As to Chess, although I did adhere to the prescribed
curriculum (in Provenance Continuation indeed you see many
items acquired later, until I discovered the great secret of
Chess which is simply this: for every move of your opponent,
make the correct adjustment, defensive or offensive, as the
case may be. In games now, I always take Black, which forces
the other to cut bait and fish, or else stew in his own
juice, depending on his Virtue) even then to beat Crowley, I
did not need to study outmoded textbooks (full of
misprints)! In practice, when about to lose he had the habit
of tipping over the board, or else The Great Wild Beast
would stand up suddenly without a word of apology, and stalk
off to perform pressing business in another place - more
often than not the pharmaceutical shelf. Kipling's masterful
exposition in Stalky & Co of sportsmanship would not claim
its most conspicuous champion here. Pari passu recall his
ruthlessness in playing the version of Fives called
``Thelema;'' the words used in scoring were easy to
remember, as well as shocking - but there was no referee!
Once upon a time, showing off the power of his memory and
imagination, he played with me a game of chess blindfolded,
pulling the covers up over his head while I sat at the desk
in the corner telling the moves as we made them. My mistake
was in not recording them! In the end game, respective
positions did not match; he said it was my fault for stating
some move wrongly - so the game was called off. By
continuing it, he would have been mated in short order!
Later on, while making-up the bed (one of my chores as a
Chela), lo and behold, under his pillow (How could he be so
stupid as to leave it there?) a miniature, portable chess
set, peg-pieces and all! On Page 875 of the Confessions, he
writes: ``unless one played to win, there was no point in
playing at all,'' but my notion of winning did not justify
cheating!
from Znuz is Znees vol. 1