Slask playmaker Noah Kirkwood uses chess to quiet things before the storm

He has excelled in his first season in the EuroCup.

The game of basketball throws so many things at a player – offensive game plans, defensive schemes, high energy opponents trying to steal the ball, and giving everything you have on every possession at both ends.

Noah Kirkwood is the type of person who needs calmness before all that madness. And for that, the Slask Wroclaw player leans on chess.

Catch him on a bus heading to the arena for a game and you will likely see him playing computer chess with one of two apps: Chess.com or Lichess.

Kirkwood explains that there are three different classifications of timed chess: Bullet, which is one minute plus zero; Blitz, which is around three or five minutes; and Rapid Classical, which is longer time controls. And he usually plays bullet or blitz.

“I will usually play either bullet or blitz to have multiple games with shorter amounts of time. So I know I have to get going after the bus, it's not going to be any more than two more minutes or something in the game left to play,” he told David Hein.

It’s all about relaxation for the 26-year-old, who first picked up the game when his aunt would come visit when he was around eight or nine years old.

“For me, it's just a nice way to relax and just think and put your focus, your full attention onto something outside of the reality you're in. Before games, I'm someone who just needs to relax and calm down. I'm not rah-rah, get myself hyped up for a game. I'm kind of the opposite when it comes to my play. I like to be more calm. So I found chess is really a way just to focus exactly on that moment and something else, and it's been really good for me,” he said.

“It really does help me because the last thing you want to do before a game is be overthinking or being unsure about what's on the scouting report. Just trust what you did to prepare before the game. And then when it becomes the game time, I don't want to be thinking too much.”

The Canadian started a chess club at his high school and then he joined the chess club while he was at Harvard. He would attend events on campus and play there.

He told a story about playing regularly one summer against a chess hustler named Billy at Harvard Square at Harvard.

“I ended up being good friends with him after the fact. And it really just changed my idea of how most of the time people think. It’s Harvard, you play chess and maybe it's an intellectual game, but here was a guy who really had nothing going for him at that time and used this game, learned the game and became a really high level player just by repetition and made a living off of it.

“It changed my idea of me thinking I had some limitations of how much I could reach, like hitting a plateau. And then I saw him and I realized there's still a whole lot more I can do.”

Kirkwood also enjoys playing Sudoku, completing the easy, medium and hard puzzles in the New York Times after practice while eating his prepared meal.

“However long it takes, I just bang them out and it’s a nice little relaxing routine I do,” he said.

Speaking of food, Kirkwood also credits a change in mentality in terms of nutrition last summer to his improved play from last season while he was at French club Saint-Quentin.

“I was really strict with an eating routine. I was kind of fasting in the mornings and then eating clean right after practice and then having another meal that was bigger in the evening time,” he said.

Kirkwood also changed up his off-season training regimen: waking up around 6am and getting to the court at 7am for a session, then weight room, recovery and another session in the afternoon.

“Just doing that consistently for two and a half months really just changed everything for me.”

That allowed him to be ready for more responsibility this season than he had last season in France.

“That's everything for me, and that's a huge reason why I wanted to come here: the way our team was structured and bond we had with a lot of young promising players who are all very hungry and wanting to move up in the European basketball ranks,” said Kirkwood, who is averaging 13.4 points, 4.2 rebounds and 4.5 assists in 15 BKT EuroCup games.

“This summer was really just being ready, knowing that the ball is going to be in my hands. And more importantly, it's just being able to play through mistakes. One thing this season I haven't been too happy with is the turnovers (3.1 per game). And a part of that I know is just having the ball more. But having a coach that even allows you to play through those mistakes gives you even more confidence to just play. And I think that's helped me a huge amount this EuroCup season.”

Kirkwood’s strong play helped Slask to a strong start to the EuroCup season, going 4-4 in the first eight games of the season. Slask had been a club that in its three previous seasons in the EuroCup managed to compile a 6-47 record. So the Polish side appeared to be a good run.

But the team hasn’t won since that Round 8 games at home against Bahcesehir College Istanbul on November 18.

“The frustrating part is we're competitive in all these games, and we have winning chances in most of them. The fact that we just can't figure out a way to close the deal is the toughest part. I think it'd be actually easier if we would lose by 30 points every game because we just know we're not at that level,” Kirkwood said.

“We didn't really have set expectations. So the fact that we were able to get four wins was amazing. And then I think we thought we could have carried it over for a couple in the second round. But it just hasn't worked in our favor. I guess there are some moral victories, but as a competitor, you're always trying to win and never go into a game thinking you already lost or we're just here for fun.”

For Kirkwood, going into a game means he has already played a game or two of chess so he can focus on the task at hand.