On Nov 2, 6:53 am, " wrote:

The USA women's team silver medalist Susan Polgar also earned a gold
medal for the best individual result on board one. New York State
Governor Pataki with Kasparov in the center gave her a plaque.
Hungary's Polgar led the USA women's team to a silver medal behind
China but ahead of Russia among 87 nations. After the last game she
was singled out for a degrading urine test even though no known drug
has ever enhanced chess performance.

That's quite a claim, there. To my knowledge (and I
expect, to the knowledge of everyone else) there is no
evidence whatever to support such a reckless claim.


The Polgar sisters, who are Jewish, have long been a thorn in the side
of FIDE, which is clearly an anti-Semitic organization. For an account
of how every woman in the world except Susan Polgar got 100 free
rating points, see "Rigging Ratings." This scandal took place at the
Chess Olympiad in the United Arab Emirates in 1986 where a team from
Israel was banned.

Incoherent argument. If "every woman in the world"
except Susan Polgar was awarded 100 rating points,
that would mean that two-out-of-three of the Polgar
sisters got 100 free rating points; that hardly argues
for an anti-Jewish bias in FIDE, but it does show how
ratings can be manipulated, just as they were in the
USCF (it is possible that the intended victim in that
case was in fact Jewish -- I don't know).


In 2004 Susan led the USA women's team to a silver medal. She was the
individual high-scorer on board one, and then was singled out for a
humiliating "random" dope test, which she dared not refuse on pain of
having her team's result erased. Thus FIDE made the USCF eat crow for
publicly taking a stand against dope testing.

A good journalist would investigate the methodology
of the "random" drug tests; show that they are perhaps
not random at all, but ordered by some honcho within
FIDE. Too bad we don't have one of those guys handy.


Here are a few ideas on drugs to enhance chess play:

1) cocaine

2) caffeine

3) "Focus Factor"

4) multivitamins


Many times I have heard some commercial or read
somewhere an ad proclaiming a certain drug, herb, or
vitamin will enhance mental acuity, but by and large
about half of such claims turn out to be unsupported
by facts, while others are simply exaggerations of a
very real potential effect.

Let's skip over cocaine for a moment, and look at
Focus Factor; advertisements have offered a money
back guarantee if this combination of whatever it is
fails to have a beneficial effect, and that's a bit
unusual since a lot of folks will try and get their
money back regardless, and that's expensive.

Caffeine can cause premature mental burnout if
not utilized carefully, but there can be no doubt as
to its efficacy in aiding mental alertness -- for a
while anyway.

Multivitamins largely remedy deficiencies of
legitimately-needed chemicals, but this nevertheless
can help in cases where any are in short supply.

My guess is that cocaine, *if* detectable apart from
other similar drugs, could be banned outright. But
with caffeine -- a legal drug -- a fairly high limit
would need to be set so that everyone is on a level
playing field. That, or allow unlimited doses, and
see what happens to the slow thinkers. I think the
others I mentioned are complex combinations of
things, and as such it may be impractical to try and
regulate them, even assuming that is a good idea.
No doubt many more chemicals or drugs or herbs
could be added to this list.

I think it is fairly likely that those who are obsessed
with this issue are so on account of another drug --
marijuana -- which is not even relevant here (unless I
am mistaken). I seriously doubt that use of marijuana
is the target of such testing, since it likely has a
*detrimental* effect on chess play. So you guys can
relax. But remember that you are still polluting your
lungs with smoke -- even if there is no nicotine in it.
This also explains a lot as far as the incoherence of
certain of your arguments... .


-- help bot