The chess battle of the moment is Magnus Carlsen's fight to equal and surpass the established trio of Vishy Anand, Vlad Kramnik and Veselin Topalov who have held the world chess crown since 2005 but are all 15-20 years older than the 18-year-old Norwegian. Carlsen is consistently in the top five in the chess rankings and is virtually sure of a place in the next world title candidates event in 2010 or 2011. This year, too, he scored significant individual victories against Anand at Linares and against Topalov on the Bulgarian's home patch. Kramnik has proved tougher and has a large overall plus against the teenager. So last week, when Carlsen led Kramnik by half a point ...

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Every picture I see of him he is drinking Orange Juice. Maybe I should start drinking Orange Juice too...

There is a danger from drinking too much Orange Juice.
1. Drinking too much Orange Juice lowers your White Blood cell activity.
(See 1973 the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition-Study by A. Sanchez et al. "Role of sugars in human neutrophilic phagocytosis", November, 1180-1184, showing that ingesting 100 grams of simple sugar lowers white blood cell activity for up to five hours. He got this result using processed honey, table sugar, and processed orange juice. This translates into a 50% reduction in the ability of white blood cells to engulf bacteria.
November, 1180-1184.
"Lowered white blood cell activity means your immune system and it's ability to fight infection, is impaired".
2. Lowered white blood cell activity means your immune system and it's ability to fight infection, is impaired. (Online article) Fresh juice dangers | Woman's Passions
3. Kidney Disease: Orange Juice contains Potassium (usually a high level) and can cause problems if you have Kidney Disease.
4. When drinking Fresh Fruit and vegetable juice, - they complement each other: Fresh fruit and vegetable juices supplement each other in a great way. Fruit juices are richer in sugars and vitamins, vegetable - mineral salts.
5. In industrial production of orange juice fruits are placed in the machine entirely - with peel. Oranges are before processed by special enzymes, to get more juice. Orange peel contains substances-neurotoxins that are not helpful for a human (in the sense of power) - but they also get into the juice.

6. Back when Karpov was World Champion: Karpov would bring a yogurt cup to the chess table during a game. I started eating yogurt for the first time.

7. Lasker would smoke a cigar during a game. The lit cigar got into Nimzovitch's head.

An old wive tale of keeping a candle lit while studying. (Before electric lights were in place). The student not realizing that it was not the candle but the study time involved. Carlsen does not win because of OJ. The wins come from hard study, possibly good books, and a strong computer program.

And in case you are wondering, Botvinnik studied the game with a chess set in front of him and chess publications and book. It was known he used Reuben Fine's BCE, (Basic Chess Endings).

Fischer indicated that all of sudden he got good. He studied Russian publications (probably '64' and 'Chess in the USSR'). His teacher taught him to play 100 games each from the great masters.

In effect good study habits, not OJ, or for that matter yogurt will make you a better player.

Actually, there is something to be said about eating correctly.

Karpov's Yogurt: I think that's a bad idea. I've eaten during games, and after I do so my calculation gets very hazy. I assume it's due to digestion.

I've heard people say that you should have a small piece of candy with you to eat during the game. Small is an important word there. I believe Fischer was known to do this.

They also say that you should drink some water throughout the whole game, so as to keep you hydrated. And the occasional bathroom break this causes can help clear your mind.

I've also heard that about 2 hours into the game, drink some sort of fruit juice or orange juice. It helps your energy. Television commercials (a very reliable source) tell me that Minute Maid® is good for this.

Eating fish before your game is also very important. The Omega-3 vitamins (I believe it's 3) are supposed to help your brain function. But don't eat too much however, that will just hurt you, but so will eating too little. Eat until your 80% full. Don't eat right before your game, then your body is spending too much energy digesting the food. Eat about an hour (or an hour and a half) before the game.

The most important rule about food here is: Don't follow these rules if don't enjoy it! Going into a game extremely relaxed and in a pleasant mood is much better then going in "healthy" but psychologically bad. But then again the placebo effect of "this is supposed to make me play better" might help (or it might just make you too arrogant!).

However, everyone is different so you should try out what is right for you.


None of this will you make you play like a 2600, but the right eating procedure, exercise, sleeping patterns, chess study, combined with properly placed happiness and relaxation should help you play much better (the biggest flaw however is that you no longer have a scapegoat for when you lose, i.e. "I didn't get enough sleep!").