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New Study Finds Performance-Enhancing Drugs for Chess

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Re: New Study Finds Performance-Enhancing Drugs for Chess

#21

Post by RangerScience »

SeanLuke wrote: post #17
cven714 wrote: post #3

The study was done with rapid games, against computers, where they discarded human losses on time. Not very confident in those results. But hopefully the researcher gets the chance to try and reproduce and use classical time controls, and human vs. human opponents.

> where they discarded human losses on time. This stinks of p-value hunting. I can only imagine the study went like this. They did all these tests and then found that there were no statistically significant improvements after using these drugs. So they said to themselves, how can we tweak the parameters so as to get something publishable? Sure, let's eliminate an entire class of games where our control group does bet…

> else we'd all spend five hours on each move. Chess is about bounded rationality

Without any other tools (as in, pencil and paper to note conclusions), do you really think you could make a more effective move given five hours?

I mean - if the conclusion of the study is actually that use of drugs gave players a larger personal time bounds within which to think up a move, that's still significant.

I don't know about you, but my #1 blocker for productivity is how long I can actually concentrate on something. If a drug lets me focus for 10% longer, even if it doesn't improve my capabilities while focusing, that's still huge.

Edit: But you're not wrong, it does stink of p-value hunting. On the other hand, if your experiment is expecting one correlation, and instead you find another... then the p-value hunting was the correct move...?

Re: New Study Finds Performance-Enhancing Drugs for Chess

#22

Post by John23832 »

mistercow wrote: post #10
_rpd wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the context of formal tournaments, people would likely be more accepting if there were separate competition classes.

That would be a huge step in the right direction. I actually think we should do the same thing for athletic competitions.

I get what you're saying, but people would still use performance enhancers in the "clean" classes.

People cheat for the sake of winning.

Re: New Study Finds Performance-Enhancing Drugs for Chess

#23

Post by artursapek »

aantix wrote: post #13

I've been taking 400mg of Magnesium Glycinate two times a day along with 200mg of Theanine (also twice a day) with my usual two cups of coffee. I feel fantastically focused without the jittery edge that accompanies caffeine alone.

Do you worry about becoming dependent on that?

Re: New Study Finds Performance-Enhancing Drugs for Chess

#24

Post by gburt »

tedsanders wrote: post #15

Does this study actually provide strong evidence for performance enhancement? Folks who took the drugs took longer to play their moves. They lost more games on time, but ignoring those games, their play was better and they consequently won more games. But imagine an alternate study where players were given the instructions to take more time on their moves. In this study, they would have lost more games on time, but w…

For myself, I usually find that at some point (sometimes quite early) I find no gain in moving along the time-quality frontier.

Specifically, I find that an extra unit of time would seem to provide no change in quality. I think this might imply that I've "maxed out" and any need to move along the frontier would need to be met with a requisite increase in ability.

Re: New Study Finds Performance-Enhancing Drugs for Chess

#25

Post by metaxy2 »

SeanLuke wrote: post #17
cven714 wrote: post #3

The study was done with rapid games, against computers, where they discarded human losses on time. Not very confident in those results. But hopefully the researcher gets the chance to try and reproduce and use classical time controls, and human vs. human opponents.

> where they discarded human losses on time. This stinks of p-value hunting. I can only imagine the study went like this. They did all these tests and then found that there were no statistically significant improvements after using these drugs. So they said to themselves, how can we tweak the parameters so as to get something publishable? Sure, let's eliminate an entire class of games where our control group does bet…

Moreover, this is a classic side effect of stimulants, at least anecdotally (not sure what the literature says). You can get hyper-focused on one task or sub-task and lose track of your overall priorities. Although I imagine regular stimulant users learn to compensate for this.

Re: New Study Finds Performance-Enhancing Drugs for Chess

#26

Post by beefman »

To actually demonstrate this, same-individual comparisons with and without the drug (on different days) should be made using IPRs.[1] I expect enhancement may be seen in novice players but not in players with a stable Elo rating.

[1] https://rjlipton.wordpress.com/2016/12/08/magnus-and-the-tur...

Re: New Study Finds Performance-Enhancing Drugs for Chess

#27

Post by _yosefk »

mistercow wrote: post #2

Transhumanism sure has a long road ahead as far as people's attitudes toward self-enhancement.

I think the attitude toward "self-enhancement" using mind-altering substances reflects the suspicion that it really isn't, meaning that the side effects are not worth the positive effects. People have very positive attitudes towards "self-enhancement" through various life-saving surgeries as they don't doubt that being alive a few more years is better than dying from a curable disease in the next few weeks.

I'm sure that a mind-altering substance the users of which appear to experience no negative effects and major improvements in their functioning will be met with applause by most people. At the moment however there are plenty of drug users for any value of "drug" that I know who do not serve as a great advertisement for that drug.

Re: New Study Finds Performance-Enhancing Drugs for Chess

#28

Post by towaway »

Hah. Oddly enough this tallies with my experience - about 5 years ago I ended up buying a box of modafinil and took them periodically before work. Someone asked me about what I thought of them and I reflected that I wasn't sure if it helped my work or not but that it meant I could beat my phone Chess app on a harder difficult setting than usual when I played on the way to work.

Re: New Study Finds Performance-Enhancing Drugs for Chess

#29

Post by metaxy2 »

RangerScience wrote: post #21
SeanLuke wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> where they discarded human losses on time. This stinks of p-value hunting. I can only imagine the study went like this. They did all these tests and then found that there were no statistically significant improvements after using these drugs. So they said to themselves, how can we tweak the parameters so as to get something publishable? Sure, let's eliminate an entire class of games where our control group does bet…

> else we'd all spend five hours on each move. Chess is about bounded rationality Without any other tools (as in, pencil and paper to note conclusions), do you really think you could make a more effective move given five hours? I mean - if the conclusion of the study is actually that use of drugs gave players a larger personal time bounds within which to think up a move, that's still significant. I don't know about y…

There are certainly players who could make a much better move given five hours in a highly complex position (not every move--you'd be hitting sleep deprivation by move 3!). It's not unheard of for grandmasters to spend an hour of clock time on one move, and I bet you money that same player would sometimes go to 2 or 3 hours if they weren't on the clock.

As to visualization without pen and paper, the best blindfold players can keep track of a whole board in their mind, and explore variations deeply without losing track of the current state of the board or forgetting about the key variations they found along the way.

It sounds like you're into chess more than me, so I'm sure you know most of this stuff, I'm just noting it for other people in the thread.

Re: New Study Finds Performance-Enhancing Drugs for Chess

#30

Post by jlittel »

cven714 wrote: post #3

The study was done with rapid games, against computers, where they discarded human losses on time. Not very confident in those results. But hopefully the researcher gets the chance to try and reproduce and use classical time controls, and human vs. human opponents.

Discarding losses on time could plausibly be the bulk of the effect.

I can improve my chess rating in short time controls by a good 50+ points just by reminding myself to move quickly.

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