Staring at your Opponent in OTB

It just hit me this morning - why did Tal, Kasporav, et al, stare at their opponents?  My theory is they are looking where their opponents eyes are looking!  So they can figure where they are thinking and calculating most on the board - to help them think accordingly.   I'm going to try this in my next OTB games.  Does anyone else do this? Thoughts, discussion?

well there is this irish dude from waterford who can read people's minds by looking in their eyes.

There are a special group of people who figure out one's personality just by studying their overall appearance and their behaviour. 

That skill could be applied to OTB.

they do it to try and sike out their opponent. It gets very uncomfortable when someone just wont stop staring at you while you're trying to think of the right move. i would say that you (being at the level you are) should not try anything fancy like this and just focus on the game. Hope this helps!

Yep, I won't stare for more than a couple of seconds, just take a quick look every few seconds to see where they are looking.

Maybe theyre trying to hit on you, it s very uncomfortable.

Sounds counter-productive, to me. Staring at your opponent... whether for psychological reasons or to see what part of the board he's studying... means breaking your own concentration on the game.

I could just as easily argue that "being stared at" gives you an advantage, because your opponent has to break his own focus on the game in order to do it!

I think that staring at people, even though it may be distracting to the opponent, is bad for your focus.

I have been on the other end of this before. When people stare at you, it makes you fell uncomfortable for a bit, but just look down at the board! It's where you should be looking anyways. 

Also, staring at people for long periods of time during a chess game isn't exactly the best way to make friends, if you care about that.

I say, don't try it. Whe somebody like Kasparov does it, it's intimidating. When a 1500 does it, it's just creepy. 

Annoying your opponent is against the USCF rules of Chess.  The way most TDs interpret that rule is that anything done with the only purpose being to annoy your opponent is against the rules.

In other words, don't stare at your opponent with the purpose of annoying him, which includes, "making him uncomfortable."  It's poor sportsmanship, it's creepy, and it's against the rules.

I've read that Tal did not do this, it was more Tal staring out at nothing when he was thinking.  Tal was just a very cheeky, funny, slightly mischievious fellow it seemed to me - I found the beginning of this clip funny, when Tal meets Fischer, the looks they give each other. :-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWs4IT-efi0

Kasparov was different, he was not averse to using psychological ploys to his advantage, but in the end, it mostly came down to the chess.

I know some players put a visor with their hands around their eyes (I do this doing difficult calculations) to cut off their own peripheral vision of distractions and also to prevent the opponent from seeing where they are looking.  Some players have kind of mischievious curiousity to try to get inside their opponent's head to see what they are thinking, how they are feeling, when the flow of the game has changed.

o.o The battle of glasses?

That's funny Estragon!  Who won the game?  Tal probably.

when i notice them staring at me i look away from what i actually want to do