Andrea Botez

Chess streamer

“I have been experimenting with this (creatine intake) on my own, and it’s not just sleep deprivation, but two weeks ago, I had a chess tournament, and I haven’t studied chess in a long time. I was spending about 2 hours a day just doing puzzles, which that is when I feel my ADHD the most. When I start a chess.com and I’m sitting there for 10 minutes and I can’t do it.

And the baseline for creatine that people have been taking has been 5 g, but more and more we are finding that 10 g might be the new baseline. And specifically on stressors, you can take even more than that.

So that’s what I did during my chess tournament. I joked about this: ‘I don’t think this counts as doping. It’s just creatine’. I didn’t win the tournament anyways. Maybe it didn’t do anything, maybe it’s all placebo!

I was taking at least 10, if not a little bit more. And I definitely felt that in the afternoon crashes where I always kind of get tired. I was not feeling the midday crashes so much when I was taking high doses of creatine. Right now, I’m just taking 10 g, but I do feel a difference that when I don’t take it or when I take 5 compared to the 10. I don’t feel like I’m as sharp throughout the day. Could very much be placebo, but I would recommend experimenting with it.”