Alcohol and chess

After my experiment with alcoholism and the subsequent sobriety, I've come to a conclusion. This might not apply to all humans, but it certainly is true for me: Since I quit drinking, my regular chess rating is rising a little, but my rating for all variants is going down.

Alcohol use makes me play worse "standard" chess, but it actually improves my ability in variations!
Imagine that...

It's known that consumption of alcohol increases creativity, so I shouldn't be surprised. Memory is used more for normal chess than for variants (excluding memorization of openings in Anti or Atomic) so it makes sense that alcohol use can potentially strengthen games like KOTH and 960, but it dulls my regular game.

10/10 *slowly claps* I need to start drinking to get my antichess rating back up >_>

I noticed that I'm losing a lot more KOTH and 960, but I didn't make the connection until I looked at my ratings.

I saw that all variants are going down and all standard is going up. When I was still drinking, it was the opposite.

On Antichess: Who knows? Maybe it will help, maybe not.
We know things only by experience.

IDK I never tried sober chess :/ , Run it!

As long as I can solve the Chess Captchas, I think I'm still fine.

I sincerely doubt alcohol has any positive effect on your ability to perform any mental exercise. This includes variants of chess. What you're experiencing is probably a combination of withdrawal, lack of practice, meaningless coincidence and confirmation bias.

@#6

Actually, there's *totally* a scientific study that backs this up.

^Yes.

I was surprised to come to the conclusion. I always thought alcohol was bad for *everything*.

I don't recommend becoming an alcoholic to help you win in KotH or 960, though!

Why do I play so much faster at bullet when drunk?

Confidence?