Atmospheric pressures

‘Poor indoor air quality hampers cognitive performance significantly’, concluded a recent study in the IZA (Institute of Labour Economics). Of course, ‘fresh air is good for you’ fits squarely in the category of things you knew already, but the research was specifically about chess: ‘An increase in the indoor concentration of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) by 10 µg/m3 increases a player’s probability of making an erroneous move by 26.3 per cent.’ Intriguingly, the effect seems most pronounced when players are in time pressure.
 
By my reckoning, that makes it pretty easy to induce mild stultification: burning a few incense sticks ought to do it. It’s scarcely credible now, but smoking at the board was once commonplace. The Soviet World Champion Mikhail Botvinnik is supposed to have enlisted his training partners to blow smoke in his face.
 
The celebrated 1972 Fischer-Spassky match was played in Reykjavik. The air is excellent there, and chess captured the public imagination like never before, though perhaps the political backdrop of the Cold War had more to do with it.
 
In 2012, over Turkish coffee in London, Andrew Paulson effused to me about his plans for the World Championship. Paulson had parachuted into the chess world when Agon Limited, of which he was CEO, acquired the rights to the title match from the governing body Fide.
 
Fresh air was part of the aesthetic of his vision. He had, I remember, a majestic ambition of staging the event atop a remote mountain. Like  duelling monks, the champion and his challenger would engage in an elevated cerebral death-match in a ‘first to six wins’ contest. (No matter that the Karpov-Kasparov match in 1984 was abandoned without a winner after 48 games in six months.)
 
As Paulson elaborated with abundant charisma on his plans, I wondered if he was trying to see which of his ideas would resonate.