Answers.Body: <p>It is not prohibited would be the main answer.</p>
  
  <p>Caffeine was removed from the list, and moved to the WADA "watch list", so it is not currently banned. "Bupropion, caffeine, nicotine, phenylephrine, phenylpropanolamine, pipradrol, and synephrine: These substances are included in the 2019 Monitoring Program, and are not considered Prohibited Substances." (quote taken from both the 2019 and 2020 WADA prohibited list PDF document).</p>
  
  <p>"The legal limit under previous restrictions was 12 microgram/ml in urine, which is roughly equivalent to drinking 8 servings of espressos over the course of a few hours." (quote taken from nationalcoffee.blog)</p>
  
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2019-10-02T21:59:16.590Z
Answers.LastActivityDate: 2019-10-02T21:59:16.590Z
Answers.UserDisplayName: PhishMaster
Answers.Body: <p>Because nobody seriously considers it an advantage in chess. The WADA applies to sport, where caffeine can improve performance because it's a stimulant, thus improving physical performance. In chess, however, physical performance is meaningless, and no one has ever performed a test that proves caffeine leads to better chess (as opposed to, say, faster times in a race). Indeed, since one of its side-effects is an increase in impulsiveness, it could very well prove a <em>detriment</em> to playing better chess.</p>
  
  <p>I can see where it might yield a minor advantage in blitz, where fractions of a second in punching the clock would matter. But in normal tournaments, I'd wait until someone actually does some testing before worrying about <em>any</em> substance.</p>
  
  <p>OK, from the comments I see I need to add some details (in no particular order):</p>
  
  <p>Java language: was called Green or Oak for most of its development. Oak was already trademarked, so they couldn't use it. Kim Polese of Sun held a brainstorming session among the development team in which hundreds of names were tossed into the discussion (James Gosling said he thinks half the words in the dictionary were named at least once). No one has the definitive origin, everyone who was there tells a different story of how it started -- good luck separating truth from retcon on that. (In fact one origin story has the group handing off a set of names to Sun's Lawyers, and they picked the name. In any case, the relationship to coffee is barely mentioned in any of the stories.)</p>
  
  <p>Blitz phase: standard FIDE time controls have a 30-second increment, hardly necessitating fast clock punches.</p>
  
  <p>Caffeine on performance:</p>
  
  <p>Can we agree to draw a line between "physical performance" and "endurance?" The former (in chess context) is a measure of the ability to rapidly and assuredly and firmly move pieces, press clock buttons, etc. The latter relates to continuous activity. I thought that distinction was obvious; equally obviously it wasn't, given some of the comments. Again, my bad.</p>
  
  <p>Relative to endurance <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5752738/" rel="noreferrer">https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5752738/</a> is a paper that concludes, among other things, that while controlled caffeine dosages can have some effect, the dosage is idiosyncratic; pertinent quote from the abstract: "Contemporary evidence suggests current standardised guidelines are optimal for only a sub-set of the athlete population." They go on to say the effect depends upon many individual factors, which of course renders a one-size-fits-all test irrelevant. (It might be material here to note that the range they talk about as being effective equates to roughly 4-10 cups of coffee (3-9 cans of Red Bull) an hour before the game for a 100kg person. (The paper's highlighted range was 3-9mg/kg, rather an imprecise setting but there it is). Given, as I said, that caffeine is known to lead to impulsiveness, I think I'd be pleased that my opponent came to the board with, say, 8 cans in him. I'd probably pass him a couple more quite willingly.</p>
  
  <p>To my mind that paper is pretty strong. Higher doses than optimum give no additional benefit, and optimum doses for an individual are unknowable without doing a workup on the individual, so precisely what benefit does the testing provide?</p>
  
  <p>Of interest but perhaps limited relevance here is <a href="http://www.anusha.com/uscfdrug.htm" rel="noreferrer">http://www.anusha.com/uscfdrug.htm</a> (the USCF resolution on drug testing -- the tl;dr of it is "test if your national committees give you money, but stop thinking it's performance related, because it isn't")</p>
  
  <p>We have a nebulous (extremely wide range) dosage that may cause endurance benefits in some people. Which, to me, condenses into "We can't take this seriously without a lot more research."</p>
  
  <p>Caffeine is known to promote impulsive behavior, and risk-taking (a cambridge study links it with gambling addiction, brings a whole 'nother meaning to the phrase "coffeehouse chessplayer"). I'm not sure how you can translate that kind of effect into "improves chess play."</p>
  
  <p>But OK, maybe "nobody cares" might have been a bit over the top. My bad. I originally wrote "nobody who's familiar with testing methods and caffeine" (which, BTW, includes WADA, who specifically do <em>not</em> include it on their prohibited list) but decided the generalized version would keep me from having to write a dissertation about it. Looks like I was wrong.</p>
  
  <p>There are a lot of urban legends about caffeine and software (same with whisky, the phrase is "the Ballmer Peak" if you're interested). Doesn't make any of them true; a wise person views them all with skepticism.</p>
  
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2019-10-03T05:18:51.257Z
Answers.Text: [Chess is still a physical activity](https://www.espn.com/espn/story/_/id/27593253/why-grandmasters-magnus-carlsen-fabiano-caruana-lose-weight-playing-chess). Whether caffeine would give a real advantage I can't say.
Answers.UserDisplayName: curiousdannii
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2019-10-03T11:57:32.620Z
Answers.Text: "In chess, however, physical performance is meaningless", __you might wanna rethink that statement.__
Answers.UserDisplayName: WiseDev
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2019-10-03T12:37:38.380Z
Answers.Text: Even standard games do go into a blitz phase, where punching the clock faster matters.
Answers.UserDisplayName: Phemelo Khetho
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2019-10-03T14:04:10.057Z
Answers.Text: "In chess, however, physical performance is meaningless" Physical fitness is quite important to someone who wants to sit and concentrate hard on a single thing for 5 hours every day for several days. Also, performance enhancing drugs isn't just about physical strength. There are also calming agents (like beta blockers, which reduce pulse and tremors), banned primarily because of sports where precision is more important than strength, like shooting. But it's also not a stretch to think that they help in an important chess game.
Answers.UserDisplayName: Arthur
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2019-10-03T14:32:48.900Z
Answers.Text: If you don't think caffeine will improve cognitive performance, take a trip to any software company and observe how much caffeine the top performers riddle themselves with, day in, day out. This question shows no research effort, start by reading "The Caffeine Blues".
Answers.UserDisplayName: Cloud
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2019-10-03T19:52:55.853Z
Answers.Text: @BlueRineS "Meaningless" is an overstatement but compare playing chess on a board versus playing against your computer, compared to playing soccer outdoors versus playing FIFA on a computer. A quadriplegic can perfectly well play chess by announcing their moves verbally.
Answers.UserDisplayName: David Richerby
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2019-10-03T19:53:52.610Z
Answers.Text: @Arthur Alcohol is banned for the same reason as beta blockers.
Answers.UserDisplayName: David Richerby
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2019-10-03T21:37:32.673Z
Answers.Text: @Cloud At most of the software companies I've worked at, the answer there is "0".  Research suggests that caffeine has very little actual beneficial effects *aside from easing the harmful effects of caffeine withdrawal.*  The best performers are the ones who never fall into that trap to begin with.
Answers.UserDisplayName: Mason Wheeler
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2019-10-03T22:23:18.287Z
Answers.Text: @MasonWheeler etal -  Peripheral interest only - The JAVA programming 'language' draws it's name from the term 'Java' referring to coffee due to a primary source being Java in Indonesia.
Answers.UserDisplayName: Russell McMahon
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2019-10-04T12:08:43.590Z
Answers.Text: This is wrong. Caffeine is a well-known cognitive enhancer. Why *wouldn't* it help people with chess?
Answers.UserDisplayName: EJoshuaS - Stand with Ukraine
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2019-10-04T14:52:48.937Z
Answers.Text: Regardless of whether we actually have scientific proof of whether caffeine actually improves cognitive performance, I don't believe the first sentence that _"nobody seriously considers it an advantage in chess"_.
Answers.UserDisplayName: JiK
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2019-10-04T20:49:06.633Z
Answers.Text: Heh. I don't need to go to a software company. I work there. Yes, there's a lot of caffeine consumption. There's good code. There's also crappy code. And the amount of caffeine consumption is not significantly related to the amount of both. Another urban legend.
Answers.UserDisplayName: Arlen
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2019-10-06T00:28:59.487Z
Answers.Text: @Arlen I suspect the amount of caffeine consumption _will_ be correlated with the amount of code written when you have the employees working extra hours to meet a deadline. NB. this doesn't mean caffeine consumption would produce _better_ code. And lines of code is a bad metric to use anyway.
Answers.UserDisplayName: Ángel
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2019-10-18T14:24:57.063Z
Answers.Text: A last note for those interested in following it up in more detail: https://www.science.gov/topicpages/c/caffeine+enhanced+chess# is a search for all known US Govt financed studies about caffeine. The first paper has an interesting data point: It specifically tested chess performance, and found the players being tested were more likely to lose on time after being caffeinated than without being caffeinated! There's not a lot of studies involving chess in these papers, but it makes a good place to start your own research on the subject. I think the best term for the claim so far is "unproven"
Answers.UserDisplayName: Arlen
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2019-12-30T16:46:48.850Z
Answers.Text: 30 second increments feels more like postal chess than blitz to me
Answers.UserDisplayName: yobamamama
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2019-10-02T21:26:55.847Z
Answers.LastActivityDate: 2019-10-04T21:55:04.227Z
Answers.LastEditDate: 2019-10-04T21:55:04.227Z
Answers.UserDisplayName: Arlen
Answers.Body: <p>Caffeine is not good for one's chess in any amount one would actually feel. Tt always hurt my chess. I used to go to a player's restaurant and he would pump coffee into me all I wanted and I paid. Now I'm sad to admit I have played on stronger stimulants in the past and got mixed results. If I took too much my chess was simply terrible. I was not impulsive at all. I would play too slowly analyzing. If the level was right and I was not tired it would have a positive effect on my game. The nature of those stimulants is rather transitory and one can never put their trust in such things to improve their average game. I see why the stronger ones are banned because some might get a performance boost, but it would only be a short-term kick more than anything. One thing about stimulants that are not caffeine at the right dose is one's concentration is drastically improved and one becomes more focused. It's why they give it to kids. Those that are on it shut up and maybe pay attention. Curse them for doing this to kids. Alekhine used to eat candy &quot;A brain is not a brain without sugar.&quot; No doubt that is a better choice even if it only gives one a placebo effect.</p>
  
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2023-10-16T06:51:46.823Z
Answers.Text: by "stronger stimulants" what are you referring to?
Answers.UserDisplayName: Phemelo Khetho
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2023-10-15T23:33:30.677Z
Answers.LastActivityDate: 2023-10-16T01:43:19.230Z
Answers.LastEditDate: 2023-10-16T01:43:19.230Z
Answers.UserDisplayName: Achbiter
Answers.Body: <p>According to <a href="https://www.fide.com/FIDE/handbook/WADA%20Anti%20Doping.pdf" rel="noreferrer">FIDE's Anti-Doping Policy</a>:</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>The 2018 WADA Prohibited List and Monitoring Program can be found at:
    <a href="http://list.wada-ama.org/" rel="noreferrer">http://list.wada-ama.org/</a>
    The most relevant banned substances for chess are:   </p>
    
    <p>• Amphetamines – e.g. Adderall, Ritalin<br>
    • Ephedrine and Methylephedrine – Prohibited by WADA when its
    concentration in urine is greater than 10 micrograms per milliliter<br>
    • Pseudoephedrine is prohibited when its concentration in urine is greater than
    150 micrograms per milliliter<br>
    • Modafinil</p>
    
    <p>Substances not present on the Prohibited List but represented in the Monitoring
    Program:   </p>
    
    <p>• Caffeine – Included in WADA Monitoring Program and relevant for incompetition testing only. Any urine test reading of less than 12 micrograms per milliliter poses no problem.<br>
    • Codeine – A common ingredient in, for example, preparations used to treat coughs and stomach upsets. Any dosage is highly unlikely to be significant when taken in normal therapeutic quantities.    </p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>Note that caffeine is not currently banned. It was banned during the period 1984 - 2004 but was lifted. I'm guessing that sponsorship via advertising from Coca Cola may have been an important factor.</p>
  
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2019-10-04T18:44:04.363Z
Answers.Text: Any idea how much coffee one would have to drink in order to register that urine level?
Answers.UserDisplayName: Kevin
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2019-10-05T18:19:46.343Z
Answers.Text: About 4-5 cups of coffee, according to back-of-the-napkin math and this NCAA informational pamphlet. https://www.sportsrd.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Caffeine_and_Athletic_Performance_WEB.pdf
Answers.UserDisplayName: amflare
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Answers.CreationDate: 2019-10-02T22:19:38.330Z
Answers.LastActivityDate: 2019-10-02T22:19:38.330Z
Answers.UserDisplayName: Brian Towers
Body: <p>Why is coffee provided for free during big chess events like the Olympiad despite the fact that it contains caffeine, which is a banned substance according to the World Anti Doping Agency (WADA)?</p>
  
Tags: <fide><chess-olympiad>
Title: Why is coffee provided during big chess events when it contains a banned substance?
ThreadText: # Why is coffee provided during big chess events when it contains a banned substance?
  
  (Asked by: username_0 on 2019-10-02)
  
  Why is coffee provided for free during big chess events like the Olympiad despite the fact that it contains caffeine, which is a banned substance according to the World Anti Doping Agency (WADA)?
  
  **Tags:** fide, chess-olympiad
  
  
  ---
  
  ## 4 answers
  
  ### Answer by username_15 on 2019-10-02. Score: 49 | Accepted answer
  
  According to [FIDE's Anti-Doping Policy](https://www.fide.com/FIDE/handbook/WADA%20Anti%20Doping.pdf):
  
  > The 2018 WADA Prohibited List and Monitoring Program can be found at:
  > <http://list.wada-ama.org/>
  > The most relevant banned substances for chess are:
  >
  > • Amphetamines – e.g. Adderall, Ritalin  
  > • Ephedrine and Methylephedrine – Prohibited by WADA when its
  > concentration in urine is greater than 10 micrograms per milliliter  
  > • Pseudoephedrine is prohibited when its concentration in urine is greater than
  > 150 micrograms per milliliter  
  > • Modafinil
  >
  > Substances not present on the Prohibited List but represented in the Monitoring
  > Program:
  >
  > • Caffeine – Included in WADA Monitoring Program and relevant for incompetition testing only. Any urine test reading of less than 12 micrograms per milliliter poses no problem.  
  > • Codeine – A common ingredient in, for example, preparations used to treat coughs and stomach upsets. Any dosage is highly unlikely to be significant when taken in normal therapeutic quantities.
  
  Note that caffeine is not currently banned. It was banned during the period 1984 - 2004 but was lifted. I'm guessing that sponsorship via advertising from Coca Cola may have been an important factor.
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_16**: Any idea how much coffee one would have to drink in order to register that urine level?  
  > **username_17**: About 4-5 cups of coffee, according to back-of-the-napkin math and this NCAA informational pamphlet. https://www.sportsrd.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Caffeine_and_Athletic_Performance_WEB.pdf  
  
  ---
  
  ### Answer by username_1 on 2019-10-02. Score: 20
  
  It is not prohibited would be the main answer.
  
  Caffeine was removed from the list, and moved to the WADA "watch list", so it is not currently banned. "Bupropion, caffeine, nicotine, phenylephrine, phenylpropanolamine, pipradrol, and synephrine: These substances are included in the 2019 Monitoring Program, and are not considered Prohibited Substances." (quote taken from both the 2019 and 2020 WADA prohibited list PDF document).
  
  "The legal limit under previous restrictions was 12 microgram/ml in urine, which is roughly equivalent to drinking 8 servings of espressos over the course of a few hours." (quote taken from nationalcoffee.blog)
  
  
  ---
  
  ### Answer by username_2 on 2019-10-02. Score: 10
  
  Because nobody seriously considers it an advantage in chess. The WADA applies to sport, where caffeine can improve performance because it's a stimulant, thus improving physical performance. In chess, however, physical performance is meaningless, and no one has ever performed a test that proves caffeine leads to better chess (as opposed to, say, faster times in a race). Indeed, since one of its side-effects is an increase in impulsiveness, it could very well prove a *detriment* to playing better chess.
  
  I can see where it might yield a minor advantage in blitz, where fractions of a second in punching the clock would matter. But in normal tournaments, I'd wait until someone actually does some testing before worrying about *any* substance.
  
  OK, from the comments I see I need to add some details (in no particular order):
  
  Java language: was called Green or Oak for most of its development. Oak was already trademarked, so they couldn't use it. Kim Polese of Sun held a brainstorming session among the development team in which hundreds of names were tossed into the discussion (James Gosling said he thinks half the words in the dictionary were named at least once). No one has the definitive origin, everyone who was there tells a different story of how it started -- good luck separating truth from retcon on that. (In fact one origin story has the group handing off a set of names to Sun's Lawyers, and they picked the name. In any case, the relationship to coffee is barely mentioned in any of the stories.)
  
  Blitz phase: standard FIDE time controls have a 30-second increment, hardly necessitating fast clock punches.
  
  Caffeine on performance:
  
  Can we agree to draw a line between "physical performance" and "endurance?" The former (in chess context) is a measure of the ability to rapidly and assuredly and firmly move pieces, press clock buttons, etc. The latter relates to continuous activity. I thought that distinction was obvious; equally obviously it wasn't, given some of the comments. Again, my bad.
  
  Relative to endurance <https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5752738/> is a paper that concludes, among other things, that while controlled caffeine dosages can have some effect, the dosage is idiosyncratic; pertinent quote from the abstract: "Contemporary evidence suggests current standardised guidelines are optimal for only a sub-set of the athlete population." They go on to say the effect depends upon many individual factors, which of course renders a one-size-fits-all test irrelevant. (It might be material here to note that the range they talk about as being effective equates to roughly 4-10 cups of coffee (3-9 cans of Red Bull) an hour before the game for a 100kg person. (The paper's highlighted range was 3-9mg/kg, rather an imprecise setting but there it is). Given, as I said, that caffeine is known to lead to impulsiveness, I think I'd be pleased that my opponent came to the board with, say, 8 cans in him. I'd probably pass him a couple more quite willingly.
  
  To my mind that paper is pretty strong. Higher doses than optimum give no additional benefit, and optimum doses for an individual are unknowable without doing a workup on the individual, so precisely what benefit does the testing provide?
  
  Of interest but perhaps limited relevance here is <http://www.anusha.com/uscfdrug.htm> (the USCF resolution on drug testing -- the tl;dr of it is "test if your national committees give you money, but stop thinking it's performance related, because it isn't")
  
  We have a nebulous (extremely wide range) dosage that may cause endurance benefits in some people. Which, to me, condenses into "We can't take this seriously without a lot more research."
  
  Caffeine is known to promote impulsive behavior, and risk-taking (a cambridge study links it with gambling addiction, brings a whole 'nother meaning to the phrase "coffeehouse chessplayer"). I'm not sure how you can translate that kind of effect into "improves chess play."
  
  But OK, maybe "nobody cares" might have been a bit over the top. My bad. I originally wrote "nobody who's familiar with testing methods and caffeine" (which, BTW, includes WADA, who specifically do *not* include it on their prohibited list) but decided the generalized version would keep me from having to write a dissertation about it. Looks like I was wrong.
  
  There are a lot of urban legends about caffeine and software (same with whisky, the phrase is "the Ballmer Peak" if you're interested). Doesn't make any of them true; a wise person views them all with skepticism.
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_3**: [Chess is still a physical activity](https://www.espn.com/espn/story/_/id/27593253/why-grandmasters-magnus-carlsen-fabiano-caruana-lose-weight-playing-chess). Whether caffeine would give a real advantage I can't say.  
  > **username_4**: "In chess, however, physical performance is meaningless", __you might wanna rethink that statement.__  
  > **username_0**: Even standard games do go into a blitz phase, where punching the clock faster matters.  
  > **username_5**: "In chess, however, physical performance is meaningless" Physical fitness is quite important to someone who wants to sit and concentrate hard on a single thing for 5 hours every day for several days. Also, performance enhancing drugs isn't just about physical strength. There are also calming agents (like beta blockers, which reduce pulse and tremors), banned primarily because of sports where precision is more important than strength, like shooting. But it's also not a stretch to think that they help in an important chess game.  
  > **username_6**: If you don't think caffeine will improve cognitive performance, take a trip to any software company and observe how much caffeine the top performers riddle themselves with, day in, day out. This question shows no research effort, start by reading "The Caffeine Blues".  
  > **username_7**: @BlueRineS "Meaningless" is an overstatement but compare playing chess on a board versus playing against your computer, compared to playing soccer outdoors versus playing FIFA on a computer. A quadriplegic can perfectly well play chess by announcing their moves verbally.  
  > **username_7**: @username_5 Alcohol is banned for the same reason as beta blockers.  
  > **username_8**: @username_6 At most of the software companies I've worked at, the answer there is "0".  Research suggests that caffeine has very little actual beneficial effects *aside from easing the harmful effects of caffeine withdrawal.*  The best performers are the ones who never fall into that trap to begin with.  
  > **username_9**: @username_8 etal -  Peripheral interest only - The JAVA programming 'language' draws it's name from the term 'Java' referring to coffee due to a primary source being Java in Indonesia.  
  > **username_10**: This is wrong. Caffeine is a well-known cognitive enhancer. Why *wouldn't* it help people with chess?  
  > **username_11**: Regardless of whether we actually have scientific proof of whether caffeine actually improves cognitive performance, I don't believe the first sentence that _"nobody seriously considers it an advantage in chess"_.  
  > **username_2**: Heh. I don't need to go to a software company. I work there. Yes, there's a lot of caffeine consumption. There's good code. There's also crappy code. And the amount of caffeine consumption is not significantly related to the amount of both. Another urban legend.  
  > **username_12**: @username_2 I suspect the amount of caffeine consumption _will_ be correlated with the amount of code written when you have the employees working extra hours to meet a deadline. NB. this doesn't mean caffeine consumption would produce _better_ code. And lines of code is a bad metric to use anyway.  
  > **username_2**: A last note for those interested in following it up in more detail: https://www.science.gov/topicpages/c/caffeine+enhanced+chess# is a search for all known US Govt financed studies about caffeine. The first paper has an interesting data point: It specifically tested chess performance, and found the players being tested were more likely to lose on time after being caffeinated than without being caffeinated! There's not a lot of studies involving chess in these papers, but it makes a good place to start your own research on the subject. I think the best term for the claim so far is "unproven"  
  > **username_13**: 30 second increments feels more like postal chess than blitz to me  
  
  ---
  
  ### Answer by username_14 on 2023-10-15. Score: 1
  
  Caffeine is not good for one's chess in any amount one would actually feel. Tt always hurt my chess. I used to go to a player's restaurant and he would pump coffee into me all I wanted and I paid. Now I'm sad to admit I have played on stronger stimulants in the past and got mixed results. If I took too much my chess was simply terrible. I was not impulsive at all. I would play too slowly analyzing. If the level was right and I was not tired it would have a positive effect on my game. The nature of those stimulants is rather transitory and one can never put their trust in such things to improve their average game. I see why the stronger ones are banned because some might get a performance boost, but it would only be a short-term kick more than anything. One thing about stimulants that are not caffeine at the right dose is one's concentration is drastically improved and one becomes more focused. It's why they give it to kids. Those that are on it shut up and maybe pay attention. Curse them for doing this to kids. Alekhine used to eat candy "A brain is not a brain without sugar." No doubt that is a better choice even if it only gives one a placebo effect.
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_0**: by "stronger stimulants" what are you referring to?  
  
  ---
  
  