[Right_Wing_Madman]

Lack of oxygen

Chess players burn through an amazing amount of calories during tournaments (without moving!) and their brains need oxygen. You can read more about the grandmaster diet here:

https://www.espn.com/espn/story/_/id/27593253/why-grandmasters-magnus-carlsen-fabiano-caruana-lose-weight-playing-chess

[alexander_busek]

Chess players burn through an amazing amount of calories during tournaments (without moving!) and their brains need oxygen.

But does one's brain really need significantly more oxygen when playing grandmaster-level chess?!

I suspect NOT.

Playing grandmaster-level chess certainly requires intense concentration and the heavy burdening of certain cognitive abilities - one could certainly see evidence of this in a brain scan taken during a match. And I'm sure that the tournament participants are very stressed out, psychologically. This might result in heavier breathing, etc. But that's physiological!

But even when simply sitting and reading a comic book, the brain is still performing lots of high-level tasks. It's still processing lots of information. I sincerely doubt that the O₂ consumption is noticeably lower then.

Regards,