Chess lessons from the master. Steps 7 and 8.

Whenever I have a crisis of chess confidence or require a boost to stay on the chess straight and narrow I always reach for the Welsh Chess Bible the twelve step-approach outlined in the eponymous auto-biography of the late Welsh Chess Champion "12 steps to Dai Young"

He instructs players that: "to have self-knowledge is the key to unlock the path to true chess enlightenment" 

In step 7 Dai introduces the concept of auto-didactacism.  He explains that this was imparted to him in the orphanage by his mentor and teacher Father Colm O'Flaherty:

"Playing with yourself is a key stage to full development.  Father C showed me this and I soon developed my own techniques.  I found that if I sat on my left hand for an hour solid it really did feel like someone else was playing with me."

Step 8 is the first of the advanced stages in the book.  Dai was a seventh Dan in shrewdness and had developed the unique ability to make chess judgements based on all relevant stimuli from his immediate environment.  The chapter was titled Never judge a book by its cover.  Here we see the first burgeonings of the idea of the concept of counter-intuitivismism:

"In the annual Welsh National "Jews versus Gentiles - Judgment Day" Super-series at the Aberfeldi Asda I drew the great Hasidic IM Dewi Finkelstein in the semis.

The match had gone with serve and was tied at 4-4.  Dewi had white in the decider.

1 Na3..... the Sodium attack.

I was proper flummoxed.

Ultra-orthodox my arse! 

I called the adjudicator - Rabbi Brynwen Goldberg.  Dewi was instantly disqualified for moves outside his strict religious heritage.

This was my chess awakening.  I saw a new power.  From this time forward I would take the first chess-steps on the path of ultra-unorthoxdoxy"

The rest is history. 

Inspiring stuff indeed.