Will playing chess help me regain the cognitive skills I lost

Aside from playing chess, I would suggest prayer or meditation and serious reading as two other activities that will help you too expand your cognitive powers.  Chess and other problem-solving games are very good of course, but these activities are often taken in small doses and at most seem to improve your speed and accuracy -- you should also be thinking about the benefits one obtains through activities that focus the brain for extended periods of concentration.  I would suggest you mix it up -- play chess and do brain-teasers for improving your brain's ability to quickly solve problems , but step away from the board and pick up a good book (even a good chess text), or meditate deeply, to increase your ability to focus and concentrate for more than a few minutes at a time.

Getting enough sleep also seems to be helpful.

I am not a scientist or physician.  This advice is based on what little I have learned as a casual reader following the developments in brain science over the past few years. 

Neil 

thanks for the tip but I am an avid reader already!  Lately I've been reading novels in German.

I smoke pot every day while playing and sure enjoy it. Yes, there are stupid mistakes often made but that adds to the fun. As long as my opponent is as stoned as I am we enjoy this self-imposed difficulty. We have been doing this for many years and keep a running score. It's an art, a science, and a sport - like riding dirt bikes.

I also like to ride dirt bikes while a little buzzed, but Chess is safer. 

...?

the opposite of marijuana smokers is honors and AP course students? guess i was an exception to this rule....

meditation (when done properly) and reading, yes, but praying increases your cognitive powers? really? how the hell does it do that?

Yes, pot smoking will help you regain the cognitive powers lost from years of playing Chess.

Haha. Nice.

Loving this thread :)

I've always thought the rooks look like ashtrays.  Don't tell me you never ashed on the top of your rook!

I dont think any cognitive abilities can be lost from the pot itself. If you dont use the brain you lose it... if all you did was smoke pot and didnt do anything to stimulate it then I guess the weed was in the way of you doing other things but nothing physically happened.

so yes, chess is a great thinking game that will make your brain work again :)

I think that the best option is to not smoke marijuana. Not only is it completely stupid, but 2nd hand smoke is a serious problem in our society so it's unfair to them. Not to mention the industry that you were supporting.

The only person that I knew who admitted to smoking pot was a 2300+ player. So it won't do that much damage. Unfortuately he also smoked and died of lung cancer.

then this:

http://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-openings/boungcloud-attack?quote_id=1065601&page=1

simple solution. legalize it (like in the netherlands) and the government can tax it.

Congratulations. You just switched from a relatively harmless habit, to a severely more addictive one, which most of the time doesn't even make you feel good. I say take the delta 9 and switch to bridge.

[EDIT] Should you choose to ignore my advice and quit your glorious habit, you may feel free to send the rest of your stash to me (address by asking). I'll even be willing to pay a reasonable price per gram and the shipping fee to Finland.

If you have an idea where you might have lost them, maybe I can come and help you find them. But you have to be close to the place you lost it.

Let me know and I will come.\

i have no problem playing chess while high and most of the time i play better on pot, just cause it gives u creativity and concentration on chess, fading everything else around u. Unless u r stoned and all u wanna do is eat. The reason ive started playing every day is cause it was so much fun to play while ure high.. and now im getting deeper and deeper into the world of chess, so its about to quit smoking ,cause i dont fink it would take me to GM level, no way :)

 Since you thought it an important enough reason to bump this year old thread (which you presumably found by typing "marijuana" into the search bar), perhaps you provide a concrete example of how smoking heightens your chess creativity?

You may be familiar with the term "proprioception"? It is defined as the sense of the body's orientation in space. One of the characteristics of neurological disorders affecting proprioception is the belief that there is no disorder. So it is that the drunk in the bar believes that he is the most articulate person in the room and is quite capable of driving when in fact his friends need to relieve him of his car keys. And so it is with potheads who believe they play better chess when they are high. Considering that you have lost 10/10 of your last online games, perhaps you should reconsider whether your mindset is properly oriented? I agree that quitting smoking would be a major step on your path to reaching the GM level. I well remember my first and last youthful encounter with pot: it left me with the sense that my thinking process was disturbed for a period of about 6 months.

@capnbrent: wow man first i would like to say i appreciate your honesty. i was an amateur boxer for several years and i remember how in my early twenties i was much sharper.  now that i am in my late 30's it seems like my mind is cloudy.  i think head shots have a negative effect on thinking skills down the line. so i am not a motta smoker but i think we share the same attribute.  may i suggest you drink some beers? i find that alcohol calms me down and a lot of my memtal clutter calms down and i think straighter i wish you the best my friend 

oh wow i see from reading this forum that it is 3 years old.  oh well