Chess passages from the Multiverse

While wandering the multiverse I came across this snippet from one of my chess journals which is a respectful parody of the work of Vernon Howard

The story is told of the man who sat at a chessboard and endlessly played a single opening. Day after day he sat down at the chessboard to play that same opening. He would play it with black and then he would play it with white with an extra tempo.


When his family asked him why he played the same boring opening, he replied, "I don't know why I do it. I just do it. Whenever his opponents complained about the monotonous opening he answered, "I'm sorry, but that's the way it is. I wish someone would show me how to play another opening."


A famous teacher of chess was finally called in. He examined the problem, then announced, "The reason you play that same opening is because you don't see that there are many other openings to play. In short you are hypnotised by that single opening."


The man replied, "But that's silly! I can see every one of those other openings when I open ECO. There are 500 of them from A00 to E99 in five volumes. I see them plainly enough."


"No," the teacher explained, "if you really saw those openings you would try to play them. Everyone wants to play more than one opening. If they don't its because they don't really see them. You think that one opening is all there is. You are hypnotized by it."


"Really?" asked the bewildered chessplayer.


"Really. You see you are bored because you play that one opening only. You play that one opening only because you think that no other openings exist. You must come out of your hypnosis. You must see the other openings. You must experiment with them. And you must not be afraid of the strange positions you get at first. As you play, they will become more and more familiar to you and less and less frightening. Then that familiarity will turn into harmonious development. Then you will never be bored of your openings again. You will have the entire chessboard to play upon."
- "PsychoChessography" by Vernon Howard (published in an alternative universe).