Seriously.

How exactly taking steroids can make somebody a better chess player, I have no idea, but apparently the governing bodies of the sport have been testing for performance enhancers since 2001.  Apparently there was a fear that chess players would start taking steroids so they could move their queen from d8 to h4 a lot quicker and with more force, possibly so they could kill two pawns at once or something.

(Look deep into my “bedroom eyes”)

Now even though they’ve been testing chess players for seven years now, as you would expect, they’ve never found anybody guilty.  Well, that is until last month, anyway.  Vassily Ivanchuk is one of the better known names in the world of chess — I’m sure you’ve already named your first born after him — and he’s been a grandmaster in the “sport” for over 20 years now.   Well, after losing a match on November 25th the grandmaster — better known as Big Chucky — refused to take a drug test following the match, and now he may be banned for two years.

From SPIEGEL ONLINE:

Who knows what was going through Ivanchuk’s head when, on Nov. 25 in Dresden, the last day of the Chess Olympiad, he lost to Gata Kamsky? What we do know, however, is that when the game against the American ended, a judge asked Ivanchuk to submit to a drug test. Instead, he stormed out of the room in the conference center, kicked a concrete pillar in the lobby, pounded a countertop in the cafeteria with his fists and then vanished into the coatroom. Throughout this performance, he was followed by a handful of officials.

Ivanchuk certainly seems like he was on some kind of drug given his behavior, but as it turns out, he could just be absolutely insane.   This is how he was described in the opening paragraph of the original article.

The man with black hair and bedroom eyes is known as “Big Chucky” by his fellow chess players. Why? Because, after losing a game, he goes into the forest at night and howls at the moon to drive out the demons. Because he walks around in shorts in freezing temperatures. Because he likes to sit in dark rooms. Because he usually looks at the ceiling instead of the board during a chess match. Because he tries to fold the oversized winner’s check handed out after a tournament down to pocket size. And because he, as World Champion Visvanathan Anand says, lives on “Planet Ivanchuk.”

Maybe it’s unfair to label Ivanchuck as crazy, after all, who doesn’t like to go into the forest at night to howl at the moon and drive out the demons after a long day at work?   I just got back from there this morning.

I don’t think Ivanchuk is guilty of actually taking some kind of chess performance enhancer — mostly because I don’t see how they can even exist — as much as he’s just loco and was probably pretty angry over losing his match.  In fact, I think the governing bodies of the “sport” should stop worrying about what kind of drugs Ivanchuk is taking, and worry more about the drugs he isn’t taking.  Get that guy some lithium, STAT.