Chess. Drink. Good. Sleep.

Interesting thing about being on the road – you get an opportunity to sample flavors of your favorite foods that are not available in your home town. This is what happened to me a few days ago. I made my ritual trip into one of the Super Gi-normous Grocery stadiums to stock up on some unhealthy hotel food, and came across Berries & Cream flavored Dr. Pepper.

Back at the hotel, I was studying (well, actually leafing through) a couple chess books I packed with me, trying to familiarize myself with a few concepts, as well as brush up on endgame study. I popped open a can of this new flavor Dr. Pepper. After the caffeine kicked in, my depth of concentration improved. My critical thinking skills redlined. I read both books cover to cover that night. I can now speed-read PGN notation, and I fully understand the 3-move repetition rule (even Joel Benjamin’s article makes sense to me now).

At 6am I fell asleep. I woke up at 3pm.

Could this new concoction be the new secret weapon that the chess world has been waiting for? I’ll leave that to the reader to decide. Please drink responsibly.