FIDE taking the piss?

[Ben Purton]

By this you mean my logic was he(Kevin) put all of them quoted in the reply..........

Keep up the good work though

[Rob Thompson]

he quoted the question... I believe this is common forum practise, you know.

[Ian Thompson]

I hope no one had any designs on being the first bodybuilding grandmaster.

Too late if they do - http://www.chessbase.com/images2/2002/boriskreiman1.jpg - GM Boris Kreiman

[Ben Purton]

1) Robert, "Er Yes" - he should have specified er Yes , otherwise he means all.

2) There is an IFBB pro who is like 2240 I believe. More impressive than Kreiman possibly.

3) There is little drug taking issues in chess. They should worry themselves about computer problems and get this 110% solved before they move on to this bigger pointless fish to fry.

[Rob Thompson]

i still fail to see the need for specifying when the answer given is a totally accurate answer to "are any of these drugs banned?"

[Anthony Taglione]

I guess you don't have a wife who loathes pedantry. Some of us were long ago weaned away from cursory applications of that variety of logic. Whilst being a wholly reasonable response, it failed to offer the degree of precision expected by the poser of the question. Clearly Ben could have been more precise in his question but is, perhaps, unaccustomed to dealing with mathematicians, programmers and sophists.

I've found, to my own occasional chagrin, that few consider "Yes" to be a valid answer to such questions as, "Shall we eat in or eat out tonight". Even amongst like-minded individuals, I've found that the pedantic application of this type of logic is typically less than well appreciated and often viewed as specious.

Maybe we could simply accept that there was a minor breakdown in communication which has now been resolved.

<-- Smiley to indicate light-hearted, tongue in cheek post

[Ben Purton]

First of all, the fact you have a wife and play chess makes you a rarity in chess so congratulations on such a feat. I would sense that most invisible readers of this former are envious. The fact is I want to know all these drugs are illegal or not illegal. My 2 chess teams in 4NCL do partake in alot of these or have done. If they introduced it wed have to withdraw because I cant be arsed with drug testing in chess.

[Anthony Taglione]

First of all, the fact you have a wife and play chess makes you a rarity in chess so congratulations on such a feat. I would sense that most invisible readers of this former are envious. The fact is I want to know all these drugs are illegal or not illegal. My 2 chess teams in 4NCL do partake in alot of these or have done. If they introduced it wed have to withdraw because I cant be arsed with drug testing in chess.

Banned or not...

Cocaine - only during competition
Weed - only during competition
meth - only during competition
E's - only during competition
Ketimine - only during competition
Magic Mushrooms - only during competition
All of the above, however, are illegal to possess under UK law. Note also that they might still be in the system even if not taken for a while prior to play.

T-Bols - as in oral turinabol (chlorodehydromethyltestosterone) a steroid? - yes
Tribulas X200 - no
B-bols - I don't know what B-Bols are. If you meant Dbols then yes they're banned along with all other anabolic steroids.
'longjacks' - Eurycoma, Tongkat Ali? - no

Note that I was wrong in an earlier post to have suggested that ginseng and its ilk are banned. They aren't.

[Ben Purton]

How do you know so much about steroids?? Is the interesting question here.

But surely these drugs in chess.....

[Ben Purton]

I have only ever taken longjack on the list. When i played american football in undergrad

[Anthony Taglione]

Maybe I'm a bio-chemist. How might you know about IFBB pros?

I agree...

[Ben Purton]

My cousin mainly, he is friends with a few and talks about them in the gym

Like Arnie and Franco clombo use to play chess before Olympia's etc etc.

[Anthony Taglione]

They were famous for it, weren't they?

Many's the time that Franco would say, "C'mon Arnie, we should be down at the gym." only to be told, "Shut it, patzer. Your move. My kingside pawn rush is even more intimidating than my side double-biceps in this position."

[Stewart Reuben]

I do not have time to read the whole thread or the new regulations But:
are you aware that Dr Jana Bellin is Chairman of the Medical Commission and Jon Speelman also a member that commission? England are thus rather well-represented.

FIDE are referring only to the official FIDE events plaus Continental events. Averything else is a private event, such as the London Chess Classic or 4NCL. Non-FIDE Rated events can use their own regulations as with that pesky mobile phone rule.

Chess is recognised by the IOC as a sport. It is unlikely to become part of the Olympic Games due to logistics of too many sports. FIDE are quite correct that certain federations have gained from the IOC recognising chess as a sport. FIDE would love the 6 British Isles federations to get recognition. This might have a domino effect

WADA has two objectives. 1. Players should not take drugs they perceive to be perfomance enhancing. 2. Certain drugs damage people's health.

One well-known very honourable GM stopped taking a partiular drug that he had been prescribed because, at the time, the drug was on the WADA list. Failure to take this drug permanently damaged his health and he no longer plays chess. This was before Jana became the Chairman.

As far as I know only one player has been penalised as a chessplayer. This was a random player in the Olympiad being requested to provide a sample. He refused as a point of principal. He asked me my opinion and I said I thought his decision was foolish. He was banned from FIDE events for a year.

Players over 60 on exempted from WADA Rules. (Phew! I might well fail.)

Stewart Reuben

[Alex Holowczak]

are you aware that Dr Jana Bellin is Chairman of the Medical Commission

She works in intensive care at a hospital just up the road from me, which means she's obviously well qualified for this job. Since she works in the medical profession on a day-to-day basis, perhaps she knows something we don't about whether the drugs on the WADA list can be performance enhancing in chess.

I lost to her son in a school match once, long before the name "Bellin" meant anything to me. Knowing now that his mother is a WGM makes me feel much better about that result.