As I just reported, the chess’s world governing body (FIDE) will introduce dope testing at the Asian Games this week, although the sport’s top official in Doha said he had no idea how drugs could enhance chess performance.
Do you think drug testing in chess in needed?
Are you for or against drug testing in chess?
Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
Drug testing chess players is just plain stupid.
-NM Seth Homa
Its nonsense.
Nobody is worried about it, its just a waste of money and a breach of privacy.
If Chess wants to be taken seriously as a sport, and hopefully gain more media coverage and sponsorship – then it makes sense to take measures to prevent cheating, and to be seen to be taking those measures.
Maybe a multitude of “toilet breaks” during a game will become the norm.
🙂
Computer/Electronics testing yes.
Drug testing NO.
Drug testing is expensive and pointless. The IOC has made it perfectly clear that chess and other ‘mind sports’ have a 0% possibility of getting into the olympics. If you ask potential sponsors or promotional organisations why chess isn’t getting more recognition there will not be one that answers drug testing is an issue.
It is important however to ensure that computer cheating is not possible and ensure that there are no unfounded accusations, which reflect badly on all players and the game itself.
As Susan has said, there are no drugs that could potentially help in chess. Chess professionals are not as well paid as professionals in other sports, often they cannot afford to have a sports doctor who can tell them which cold and flu medicines are approved etc. It is also VERY BAD for chess to take money out of prize funds and national federations to give to drugs labs.
Testing is needed.
But I would be quite confortable in my games
if my opponents took just anything listed in this paper;
http://www.wada-ama.org/rtecontent/document/2007_List_En.pdf
exept from the substances mentioned in section 6.
Hi bob hu
I accept some of the points you make. But I am not sure that drug testing is about finance, don’t forget that some sports players in the Olympics are paid even less than top professional chess players.
It is about future protecting the credibility of Chess, I know nothing about pharmaceuticals and it may be true that there are no chess performance enhancing drugs – but you can rest assured that someone will develop one, sooner rather than later.
To get a code of practice in place seems sensible, even if it looks a little heavy handed
Drug testing in chess is just silly and expensive posturing. “Hey look, we make our competitors pee in a cup!” Is there ANY evidence that players are using drugs to cheat?
Instead of this nonsense, why don’t these people devote their time and money to tackling the real problems?
Drug testing was used to intimidate Topalov in the match against Kramnik. Those are very familiar KGB methods. Read and educate yourself:
Silvio Danailov:
I was Offered a Bribe in Elista
by Maria Dimitrova
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Standart
http://www.standartnews.com/
en/article.php?d=2006-11-21&article=1923
– You and two other Bulgarians along with Panagiotis Nikolopoulos, deputy referee of the match, and Valery Bovaev, Chairman of the Organization Committee, signed the protocol in which the presence of an Internet connection cable in Kramnik’s bathroom was stated. Did somebody else know about the cable?
– Of Course. FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov and local people also knew about that. One of these local people was responsible for the technical support. He was very nervous and all the time was shouting: “I received permission to install these cable from a very high place!”
– We were informed you did not tell anybody about the cable because you had received some serious threats.
– Yes I was threatened. But there was also another problem – they did not allow the Bulgarian airplane to land in Kalmykia. This was a serious issue. During the tiebreak I had to beg Ilyumzhinov for a landing clearance. The thing, which I was the most afraid of, was the doping test.
It was sent to a lab in Moscow, which was said to have been licensed by the IOC, but I did not believe that. They could have said at any time that Topalov’s test was positive; and if they had done so, I wouldn’t have been able to do anything before I had received the results.
Strangely enough, just before the beginning of the tiebreak the referee said there would be a second doping test after the end of the match. This was a precedent in the history of sports. When Kramnik won, the doping test was canceled. In other words, if Topalov had won the match, they would have tested him for doping.
– You wanted to prove that Kramnik was getting help from outside, but you kept silence when they found the cable. Why didn’t you speak?
– Had I told anybody about that, the scandal would have grown political and the match would have been stopped. Now, it is easy to speak from the distance of time, but there I was in fear for my life. They came to me and said: “Be careful! You will have problems!”
– Were these threats addressed to you?
– They also told us: “The police will search your house and your baggage.”
Once they get in they could leave there whatever you can think of – drugs and everything. The situation was about to get out of control. Our life turned into a nightmare.
– Did they offer you money?
– They offered me money to continue the match when the score was 3-1 for Kramnik. The sum was quite substantial. They wanted to make us give up the victory in game five, however I was not offered money for the cable.
– Who is interested in disclosing the cable’s secret?
– The people from the Appellate Committee, who took the right decision on the bathroom scandal after watching the video records for nine hours. Ilyumzhinov first supported them and after that dismissed them. They are deputy Presidents of FIDE and now there is a campaign against them. They are interested in proving they were right.
– What happened with the cable?
– You’d better ask yourself what an Internet cable is doing in a toilet. There is no other bathroom in the world connected to the Internet. And this explains why Kramnik visited it about fifty times during each game. It is inadmissible that a sports event of such a high rank was decided through political pressure and brutal force.
I support the move for drug testing at international sport events not because our chess players may need performance-enhancing drugs but because this is the required regulations if we want to be taken seriously and accepted on equal terms with other sports.
Don’t be so myopic over the matter. It is not a breach of privacy; if it is, then it is an even worse abuse of privacy where other games are concerned – and they are not complaining. Why should we?
I’m quite surprised by some of the comments I read.
Some time ago ‘Cafeine’ (don’t know in English) was rigthly considered a drug. Strangely for it clearly influence concentration, awarness, it’s been removed very recently from the list. Guess what ? Since then lots of athletes clearly state they use they use it (equivalent to 20 cups of coffee). I take this example for i am quite sure some players could have been – rightly – tested positive some time ago. Then there is a very strange thing with FIDE. Who can tell me why FIDE has just decided to take ‘betabloquant ‘ (sorry again, these are drugs which slow down the heart) off the list ?????? This is precisely one could expect to find in a cheating chessplayer.
I’m afraid like in any other competition which involve money, we cannot consider ourselves protected from that. So yes we must apply drug testing in chess.
Of course drugs can be used in Chess!!
(beta-blockers eg) And there’s many more possible drugs, like concentration enhancing,…etc
Testing is only normal, like in other topsports! Of course not at clublevel, but at worldclass level, yes!
Drug testing is useless: all the athlete are tacking drugs for years, but only a few were caught red handed!
In tennis, they all are not beoynd any doubt, and some of the great refused to have drug tests!
Why not giving an alcohol test to supporters in the stadium too? ;o)
Exclude first all the bad drug. What I am talking about are drugs without big side effect.
The important thing is what we eat did not have any withdrawal and dependence side effect.
I should confess, I use drug (Ginko Billoba) for my chess perfomance. You can see my chart in Playchess.com it gets higher about 200 rating if I use the drug. But it still need HARD WORKING and learning!
The drugs only increasing blood supplies to your brain! Your artery dilates.
But brain or memory enhancement also can be find in baby’s milk formula! DHA, linoleat acid.
Have you ever drink coffee to get you alert? That is Brain enhancer. Besides that many vegetables and food also act as brain enhancer, so should we stop eating that too.
Even carbohydrate (bread, rice, potato) is brain enhancer because it gives you more energy through blood to think. Try to play chess without eating for a day, it will decrease your rating also. Should we stop eating that also?
So it is part of our lives. No need to measure it. It still depends on your knowledge, work hard (training), nerves, passion, environment, genetics. The drug just help a little bit, It won’t make you an instance Grandmaster, it just make you better in your own best performance without big side effects (since no drug without side effects even in theurapetic dose).
This is not something that is proposed by the chess players,
but by those who govern over us
even though they haven’t been elected by us. We don’t want it yet we can’t seem to stop it.
What happens if some chess players are tested positive on drugs use? They face punishments even though their opponents don’t care about the drug use.
This is clearly an unwanted situation involving unneeded and damaging intrusion into people’s lives.
Help stop this! Say no to drug testing! Say no to corrupt dictatorial chess organizations!
Has there been a problem with drug use in chess tournaments sofar? No there hasn’t. So why would players need to be subjected to drug testing? Because the FIDE wants to comply with other organizations. Do we care about that? No we don’t. Does FIDE listen to us? Of course not. Drug testing in chess is complete idiocy. Why don’t we install idiot testing in chess organizations? Too many positives.
I heard world chess champion Alexander Alekine cheated by taken enhancing performacing drugs he like to eat sugar or sweets :-)) to boost his mental prowess. Then again a lot of ex smokers are oral takers. As soon as Fide discovers this medical wonder drug I am sure like smoking another drug to steady the nerves and give players better concentration they will ban it. Only mineral water will be alllowed in future tournaments. There has been controversy over yoghurt but could not prove it was yoghurt in the KArpov world chess championship.
The real reason they want this boad game in the real Olympics you know the one where they hand out gold medals in track and field, gymnastics, weight lifting etc. The need to prove to the governing Olympic body that chess is a clean sport to be allow in.
Hey Anon about toiletgate it should have beed called an*l gate. Kramnik was never physically seached orally or in the rectum for any conceal computer devices that he would have needed with his Internet cable installed in his toilet. He should have been x-rayed before and after each game of chess so no hidden device was concealed inside his body. It all makes sense now when he needed his micro computer to do the processing and using the internet cable in the toilet. I have never read so much shite in my life. The conspiracy theorists have not mention Kramnik doing voodoo yet or Topalov taken ill by some ailment. I am waiting for the UFO reports next and the hidden listening devices etc.
I am completely against it. Reasons:
1. Chess is not know to have drug problems. The entire doping issue stemmed from the East Germans and Soviets feeding tons of anabolic steroids to their olympic athletes, achieving some substantial results from it.
2. Chess is two person’s mind against each other. If one thinks that he/she can perform better being skunk drunk, or drinking five cup of coffee, or ingest anything otherwise not illegal chemical, it should be his/her right to do so, as long as doesn’t bother the other.
3. The current “doping standard” is about control, not about fair competition. Human control, political control, control in general. To realize that, all one has to do is to look at the list of banned substances. It is insane. I can’t prove this, one must have the knowledge of various chemicals to really grasp how insane it is.
4. The current “doping standard” is about control, not about fair competition. Human control, political control. Yes, the same starting sentence. Look what happened with Lance Armstrong. The french don’t like americans a whole lot, that is not a secret. The Tour de France was wan five times by several racers before. But not six times and definitely not seven times. When Armstrong won the seventh Tour, the french went crazy. And that is when the 1999 test (!) became an issue. Obviously the french couldn’t come up with anything better, than drag out a six years old urine specimen and keep poking it until “presto, magic” found something in it. What was the goal? Fair competition? How? Years before? What did they expect?
Obviously it was a political issue, they tried their bloody best to somehow decrease Armstrong’s spectacular achievement. That’s what the doping control is really all about.
5. Labs, employees of labs can be bribed, coerced, threatened. How about that A sample and B sample. Okay, so if the B sample clean, the accused goes clear. But hey, how was it different in the first place? Did anyone hear about punishing a lab for changing one specimen? Did anyone hear about going after those who are responsible for a different A sample and B sample? When the A sample is different from the B sample, one was TAINTED! It has to be this way, because they come from the same urine container.
6. An 18 years old sprinter may not need a lot of medication what a 30 some years old chess player may need. For example, beta blockers are on the banned list. Many blood pressure problem, heart problem requires beta blockers. Does doping control mean that certain chess players must retire, because they have a blood pressure problem? How ridiculous is that? Many other banned substances are real and needed medications.
7. Finally, imagine what will happen with chess, if after a world championship match the winner tests positive for some arcane banned chemical? Will they take away the title from the winner and give it to the loser? Just how long will the unified title will last? It won’t be only two “world champions”, but a whole bunch.
The above list is only the tip of the iceberg. The chess players should simply refuse. All of them.
Gabor
doping is not the same as drugs.
Doping consists of saving your blood and adding it back into your body before an event
>>Hey Anon about toiletgate it should have beed called an*l gate.
Call it however you like but this doesn’t make it less true.
Toilet-Gade-Affair the second?
Toilet-Gate-Affair the second?
TOTALLY AGAINST DRUG TESTING
I like to snort some cocaine before each match & I think thats my choice. Its not like the stuff helps me play better. Its strictly for recreational purpose.
If chess wants to be considered a ‘sport’ for olympic purposes it has to play the same game, and that includes drug testing to prevent Ben Johnson from from mating in 9.23 metres 🙂
But is this a good direction for chess to be in? Seems to me it goes down that long silly argument about ‘ what is a sport?’ and what defines a sport. Should chess get into the olympics next time and Women’s ski jumping (just as an example) fail to become an olympic sport will this do any good for chess?
I think not.
As we saw with ToiletGate, chess has its fair share of posturing and political nonsense already. Do we really want to see that added to the Olympic mix? would it solve our problems? I think it would turn chess into a minor laughingstock on the olympic field. At least now chess is in a field of its own when people are laughing at the antics.
Just my opinion
Disclaimer: no propranolol or nitrous oxide was taken prior to the writing of this post. caffeine did not exceed 90 mg for the day preceding.
The Olympic arguemnt given by the anonymous poster above is understandable in its context, but that doesn’t mean testing chess players for drugs makes any sense in and of itself.
A chess player is advised to work out, but that isn’t in order to be physically stronger than one’s opponent; it is simply to keep one’s blood circulating and thoughts clear.
I know of no performance-enhancing drug that would benefit a chess player the way some drugs give a short term edge to physical athletes. If a chess player is taking steroids, it’s because it’s in his asthma medication. If a chess player wants to stimulate his thought process, he’ll drink coffee.
>>Kramnik was never physically seached orally or in the rectum for any conceal computer devices that he would have needed with his Internet cable installed in his toilet. He should have been x-rayed before and after each game of chess so no hidden device was concealed inside his body.
So true this. Kramnik was never searched for a hidden device while Topalov was X-rayed with a mine detector. Fact.
Frankly I wish more of my opponents were on drugs.
The question of being for or against drug testing is not relevant .. if sponsors require drug testing to insure that the sporting events they invest in maintain a clean image, then professional chess players competing in those events will be tested!
Well i always play better chess right after I drink cat urine, do you think they will check for that?