Many of us have heard, lived, shunned, or dodged the term ADHD—Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. We’ve all witnessed that energetic kid who disturbs the class and struggles to sit still and pay attention. We’ve all worked with an adult who falls asleep during meetings. We all know someone who despite trying so hard just can’t seem to succeed.
When it comes to chess, a common misconception is that the intense focus required for the game is beyond the reach of such individuals. But the contrary is often quite true.
What might surprise you is that ADHD is not necessarily all the negatives that are so commonly associated with the “disorder”. ADHD is, in fact, a superpower! The trick is being aware of what ADHD is, and employing the proper techniques to harness ADHD’s incredible potential.
In this blog, I aim to shine a positive light on this neurodiversity, offering ADHD chess players, coaches, and parents of ADHD children valuable tips and support. I would also like to explore the benefits of chess as a tool that can be used not only to combat the challenges of ADHD but also to amplify its strength.
Table of Contents
–A Pawn That Was … Different
–ADHD 101: What is ADHD
–ADHD 201: What ADHD truly is
–A Gift of ADHD
–Understanding Dopamine
–The Benefits of Chess for ADHD
–The Society Unfit for ADHD
–Gamifying It: Tips and Strategies
–What chess coaches have to say
–Famous Chess Players with ADHD
–Conclusion
–ADHD Resources
And it all begins with a little story …
It was no ordinary kingdom of chess. At midnight the pieces sprang to life and clashed in friendly battles … It was a blissful life on the 64 squares, until, one day, a new pawn was born on the c-2 square which temporarily put all duels on hold disequilibrating the entire kingdom.
Her name was Lily.
***
“Alright”, said the beige King. “Lily, will you do us an honour? Please put on your shoes and make the first move. Lily? Did you hear me? Where is Lily?”
“She is still in her pajamas”, said the adjacent d2-pawn. “Lily, please,” she shouted, “put on your shoes and move!”
But Lily was busy doodling in her notebook, oblivious to the passage of time. When she finally realized that the chess clock was now ticking, she frantically searched for her shoes but couldn’t find them. She misplaced them last night once again while fantasizing about checkers. While searching for her shoes, she noticed and grabbed a rubik’s cube on the table and began to play. She then remembered that she needed to change into fresh clothes but she couldn’t pick her outfit. There was sooo much choice, that Lily got overwhelmed and decided to stay in her pajamas. But before she even made this decision, she remembered that her school essay on Knights vs Bishops was due at noon, so she quickly started writing it and within five minutes wrote, what later would be classified as a masterpiece!
Meanwhile, the whole kingdom impatiently waited for Lily to make the first move. All of the pieces were constantly frustrated with Lily’s “inadequate” behaviour. Yet, paradoxically, they were also in awe of her innovative ideas on how to play chess.
“Lily must have ADHD”, finally admitted the King, with much trepidation for he was very fond of Lily and up to that point preferred denial as opposed to a proper diagnosis. Lily, after all, was a quiet pawn, void of hyperactivity typically associated with ADHD. And while she had many executive function challenges, she also had an incredible ability to hyperfocus on tasks that she loved, such as chess.
What is ADHD? According to the National Institute of Mental Health, “ADHD is a developmental disorder characterized by an ongoing pattern of one or more of the following types of symptoms:
Inattention, such as having difficulty paying attention, keeping on task, or staying organized
Hyperactivity, such as often moving around (including during inappropriate times), feeling restless, or talking excessively
Impulsivity, such as interrupting, intruding on others, or having trouble waiting for one’s turn
ADHD is one of the most common disorders diagnosed in children. Symptoms begin in childhood and usually continue into the teen years and adulthood.”
People with ADHD, in particular children, often have: trouble with executive functions, following through with given instructions, time management, and more.
***
After reading such common descriptions on the internet, the Queen fell into depression. Can it be true?
“Don’t label Lily like that,” she finally said to the King before diving deep into research on the subject to understand what ADHD truly is. Everything she had heard until now was only negative and Lily didn’t quite fit the typical ADHD mold. Was she exceptional at masking it, like many girls and women with ADHD? Even Lily’s teachers reported that Lily did well at school and exhibited no symptoms. What a conundrum!
“I am not labeling”, said the King. “ADHD is a … gift!”
“What?” asked the Queen confused.
The King tossed Faster Than Normal book by Peter Shankman to the Queen and told her to do her own research. In his book, Shankman attributes his success as an entrepreneur “not despite of his ADHD, but because of ADHD.” He says: “ADHD isn’t a diagnosis. It’s a gift,” and he supports this claim in many convincing ways.
After reading this incredibly empowering book, and doing more research, the Queen went on talking to ADHD experts, friends, coaches, and family who have extensive experience with ADHD. She was stunned by their stories and her findings, all of which support Shankman’s experience and beyond.
Spinning it the other way, ADHD is a neurodiversity, which is also worth celebrating. People with ADHD experience and interact with the world differently than “normal” people and there is a lot to be said and applaud about this (in a minute).
💡Did You Know? Speaking of “diagnosis,” one reason ADHD is called a “disorder” is because, with that “label” in our society, it is considered a disability. As such, ADHD therapy may be covered by private insurance and, more importantly, people with ADHD can qualify for Disability Tax Credit, here in Canada. If you reside outside of Canada, please review your insurance policy for similar benefits. But many agree that “disability” and “disorder” are such wrong terms for what ADHD actually is. It’s just a different way of learning, in a nutshell.
💡Did You Also Know? “If you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing it’s stupid. Unless it happens to chat with another fish and realize that fish aren’t great at climbing trees and that’s ok. But a lot of what we [people with ADHD] struggle with is because of the environmental and social factors, which can be mitigated through creating physical and social environments that account for and accommodate neurodiversity.” – Jessica McCabe, ADHD advocate.
Here is what Jessica McCabe has to say on ADHD:
According to the Queen’s research, despite the negatives, people with ADHD have certain “superpowers” over the “normal” people. These include, and are not limited to:
✔️Hyperfocus: When people with ADHD are interested in something, they are able to hyperfocus on the task and achieve incredible results. More so than the average “normal” Joe.
✔️Creativity: People with ADHD are constantly trying to find ways to “entertain” themselves and avoid boredom in a world that wasn’t designed for their inattention. As such, they are very creative and are “200% more likely to start their own businesses” according to Peter Shankman and all the ADHD moms from the Queen’s neighboring kingdom.
✔️Faster brains: When turbocharged with the right levels of dopamine and motivation, people with ADHD also think and work faster than average.
Here is a condensed extract from Faster Than Normal of a list of famous people with ADHD:
-Albert Einstein
-Thomas Edison
-Leonardo da Vinci
-Walter Disney
-The Wright Brothers
-Stephen Hawking
-Steve Jobs
-Richard Branson
And the Queen’s absolute favourite:
-Eric Hansen (What? Chess? Yes!)
***
“Come on Lily!” Different pieces started to shout impatiently. “We’ve got to start the game!” The union shouting didn’t help because Lily was so accustomed to this constant hummm, that eventually she ignored it. It took the mighty Knight on b1 to rigna-dinga-diiing a bell and scream at the top of his lungs to catch Lily’s attention. “Lily, MOVE! NOOOOW!”
His high-pitched squeaky voice captured Lily’s attention and increased her dopamine, which in turn motivated Lily to quickly find her shoes and make her first move.
“Dopamine is a hormone and a type of neurotransmitter, or chemical messenger, made in your brain. Your nervous system uses it to send messages between nerve cells. These messages also travel between your brain and the rest of your body.
This unique neurotransmitter affects your body, brain, and behavior. Dopamine plays a role in how we feel pleasure and rewards. It’s a big part of our unique human ability to think and plan. It helps us focus, work towards goals, and find things interesting.
Like most other systems in the body, you don’t notice it (or maybe even know about it) until there’s a problem.” (Source, Webmd)
ADHD people have chronically low dopamine levels. So in order to get things done, whether they realize it or not, they constantly seek to increase their dopamine levels. For some, getting physical exercise is enough. Others go out of their way and pursue tasks such as skydiving or bungee jumping. In unfortunate cases, some people with ADHD seek dangerous or risky activities to increase their dopamine levels. Yet others, oh, dear others, they pursue chess!
Chess is known to increase dopamine levels in the brain and have a lasting feel-good effect as a result (unless you’ve blundered and lost 😣).
***
“On my first move I want to jump to d6,” said Lily happily racing to the dark square.
“Wait, wait!” Yelled all the pieces in unison! “You can’t jump four squares! You’re a pawn! Pawns can only jump two squares at the beginning and one thereafter.”
Lily was disappointed. “But it’s too slow for me,” she reacted, “I want to infiltrate the other kingdom and discover what it’s like.” But she wasn’t allowed to.
Rules are rules.
“Play more chess, increase your focus, and everything will be easier,” pointed out the Bishop.
The Benefits of Chess for ADHD: Studies + Resources
Everyone knows that chess helps to improve concentration and self-regulation. A small study conducted by Science Direct also supports this claim for people with ADHD: “Training students with ADHD on playing chess has … shown that [they began to] take a longer duration until they started exhibiting undesirable and unacceptable behaviors. Hence, it is important for students to learn chess as it trains them to stay longer on task, control their actions, and maintain focus.”
There is even an entire website, adhd-chess.com, dedicated to discussing chess + ADHD. But it goes beyond talking. It actually uses chess as a tool to improve concentration in ADHD people.
Here is what adhd-chess has to say about the positive impact of chess on ADHD:
“1. ADHD symptoms improvement. Progress in hyperactivity, impulsivity, and inattention symptoms.
2. Generates habits and behavioral patterns. Systematic chess practice, like other disciplines that require certain tranquility and concentration and are practiced frequently, contributes to creating a space to play Chess, both physical and conceptual, which efficiently helps to generate habits.
3. Trains reflective decision-making. Chess is a tool that requires decision-making practice, with rights and wrongs, but in a reflective way. Exactly the opposite of what occurs in people with ADHD.
4. Improves cognitive and social skills. It has been proved that chess significantly improves cognitive skills, problem-solving, and the capacity to adapt to reality. Furthermore, the fact that it is a two-member sport facilitates the interaction between both players and helps interpersonal difficulty disorders, autism down syndrome Asperger syndrome
5. Improvements in self-esteem and frustration tolerance. Both when playing well or when losing, brilliant plays are performed and cardinal mistakes are committed, positive emotions are produced, and negative emotions are being controlled through mechanisms that regulate impulsivity.
6. Increased visual and working memory. This is due to the memorization of movement patterns, in addition to planning and organizing that is needed to develop a move. It also benefits spatial vision memory.”
Chess Ratings 📈
An added benefit of chess is its rating system. Ratings help ADHD people track their progress, and therefore, where they are heading. “Data is key,” says Shankman. “When you’re ADHD, data is the only thing that will save you in the end. … If you’re not tracking what you’re doing and giving yourself a baseline on how to do it, then … you simply won’t move forward.”
The Bishop’s advice to Lily to play more chess was right on the dot! But his execution of teaching it was … lacking.
The bishop pulled out his PowerPoint slides with all the chess rules and proceeded to explain them to Lily. “Look”, he said, “a pawn can only move one square at a time. But initially, she is allowed to skip one square. Not two, or three, only one. But! If there is a piece in front of her, too bad so sad, she is stuck and is not allowed to move. However! She is allowed to capture diagonally …”
15 minutes later …
“But let me be clear,” continued the Bishop, “a pawn cannot, I repeat cannot, captureitsownpieceunderanycircumstanldkjfadsljfiejsijf…”
“Lily!! Are you listening!?” asked frustrated Bishop, when he finally noticed that Lily wasn’t looking, looong lost in her daydreams. “Lily! What did I just say?”
Lily had no idea. The Bishop lost her at: “but if there is a piece in front…” Frustrated and angry, Bishop’s blood rushed into his face, and he yelled, “That’s enough, Lily! I quit!”
Gamifying It: Tips and Strategies
Only the Queen, who had devoted countless hours to observation, relentless trial and error, and research on ADHD understood Lily and her unique learning abilities. “Come over here, Lily,” she said, “we will play a game. I’m going to set a five-minute timer and you will jump from one square to the next in front of you if I say “Jump”. If you see a shaded piece on either the left or right of you diagonally up one square, you can capture it if I say “Capture”. Short and easy right?”
“Ooo!” said Lily enthusiastically already jumping up and down on her square in anticipation.
The whole kingdom heard Jump, Jump, Capture, Capture, Jump, Capture, Jump that night.
“Well done Lily,” said the Queen. “In three days, you will write a test on this with the Bishop. Please practice what you just learned every night.”
But the following night came and Lily didn’t practice. The same the following night. The Queen was getting very anxious. Her own anxiety, which she put so much effort into to control, was cracking through the roof as she worried about little Lily. The Queen, who always got everything done the moment a task appeared on her to-do list, could never understand procrastination.
And so, on the exam’s eve, the Queen had accepted that Lily would probably fail, without any practice.
But then she heard Lily say: “Queen, Queen! Your majesty, look at me Jump! Jump, jump, jump. And now look at me, I can capture a shaded piece too! Watch. Are you looking? Watch me!” And off she went demonstrating her pawn skills.
The Queen couldn’t believe her eyes. Not only was Lily practicing last minute so well under pressure, but she was executing each move with perfection.
The following day, Lily passed the exam.
The Queen learned a valuable lesson that day. She needs to gamify everything and captivate Lily if she wants her to pay attention and learn. As such, she started to cultivate her creativity, which expanded into other areas of her life as a bonus.
Gamifying Tips:
✨-Make everything a game or some kind of challenge. Everything that the ADHD person is struggling with, from academics to executive functioning.
✨-Incorporate frequent breaks with physical activity, such as jumping jacks, to raise dopamine.
✨-Introduce variation: If you’re teaching someone with ADHD, use a variety of methods, tools, and techniques. Be creative. Experiment with what works and doesn’t work with your student. Keep the boredom, too much talking, and repetitiveness at bay.
✨-Slow and steady: Take it slow, by teaching one concept at a time. Chew on it. Reinforce it. There is no rush.
What chess coaches have to say
The Queen telegraphed her BFF, IM Mike Ivanov, who’s been teaching chess for 15 years for further advice. Here is what Mike had to say about his experience with ADHD students:
“Attention spans are limited. Chess class isn’t meant to be a lecture hall. Constant student participation helps extend optimal learning time. Here is how:
👑Project-based learning
Kids learn by actively constructing knowledge. Instead of trying to teach why the Latvian Gambit is bad, I asked students to play it against a computer at a medium level. Instead of trying to explain how to attack the king in the center, I would give a huge lead in development to White and ask them to checkmate my king before he ran away. Opening and endgame reports could also work, but only on topics that piqued their interest: A student could write me 3 pages on the Caro-Cann Advanced variation if that was his obsession for that week, the research would be enjoyable. If I tried to force a topic on them, they would actively resist.
👑Make learning a competition
I had one student who hated doing puzzles, so I made him a deal, every time he solved 3 puzzles I would do ten push-ups! The point was of course to see who could keep going longer, and over time he started winning, to my delight. Many students with ADHD are quite competitive and any sort of challenge can get them excited about learning. I found that they can even become obsessive about the challenge in those cases (for example, nonstop puzzle rush or puzzle battle). Using time limits helped drastically too, as they found it easier to focus when they knew they didn’t have much time and couldn’t procrastinate. For beginners, that meant giving them a rook and a king to checkmate my king, with a 3-minute stop limit. Over time, that limit can go down making the exercise even more exciting.
👑Dramatize and Personify
Students with ADHD can get bored more easily than others, but only if you teach chess academically. If your bishops become bees that sting weaknesses, and your knights become fat men on horses who flop on the side because of their heavy metal armour, then they’re engaged. You’ve tapped into what they know and find funny, like a stand-up comedian working the crowd. Obviously, this is best for beginners, but you’ll be shocked at the level of kids who are still entertained by “ice cream” as material, and “Loch-Ness Monsters” as knights on d6 and e6. If you capture those students’ imagination, they will do the teaching for you, as they take your metaphors and use them to explain new positions.
I remember one 8-year-old girl who took my personification to a new level: When we were working on king hunts she started drawing hearts on the enemy king. I usually encourage drawings in Zoom classes as that’s another way to keep kids engaged but here I could barely see the black king. I told her that she didn’t have to feel sorry for the enemy king, to which she replied: “I know, I’m just trying to lure him out of his castle with love!”.
As you can see, these methods work on all students, and how much you use them should depend on how engaged your students are to begin with. As for students with ADHD, at the very least they will remember chess affectionately this way, rather than another tedious subject to escape from.”
Famous Chess Players with ADHD
While researching this article, I, the writer, struggled to find a whole lot of top-profile players with ADHD, partly, I assume, because it’s not easy to talk about it publicly and partly, because ADHD presents extra barriers to becoming an elite player. I’m also entertaining the idea that many excellent chess players are simply undiagnosed!
However, here are two world-famous chess players who openly talk about ADHD:
Eric Hansen:
I think it’s hard for some to believe that people with ADHD can be good chess players because of their associated lack of focus. But let’s not forget, when motivated, these people also have an amazing ability to hyperfocus!
So, Eric and Andrea are the living proof that great success can be accomplished in chess for people with ADHD, despite their ADHD. Or, maybe, just maybe … because of their ADHD!
The last time I checked with the Queen, Lily was doing well. She embraced the chess rules and made a lot of progress. There were lots of moments of triumph and failure and super highs and very lows; and lots of laughter and lots of tears. But everyone in the kingdom learned to adjust their expectations and communication, rallying around Lily to support her growth rather than letting her wither; just as much as Lily had to learn to adapt to the “normal” world. And practicing more chess had proved invaluable to Lily’s ability to cope with the world, improving her focus and discipline.
Among the 8 beige pawns, Lily was nominated to the Queen-promotion, in due time, all because of her amazing creativity, quick wits, and “faster than normal” brain! However, she reportedly refused the nomination, choosing to create her own Kingdom, even brighter, more spacious, and more inclusive, than any Kingdom we’ve ever heard of before!
💡People with ADHD need our support and understanding. Just as the world needs people with this neurodiversity. It is when we embrace, support, and celebrate it, will it change for the better! Amen. 🙏
1. How to ADHD: Find out everything you need to know about ADHD, feel connected and supported along the way.
2. ADHD and Chess: “In ADHD & Chess, we promote the use of chess to help improve and advance children and adults with disorders such as ADHD, as well as other groups with learning difficulties, such as autism or the Asperger syndrome”
3. Faster Than Normal, by Peter Shankman. One of the very few books I’ve read that spins ADHD in a positive light and gives us hope. Peter talks about his experience living and succeeding with ADHD and provides a ton of useful information on how to manage and succeed with this neurodivergence.
