Current Events > High level chess players lose a lot of weight playing in tournaments

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://www.espn.com/espn/story/_/id/27593253/why-grandmasters-magnus-carlsen-fabiano-caruana-lose-weight-playing-chess

IT SEEMS ABSURD. How could two humans -- seated for hours, exerting themselves in no greater manner than intermittently extending their arms a foot at a time -- face physical demands?

Still, the evidence overwhelms.

The 1984 World Chess Championship was called off after five months and 48 games because defending champion Anatoly Karpov had lost 22 pounds. "He looked like death," grandmaster and commentator Maurice Ashley recalls.

In 2004, winner Rustam Kasimdzhanov walked away from the six-game world championship having lost 17 pounds. In October 2018, Polar, a U.S.-based company that tracks heart rates, monitored chess players during a tournament and found that 21-year-old Russian grandmaster Mikhail Antipov had burned 560 calories in two hours of sitting and playing chess -- or roughly what Roger Federer would burn in an hour of singles tennis.

Robert Sapolsky, who studies stress in primates at Stanford University, says a chess player can burn up to 6,000 calories a day while playing in a tournament, three times what an average person consumes in a day. Based on breathing rates (which triple during competition), blood pressure (which elevates) and muscle contractions before, during and after major tournaments, Sapolsky suggests that grandmasters' stress responses to chess are on par with what elite athletes experience.

"Grandmasters sustain elevated blood pressure for hours in the range found in competitive marathon runners," Sapolsky says.

It all combines to produce an average weight loss of 2 pounds a day, or about 10-12 pounds over the course of a 10-day tournament in which each grandmaster might play five or six times. The effect can be off-putting to the players themselves, even if it's expected. Caruana, whose base weight is 135 pounds, drops to 120 to 125 pounds. "Sometimes I've weighed myself after tournaments and I've seen the scale drop below 120," he says, "and that's when I get mildly scared."

Wild
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That's fucking nuts. I wonder if the same thing occurs in esports

Holy shit, I can exercise playing chess
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ProbablyaCat posted...

That's fucking nuts. I wonder if the same thing occurs in esports

Seems like a reasonable assumption; I'd be curious to see data
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PatrickMahomes posted...

Holy shit, I can exercise playing chess

No, only good chess players can.

ProbablyaCat posted...

PatrickMahomes posted...

Holy shit, I can exercise playing chess

No, only good chess players can.

What makes you think I'm not?
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Your posting history doesnt speak to high intelligence, for one
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they use so much of their brain power the calories just burn.

like a bugatti going full speed watching its gas tank empty
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0AbsoluteZero0 posted...

Your posting history doesnt speak to high intelligence, for one

Would you please leave me alone? Between here and the topic about my girlfriend, I'm having a hard time wondering why you keep attacking me in such an unwarranted fashion.
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ProbablyaCat posted...

That's fucking nuts. I wonder if the same thing occurs in esports

I wanna say it could be possible if they don't slam down energy drinks and junk food and stuff for energy or to help them focus or whatever or something
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The amount of thought and stress is probably much higher for chess players than gamers even on a highly competitive level.

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tote_all posted...

Now this is a sad poster.

Hey Zero is a GREAT poster

You can go shut the fuck up

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Did we really have to be mean to each other in topic about chess.. come on guys.

Also the topic. I wonder how much average players lose. I was just in topic about no being able to lose weight .Maybe getting beat at chess by some Russian could help me .
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cjsdowg posted...

Did we really have to be mean to each other in topic about chess.. come on guys.

Also the topic. I wonder how much average players lose. I was just in topic about no being able to lose weight .Maybe getting beat at chess by some Russian could help me .

The voice of reason tbh.

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cjsdowg posted...

Did we really have to be mean to each other in topic about chess.. come on guys.

Also the topic. I wonder how much average players lose. I was just in topic about no being able to lose weight .Maybe getting beat at chess by some Russian could help me .

its absolutezero. did you expect valid posts from him?
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"Grandmasters in competition are subjected to a constant torrent of mental stress. That stress, in turn, causes their heart rates to increase, which, in turn, forces their bodies to produce more energy to, in turn, produce more oxygen. It is, according to Marcus Raichle, a neurologist at Washington University in St. Louis, and Philip Cryer, a metabolism expert at the school, a vicious, destructive cycle.
Meanwhile, players also eat less during tournaments, simply because they don't have the time or the appetite. "The simple explanation is when they're thinking about chess, they're not thinking about food," says Ewan C. McNay, assistant professor of psychology in the behavioral neuroscience program at the University of Albany."

There we go boys, case closed. Unless they're doing CO2 measurements on these guys playing these calories burned numbers are pure bullshit. It's not hcess doing it to them, it's them not eating and some stress.

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McgeesAlice808 posted...

Rainbow_Dashing posted...

"Grandmasters in competition are subjected to a constant torrent of mental stress. That stress, in turn, causes their heart rates to increase, which, in turn, forces their bodies to produce more energy to, in turn, produce more oxygen. It is, according to Marcus Raichle, a neurologist at Washington University in St. Louis, and Philip Cryer, a metabolism expert at the school, a vicious, destructive cycle.
Meanwhile, players also eat less during tournaments, simply because they don't have the time or the appetite. "The simple explanation is when they're thinking about chess, they're not thinking about food," says Ewan C. McNay, assistant professor of psychology in the behavioral neuroscience program at the University of Albany."

There we go boys, case closed. Unless they're doing CO2 measurements on these guys playing these calories burned numbers are pure bullshit. It's not hcess doing it to them, it's them not eating and some stress.

Yeah, seems to be the type of losing weight as serious fasting. Not very healthy.
However it does make

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-qSlXLPlkg" data-time="
More realistic than I thought.

N-Nani!?!? That weight loss...

Chess as PHYSICALLY demanding as "real" sports confirmed

Yep, stress will either make you lose weight or gain a lot of weight because you're always hungry and your brain reaches for junk food.

burns112233 posted...

Yep, stress will either make you lose weight or gain a lot of weight because you're always hungry and your brain reaches for junk food.

When you start eating captured chess pieces, it's time to take a break.

Why they keep asking for the check if they don't eat anything?

I remember hearing from a professor that physical activity is only a small part of our calorie consumption, and that mental energy is a bigger component
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How does a chess championship last 5 months?
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It's not uncommon for me to lose 10 lbs during the second draft of a longer project.
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DeadBankerDream posted...

How does a chess championship last 5 months?

They play the first to six wins, but there were dozens of draws.

Do chess players get tested for drugs? Makes you wonder if they're doping on something to keep max focus.

But if it's all natural that's pretty neat. I wonder if poker players get the same effects when they have week long tourneys.
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