Sorry to say, but yes. A friend of mine wore a small microphone that transmitted a very high and not very loud frequency, so that a TD two tables away could not hear it, but the other player could. The buzzing antagonated the opposing player and threw off his thought process, and whenever his opponent asked my friend if he heard anything, he said no, and maybe his opponent should get some more sleep. This is truly the very CHEAPEST trick in the book.
hahahaha
Oh Great, this whole Ivanchuk thing. Der Speigel has some profound commentary on it. http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,595819,00.html
www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,595819,00.html
I only have two comments at the moment. 1) Could they have possibly found a Worse time to insult a guy with a request for the WC (Water Closet, that is) test then after a big loss?
2. At the part about a GM going to a pulse of 160 and blood pressure of 200 near the end of an important game and having his thinking "clarified" by a "beta-blocker". I cannot but AGREE~! For DEAD MEN are very poor decision makers in Chess Endings or Anything Else. What Der Speigel forgot to mention is that these are precisely symptoms evidenced by someone about to have a massive stroke. I ASSUME they do have a Headache at this point, so throw in nausea and You Got It. Geeeez, give the guy a beta blocker. Better yet a hospital room ! Better yet, and daring to say it without any medical credential ...such as being a major Chess magazine, " let them take their D@#$ pill BEFORE they start playing".
It would be interesting to consider that a tournament playing beta-blocker blocker rules in America might well be subject to a disabilities suit !? ouch.
What you think ... are they putting us on?! Actually I am just happy they are not looking for Chess programs in pacemakers, I ....OW I gave that one away. 
Its kinda scary to think that they Might be on the side of players trying to take their BP meds, tho it may well take a beta blocker to figure that out.
One warning ... dont take Ritalin ala the article and expect Chess brilliance. Its been done, ... and if you dont happen to have ADHD, you will probably end up walking around the house telling jokes for over 6 hours, to yourself, the doorknob, and anyone who knocks and is too KIND to leave & let you fly off the balcony. That is One Ritalin btw. Need it be said, it cancels Chess games rather than immortalizing them.
Yours, The Kindly Baron
PS. He recovered nicely, will NEVER do it again, and his Chess game ...well the "Kindly" Baron would just say it seems no better. (But you KNOW what I WANT to SAY~! haha )
Here finally, I want to get into my experience with hypnosis, for Chess. First a background statement:
I started rated 777 and over the next 6 years worked up to near 1600. Then took a few years off, came back to get 1700. And calculations showed it had cost me about $1 per rating point, paying for the tournaments and books to get there to the 1600 mark. Then worked up to Class "A" and 1600 on up to Expert ended up costing $3 per Elo point. (Maybe I should just have paid a TD to "create" me some tournaments won, huh? Probably cheaper!) The biggest factor to making Expert was taking up Postal Chess, to which I attribute most of a 400 point gain.
However, around the area of 1900 I decided to try hypnosis, back in the 2nd half of the 1980's. Went in, took an hour or less. Had it suggested to me to play my best, and play like a GM & Bobby Fischer actually. (Not so hard, when many said I already had a very fishy Chess game to start with :)
So I added some more studies of Fischer, to know a Fischer move when I saw one. But here is the big thing, the pre-game psych-up to reinforce matters. I would recite out loud, while visualizing playing winning Chess. (The point of out loud being two-fold. 1. It is to add as many physical senses as possible to what you are telling yourself to believe. 2.When you finally stop laughing at yourself for what you said, and find you are actually seeing it as less funny and more believable, you know you are on track. )
What I would tell myself was something like, "I am a Grandmaster, & cannot be defeated" "I will play like Fischer, accurate & creative". OR at times Morphy, Tal or a Polgar sister may have been mentioned instead :) Of course you want to do this alone in your car or such.
So I found, the combination of hypnotist plus oral/visual imagery did indeed make for a better game. It eliminates fear of opponents, since you go in thinking you are the best and undefeatable. And nicely, I think the hypnosis part may cause this; it tends to "kick-in" precisely when needed such as entering complications aor time trouble ... you seem to get a mental reminder that you are good and accurate, and it does seem to translate onto the board. I can recall that particular moment in some games, and making the difference where I might have "lost the thread" of it before that. Add the fact that many games affected were Important ones, where there might have been a tendency to falter before.
Cost was only $60 at the time. Rating increase estimate: 60 or more points, including a tie for first place in a quad with 3 masters ...which put me over the Expert mark of 2000, being worth close to another 30 Elo in itself, I beleive it was. So cost was $1 per point or less. Very cost effective! Plus they asked me if I wanted Smoke-Stopping thrown in ... but no, since tournaments didnt ban it then.
Belief is a powerful thing. I thought it well worth the cost and experience. Anyone else had a hypnosis experience? Or use of mental imagery, or a particularly good psych-up routine?
Great post, thanks Baron.
Music helps me, listenening to Mozart half an hour before improves my performance.
I have never seen nor played a tournament. Is smoking allowed?
I have never seen nor played a tournament. Is smoking allowed?
In Washington, as many other states, you cannot smoke indoors anywhere, except perhaps your own home if there are no minors living there.
Thanks Ziryab. I thought so as tournaments are held in public places and most, if not all, states do not allow smoking in same. Thank goodness.........can you imagine playing opposite a cigar smoker? 
Try some sugar ;) it helped me in a lot of tournaments...
If you like Sugar (Sucrose) ... you'll love Dextrose (Glucose) , being The Brain Food. That's what they view on a PET scan you know ... the Glucose metabolism of the brain. And it can be metabolized directly in its original form, whereas Sucrose needs to be converted first. And Glucose won't make that sleepy sugar rebound. Naturally, friends will think it odd if you are sucking down packets of Sweet & Low ... at least until they are checkmated 
Someone get me a Pint of coffee, 6 Sweet & Low~! Oh, but hold off on Turkey. The tryptophan will make you Very Sleepy. And so can digesting a tummyful of starchy pasta.
Say, I was wondering ... I beleive that I seem to recall soemthing about a drug being tested at Creighton Univ. Med School back in the late 80's or maybe early 90's that was like an antihistimine, but I heard that it might be effective as a memory or learning aid as well. At that time, the only designation I saw was alpha-numerical. Think it was "T"- something? Possibly a Dr Hansel? Has anyone heard of this or any more about it?
I do know that some cold meds such as Seldane and what's that other one starts with "E" (Help; get me a memory aid, quick! :) ... were supposed to increase alertness.
Small update. Recall the "E" med mentioned just above would be Entex.
Eat right, meditate, exercise, don't go into a chess game with lots of worries floating in your head. These will all help.
I remember in college that whenever I had tons of homework I was putting off my play would suffer tremendously, likewise when my buddy (who I was about even with at the time) hadn't finished his homework & I was "clean" I would do much better than him. 
CAFFINE!
CAFFINE!
I do seem to play good chess when I eat chocolate (ultra-dark with minimal sugar) but caffine (even just a little) makes me crash & feel lousy later.
NARZ ... Lets call it the Sword of Damaclese Theory about leaving your homework undone and hanging over your head. I know what you mean. (I think it is worse when the thing hanging is your Wife waiting for you to get home and go shopping after the tournament tho. Then again I was not a great student, so I may be wrong :)
I have a similar thing that says Never Put Off What You Can Do Now, When It Is "Go To The Can" I've made more mistakes trying to make "Just One Quick Move". Or maybe that is seperate; The Kramnick Theory!? }8-)
I'm sure that some parts of cognition can be slightly improved by drugs. However, for most people, they compromise other aspects. For example, caffeine may help with alertness but jitteriness and a lack of focus may make it ineffectual. Of course, if you are not feeling well or are very tired, these drugs might actually help, but I am referring to increasing performance beyond natural levels.
BTW: The world of nootropics and stimulants (modafinil especially) claims to boost brainpower but I am skeptical about the efficacy for all but a few isolated cases.
It is enormously helpful to White when playing Bird's Opening to listen to the Papageno! Papaguena! duet in The Magic Flute.
pa...papa..pa...papa..papapapa...Papapapagena!
http://norquay.vsb.bc.ca/NORWEB/Archive/20052006/Papageno/Duet.htm
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Die Zauberflöte, K.620
PLATOLAG - I've never tried any of the products they mention nor heard anything about them. I notice they do mention the herb Ginko, which I have read somewhere that it is supposed to help cerebral blood flow. I cannot atest to that, but can mention I have used Ginko in the past, and found it seems to help my memory, especially short term memory (as is vital to otb Chess analysis) where I normally have a problem otherwise (from illness). They also mention fish oil, tho I do not know in what capacity. But one may be as a source of Choline, which is a precursor for the body to produce the neurotransmitter, acetylcholine, that is used in both muscle & the brain. (For instance, the illness Myasthenia Gravis involves a deficit of usable acetylcholine and results in extreme weakness.) In addition to fish oil, there are also choline capsules at nutrition stores. But the last I heard, there was not hard evidence available showing that it was actually being converted to acetylcholine, when taken orally. On the other hand, I have tried choline and thought it helpful. Or else "lecithin", that is supposed to produce choline.
It is unfortunate that they do not list all the ingredients. Some products on the market will include Ginseng or ephedrine to act as stimulants. (The latter being a very powerful one as it is a precursor of epinephrine. When produced by the body, epinephrine is also called "adrenalin" .) That may not necessarily be a good thing, if someone feels perky from stimulants they may not be able to tell if the other ingredients are really helpful, and also there is a price to be paid for use of stimulants as they can be hard on the body, and lose effect also over a period of use. Or there may be chromium picolinate included which has lesser effects of stimulation and is also a diuretic.
I am not recommending anything. But just trying to state what my experience was. Many things do not seem to work the same for others, however.