Go players' minds work worse or better at different temperatures. Every player is different with respect to tolerating extreme temperatures.

Another state hit me badly recently during a tournament: too little oxygen in a room with too many players, necessarily closed doors and windows and too weak air conditioning. I only woke up and noticed when the blunder had already happened. With little oxygen, the brain wants to rest, so it reduces thinking and becomes lazy. Blunders happen quite naturally under such conditions.

There is what seems to be an obvious solution: take breaks and walk outside in the fresh (but too hot?) air. Well, that is the grey theory. In practice, the lacking oxygen also let me forget to remind myself of and apply safety routines of the kind "every half an hour, take a break outside". It is insufficient to remind oneself at the beginning of a game to have breaks later; the low oxygen density wins and lets one forget such.

Is there a solution for the problem? How to remind oneself without fail regularly during a game played under bad oxygen supply? I guess that putting an "Oxygen!" note on the table would be a disallowed playing aid. So how to overcome the problem mentally, psychologically and physically? Is there a faster method than years of experience with bad playing conditions? Learning go theory is easy in comparison to learning to fight for more oxygen.

The alternative would, of course, be more reasonable tournament organisers, who do not pack too many players in the same room.

Bring a plant and a little water

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Seriously? A note with the word 'Oxygent' would be disallowed? How about a note with the letter 'O'? How about when you write something unrelated which will nevertheless remind you to breathe? Like the word 'Fluffy' for example? Or are Fluffies disallowed as well? Bummer... Maybe try invisible ink... this might work. Unless, of course, blank paper is a no-no as well. Very very tough problem.

The plant is a good idea, I think.
Or bring a whole planting tray - if you plant it right, you can have plants you planted spelling the word "Oxygen' for you... Maybe nobody would notice? Try a very small planting trey. And wear a strong glasses, to magnify it properly. I think you might get away with that.

Other good ideas:
- Bring an oxygen bottle and an inhaler? You know, like they have in the old-people homes. Big metal bottle on little wheel, loud breathing sounds from behind the mask... 'Luke, I'm your father!' kind of thing. You think this will be too distracting?
- Set your phone on vibrate every hour in your pocket? Just make sure nobody notices, it might raise some eyebrows, you know...
- Start smoking? Your body will eventually start (forcefully) reminding you to take a ciggy break every hour. This might also have a big calming effect, which can be beneficial in tense tournament situations.

The heat can be combatted with a variety of devices (paper fan, portable electric fan, bag of ice over your heard or under your shirt, or in your pocket, or in your shoes, or on top of your sit, etc)... Just make sure you seal the ice well in a ziplock bag. If you suddenly start developing a leak - this might raise eyebrows too, as well as induce chuckles. But then - your comfort might be worth it.

I am not sure what would be allowed at the tournaments you play at.
Its so very boring and un-original, but would a paper fan be ok? Maybe you can write 'Oxygen' on it, this might solve two problems with one fan?... You can write a single letter on each leaf, and then when you waffle it just right, it can spell the word 'Oxygen' in the air, only you will see it. Would that be cheating? I bet the girls would be impressed.

There also are certain drugs which can lower body temp (as a side effect, usually, but still...) - do they make you pee in a cup before each game? Not sure, have not been to a serious tournament in a while. How big are the cups? Maybe you could refill from a earlier prepared container? Do they watch you do it? Hmm...

Bobby Fisher once played a tournament via telephone. Its 21st century, so maybe try Skype? Then you can sit in a nice air-conditioned room sipping margaritas while beating the pants off of all the schmucks sweating in their polyester wigs in the tournament hall. Ha ha. I think this would be preferable, if they let you do it. I think they might if you promise to not turn on your computer, but what do I know. Still, never know until you ask, no?

Honk if you find that helpful.

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- Bantari
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WARNING: This post might contain Opinions!!

Try and reproduce tournament ambient conditions while practising for the tournament?

You could deliberately hyperventilate, and kind of hog the available oxygen.

But really I'm thinking the answer is altitude training.

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It suffices to

* evaluate how significantly a lack of oxygen affects performance
* evaluate how significantly losing time by leaving the room will hamper performance
* take the action that will maximize performance.

Of course, it may require careful calculation to choose correctly in all circumstances, but these principles are correct.

In virtue of this teaching, others may spare themselves the several years it took to develop these principles.

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Perhaps a placebo would work.

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be immersed

Fan against the heat: it does not work for me.

Loons, what do you mean by "reproduce tournament ambient conditions"? Modest hyperventilation can be helpful during a walk outside, but this does not solve the problem of having to remind oneself.

hyperpape, evaluation is not needed. A lack of oxygen causes at least one serious blunder, and that is too many. Every reasonable amount of thinking time spent on taking breaks is worth it.

Kirby, placebo, no, not for me.

Bantari, maybe reminding aids are good for some, but I am not a fan of them and their attempts to bend tournament rules. What I need is a mental / psychological solution similar to one successful for reminding to avoid blunders under acceptable physical playing conditions. No one has attacked such a solution yet.

The real question is: who has hacked whose account?

Semi-serious suggestion: mentally replace the word "liberty" with the word "breath" to serve as a frequent reminder to monitor your own physical condition.

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Patience, grasshopper.

The real questions is: Will all these facepalms get you more oxygen? [troll mode off, SCNR]

Every time you encounter a particularly difficult situation, which requires extensive reading, walk outside and do the reading in your head while in an oxygen rich environment.

Herman, nice suggestion, thanks! I will definitely try this, when the air condition is bad.

There are in general two ways: get more oxygen or/and need less oxygen.
So you could work to increase your physical fitness. I think any endurance training would help you making more out of too less oxygen.
Also chi kung (qigong) or tai chi (taijiquan) might be effective.
You can live some weeks without eating, some days without drinking and some minutes without breathing but you cannot live a second without chi.

If my opponent tried to distract me like that, I might try singing the lyrics to this:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRVwcPTnug8[/youtube]

I hope Robert filed an official protest to the EGF for the organizers' failure to provide sufficient atmospheric O2.

I think Michael Jackson had some kind of oxygen tent. Maybe it's available on ebay?

Speaking of Micheal Jackson...have you considered drugs?

No, not that kind! There are nootropics that increase oxygen to the brain: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicergoline

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As an aside, I don't know how they used to do it when Cho Chikun was sitting there puffing on a cigarette. Now there is a tradition, I am not sorry to see die.

How many players and how small a room?

In any case, if the room is really low on oxygen, then I'm not sure even regular breaks outside are going to help, unless it's every 30 seconds or so. Everyone is going to suffering. So if it's a common complaint the ventilation has to be fixed or the venue needs to be changed. Unless you're willing to volunteer to find another venue or work with those who control the building's resources, whether they be windows or A/C or whatever, there may not be much you can do. Maybe just don't go to that tournament. Are a lot tournaments held in that same place?

I have a harder time studying on airplanes than at sea level. It's possible there's a real effect.

IIRC, 54. The tables were small, but only 1 board per table. However, chairs were back to back so close that many used to alternate sitting at the left and right sides of the tables.

The room would have worked for about 35, although I am not sure if the air conditioning would have been enough then.



This option I can use for small tournaments, but not for the European Go Congress.

This is too much of a simplification, read literally, since it does not define reasonable...

Ok, a serious note: does anyone have a reason to think oxygen deficiency is actually at issue here? I don't know a lot about this, but I'd be surprised if an ordinary room is likely to become oxygen deficient in a few hours time, regardless of how many people are in it. While looking around after reading this thread, I did hear that CO2 is more likely to be the culprit, which makes sense: Oxygen levels can easily and almost unnoticably vary by several tenths of a percent--while the range considered safe is a couple percent wide. In contrast, typical regulations on carbon dioxide require it to be below 1% or .5% where people work.

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I was thinking the heat is more likely to cause a problem than oxygen (or CO2) issues in an environment as being discussed. You can do some scientific tests to verify, but as everyone is in the same condition, I'm not sure it is too important.