Quick Questions
Increasing Go abilities with steroids [#1407]
If the average Go playing strength indeed increase rapidly in the age of 13-15 years, then human anabolic steroids (especially testosterone, estradiol, prasterone and nandrolone and maybe also stanolone) have an improving influence on this strength. So a player may decide to modify steroid hormone blood levels with artificial produced steroids, e.g. by increasing nandrolone blood level because it is known that nandrolone have a multiple higher anabolic activity than the in human cases quantitative very dominating testosterone. This anabolic activity would surely be clear noticeable for some people especially by noticing an increase of velocity and information retrieval sureness of the short time memory (and maybe also of combinatorial abilities) -- mnestic cognitive abilities which are extremely important in the matter of Go.
Are there any Go tournaments on which screenings for unnatural steroid compositions (e.g. by taking blood from the players) are carried out or planed OR on which players must list all steroidal drugs they get prescribed for medical reasons (e.g. hypogonadism, osteoporosis or aplastic anaemia) ?
Which sites (especially in SL) explain the tendencial influence of steroids (or other memory modifiers, e.g. Alzheimer disease or nootropic drugs, e.g. Ginkgo) to the Go playing strength OR the tendency of the in form of drugs already by some pharmafirms offered steroids -- the above mentioned and especially also
- trestolone (CAS no. 3764-87-2), - metenolone (153-00-4), - clostebol (1093-58-9) - norclostebol (13583-21-6), - oxabolone (4721-69-1), - stenbolone (5197-58-0), - oxendolone (33765-68-3), - boldenone (846-48-0) and - quinbolone (2487-63-0)
-- to cause so intensive aggressiveness and akathisia (inability to sit still) that the Go player affected by a dose of one of those steroids is too distracted and cannot concentrate well enough ?
If the average Go playing strength indeed increase rapidly in the age of 13-15 years,
Why would you think that?
Because I exclude the possibility that mostly human anabolic steroids suppress cognitive Go abilities, Bill. (Maybe "in the age around 13-16" or "12-17" would has been more exact.) There is a considerable possibility that a hormone increases this abilities, if it builds up muscle and bone tissue, increases the spatial imaginative ability and supports the mental energy. If the reduction of this hormone in "andropause" causes impaired memory, fatigue (weariness, lethargy) and the inability to concentrate, then there is again the same considerable possibility.
The wikipedia.us-site about Park Yeong-hun says "He is the youngest ever Korean 9 dan, promoted when he was only 19 years old. Due to the new rules set by the Hanguk Kiwon, Park moved up from 1 dan to 9 in only 4 years 7 months, which is the fastest progress ever." - If such a case is indeed seldom, then statistics about the interrelation between ages and strengths of the players would be helpful.
Maybe the eunuchs in the past (e.g. the Chinese ones in the Imperial palace) or cases of hypogonadism when no treatment with steroids were available also played Go. What was their highest Go playing strength ?
I'm sorry, I failed to find any evidence for the premise in your reply. If it is not just speculation, please go more slowly and spell things out more.
Looking at some of the strongest players ever, Honinbo Shusaku, Cho Chikun and Lee Chang-ho, they all became professional at age 10 or 11, meaning they were at that point only about 2-3 stones in strength away from the absolute world top players. Which would indicate that the greatest progress is made in the range 6-12, not 12-17.
On the other had, some western professional started very late\: Catalin Taranu started at age 16 and reached professional 5 dan, and Hans Pietsch started at age 15 and reached professional 4 dan (and was sadly killed in 2003, so we do not know how far he might have progressed). This would indicate that the range 13-15 is certainly not vital for becoming a very strong player.
I therefore think your theory needs more solid research into statistics of progress of professional players.
As a physician who prescribes quite a bit of testosterone, I find this thread to be bizarre. The only effect such supplementation would have is for a male who has hypogonadism (abnormally low testosterone levels) with subsequent depression and reversible cognitive dysfunction. In an otherwise healthy male, using these substances will have no effect on intellectual abilites. If there are any peer-reviewed placebo controlled randomized clinical trials showing improvements in intellectual abilities with the use of supplemental steroid hormones, please share them with us.
It is good that a physician gives his opinion to the possibility to improve the short time memory with anabolic steroids. Because of short time memory decrements and weakness of connective tissue I had magnetic resonance imaging of the brain and blood tests for Vitamin B 12, homocystinuria and Fragile X syndrome in the last eight months. At this no pathological deviation was found.
Unfortunately until today the physicians here in Germany refuses even the purely probational prescription of nandrolone to me to evaluate its tendency to exert short time memory improvements. Nandrolone have a multiple higher anabolic activity than testosterone. To the use of nandrolone in this case there would be AT MOST only the additional uses of GnRH analogues and of small amounts of estradiol (because nandrolone becomes not metabolized to estradiol like testosterone) necessary. In Germany the prescription of nandrolone to a person who is not a postmenopausal woman is an "Off-label-use" and for nandrolone such an Off-label-use is here obviously strictly unusable--fully regardless of the difficulties for me for example in all kinds of text work in language education at school.
Would you prescribe nandrolone probationally to me if my short time memory velocity really lies below a border of acceptability and I assure you I am really interested in the trueness of the tendency of nandrolone to increase the velocity of my short time memory?
there is in chess now a case about a drugs test
see ![[ext]](images/extlink.gif)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vassily_Ivanchuk#Doping_Test_Controversy
I am not sure are there dopingtests in Go?
and where are you then testing of If you drunk to much coffee?
or are there chemicals that shows that you did to much tsume go? I see an go humour page comming
Willemien, it's OK to post humourous articles on SL, as long as they are posted in an appropriate place. Right here, there is a serious discussion that is important to some people, and I'd hate to see it spoiled.
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