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I ask this question because of the public figures I have seen playing electronic music in the background, among them the runner-up Ian Nepomniachtchi. I cannot rely on my experiences, as they may be conditioned.

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  • Is that music playing during a livestream for the audience?
    – qwr
    Jul 5 at 20:01

1 Answer 1

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Surprisingly, the answer is yes. Listening to music can increase blood flow to the brain. Musicians are also known to have more gray matter in the frontal cortex which can form more complex neural networks.

To put it simply, music activates your memory, and memory is the number 1 tool when playing chess.

Obviously most people prefer silence when playing but that’s not to say that it couldn’t work.

Here is a scientific article on the matter: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2776393/

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