess or just trying to focus on anything else 

I'm also diagnosed as having severe ADHD.  One thing that I found interesting, is that like you, I get dramatically weaker as time controls get shorter.  At classical time controls in OTB play, I can regularly outplay FMs and IMs (although I'll usually lose my way from an objectively better position, I have walked away with the full or half point from a variety of players FIDE rated 2200 to 2500), while at blitz or bullet time controls I get dominated by players who I'd normally consider to be easy meat.

I love playing faster time controls, I just don't seem to be able to get much better at them.  I find that I often get lost in interesting variations and I forget about the clock.  I'd be interested to hear if other stronger ADHD players have similar experiences.

Bruh moment