Shakespeare Annotates

Shakespeare annotates a chess game Pinched wholemeal (as opposed to piecemeal) from Irving Chernev.
"In a book called Chesslets, by Dr. J. Schumer, all the games are annotated by quotations from various writers.

 

  Here is one of the games, with comments by Shakespeare:"

-- CHERNEV, Wonders and curiosities of chess

(27) Atkins - Saunders [E90]

  Stratford-Upon-Avon, 1925

 

1.d4

  To show our simple skill,
That is the true beginning.

1...Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 d6

  ... to climb steep hills
Requires slow pace at first.

4.e4 Bg7

  To be direct and honest is not safe.

5.Nf3 Nc6 6.h3

  ... to be forestailed ere we come to fall.

6...0-0 7.Be3 Nd7

  ... retire into your trenches.

8.Qd2 e5 9.d5

  My purpose, is, indeed, a horse of that colour.

9...Ncb8

  There is no virtue like necessity.

  The better part of valour is discretion.

10.Bh6

  By the pricking of my thumbs
Something wicked this way comes.

10...f5

  Though this be madness,
yet there is method in't.

11.Bxg7

  The ripest fruit falls first.

11...Kxg7

  . . . would be rid of such an enemy.

12.exf5 gxf5

 

 

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  ... food for powder, food for powder

13.Be2 a5 14.g4

  Playing the mouse in absence of the cat.

14...Nc5 15.gxf5 Bxf5 16.0-0-0 Nba6 17.Rdg1+

  Sits the wind in that corner ?

17...Kh8

  Thou marshall'st me the way that I was going;

18.Qe3 Qf6 19.a3

  Instinct is a great matter;
I was a coward on instinct.

19...Bg6 20.Rg5

  Defer no time, delays have dangerous ends.

20...Nb4

  Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps ...

  ... to the noble mind
Rich gifts wax poor
when givers prove unkind.

21.Nh4

  When I shun Scylla, your father,
I fall into Charybdis, your mother.

21...Nb3+

  Stand not upon the order of your going,
But go at once.

22.Kd1

  My grief lies onward and my joy behind.

22...Bc2+

  Courage mounteth with occasion

23.Ke1

 

 

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  Something is rotten in the state of Denmark

23...Be4

  Cassio, I love thee;
But never more be officer of mine.

24.Qxe4

  ... it goes much against my stomach

24...Qxf2+

  Lady, you are the cruell'st she alive.

25.Kd1

  One woe doth tread upon an-
other's heel, So fast they follow.

25...Rf4

  The Gordian knot of it he will unloose.

26.Rf1

  Hoist with his own petar.

26...Qd4+

  Striving to better, oft we mar what's well.

 

  There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.

27.Qxd4

  What's gone and what's past help
Should be past grief

27...Rxd4+ 28.Ke1

  . . . to fear the worst oft cures the worse.

28...Nc2+ 29.Kf2

  True hope is swift,
and flies with swallow's wings.

29...Rxh4

  If it were done when 'tis done,
then 'twere well It were done quickly.

30.Kg3

 

 

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  ... naked as I am, I will assault thee.

30...Rf4 31.Rxf4

  Off with his head!

31...exf4+ 32.Kxf4

  ... there's a special providence in the fall of a sparrow.

32...Ncd4 33.Rg2 Rd8

  Ill blows the wind that profits nobody.

34.Bg4 h6 35.Bd1 Nc5 36.Rd2 Rf8+ 37.Kg4

  The eagle suffers little birds to sing.

37...Rg8+

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