Hello and welcome to this week’s edition of The Chess Doctor Is In. I’m back again to answer all of your chess related questions- no question is a bad question! How to improve, rules you’re uncertain about, etc.
Let’s get to this week’s question, coming as usual from an anonymous email submission:
Dear Chess Doctor:
I have a major problem that I need help solving … and it’s not a chess position.
I recently had a large jump in rating of about 200 points. Before this increase I mostly found myself playing local tournaments and having pretty short games: at most 2-2.5 hours. And while in the one big local tournament I played every year I had some stamina issues due to the longer time controls at that time it wasn’t really impeding my progress.
So, increase in rating, seems good right? Well, after my recent increase, to find better competition I’ve found myself having to venture to more tournaments out of my home state, and larger tournaments as well. My past few tournaments the majority of my games have lasted in excess of 3 hours and every once in a while breaking 4 hours! With this sharp change my stamina has gone downhill, and I find myself blundering at the end of these 3-4 hour sessions, and costing myself many games I could have won or drawn otherwise.
So, my question is: how does one go about increasing their stamina?
Great question! To my knowledge this is a problem that has plagued almost every serious chess player at some point or another in their career. There are many different answers, but in general it’s different for everybody.
One possible fix is to bring some kind of snack or drink in to the game to give you a boost. At the 2019 U.S. chess Championships I noticed Varuzhan Akobian had brought some chocolate in to snack on for extra energy. I personally prefer to stay away from an unnatural sugar high (I prefer some type of meat for a protein boost), but again that may work better for you than for me.
As some of my friends (and enemies, too, for that matter!) may have noticed, I prefer to bring a type of juice to sip on during the game. I’m not going to reveal what it is (I can’t give away all my secrets!), but needless to say some type of natural fruit juice could give you that extra boost at the end of a 4 hour session.
Alongside this there is also something to be said for getting plenty of exercise. As the well known GM Paul Keres remarked when queried what a chess player must have in order to succeed: “He must be able to sit in a chair and play for five hours.” If you are physically fit then of course you will have more energy naturally than someone who isn’t.
There are also some ways to relax before the game that could help you stay focused. For instance, in the World chess championship tournament of 1948, eventual winner Mikhail Botvinnik objected to staying in the same hotel as the other participants. He wanted a hotel that was within twenty minutes of the playing site… because he would always walk to his games to release some tension.
Anyway, all of this is just based on my personal experience and some research I’ve done. I can’t tell you for sure that these methods will work without a doubt. You just have to experiment and see what works best for you. I hope I gave you a solid beginning of things to try, and good luck!
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