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My question is simple. Do we know of any 2700+ caliber players that regularly cite meditation as part of their lifestyle / preparation?

It's not hard to find meditating chess players, but I'm wondering about its use in top practice and perhaps if there are any studies that have attempted to measure its effects.

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    Viktor Korchnoi was a yoga practitioner.
    – Tony Ennis
    Commented Jun 17, 2016 at 0:28
  • The reason I ask is from personal experience: basic mindfulness meditation (for about 20 mins/day) seemed to help my game. I use a week word "seemed" for a reason, but by all appearances it helped my concentration and focus.
    – Rex Butler
    Commented Jun 26, 2016 at 19:16
  • There had been a chess24 brodcast of some top-level chess tournament where they would ask that to every participant in the post-game-analysis. If you spent some time digging into the video archives you might find it. I think I remember Topalov was among those that meditated but I am not 100% sure.
    – Simon Fromme
    Commented Dec 15, 2016 at 0:37

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I found these sources for "meditation" among the past 2 worlds champions:

Carlsen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELoJbv4bCHw

Anand: https://badrirag.wordpress.com/category/viswanathan-anand/

Q : Do you practise meditation and if so, how effective do you find it?

A: I don’t meditate regularly and hence I do not know the extent to which it can help.

Based on my Google research, some chess players meditate, but I see no evidence proving that top chess players meditate more than the general population

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I don't know of any studies. A quick search turned up this article where Nakamura says

I don't do anything special to prepare myself although I do occasionally meditate!

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Found this article on GM Jonathan Rowson:

http://www.tm.org/blog/people/british-chess-champion/

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  • That is interesting. Thanks!
    – Rex Butler
    Commented Jun 6, 2020 at 1:16

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