Some top chess players have a prolific game output, commuting from one chess event to the next with hardly a break. In the old times it was Savielly Tartakower, 40 years ago Bent Larsen and Ludek Pachman. England's first chess grandmaster Tony Miles would sometimes rush back from an international tournament to a UK weekend congress. You might call such players chess junkies, but that would be unfair as in most cases they perform at a high level with relatively few setbacks. The new century's non-stop competitor Ukraine's Vasily Ivanchuk has often been in the world top ten. In the past few months Ivanchuk, who turned 40 in March, suffered a form slump and ...

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