Shakespeare and Chess!

State your qualifications?  You know this is the internet, right?  Your stated "qualifications" are meaningless.

To thwart dubious qualifications, we must devise questions that don't have answers readily available on the web, which is awfully tough.

I'll give it a try in order to attempt to substantiate your claims of being "well read":

Who killed Fyodor Pavlovich?

KATHARINA: I pray you, sir, is it your will
	To make a stale of me amongst these mates?

The Taming of the Shrew, Act 1, Scene 1

Doesn't sound like Kate was the best player, but she could be just setting her opponent up.

 nice, or maybe a good question for those who are not well read

how bout what was thought of by the people of earth to be a dolphin's attempt to whistle the star spangled banner while jumping bacward through a hoop?

see if well read finds that out

In the immortal words of the bard -- "Peanuts":

(Question center stage)  "Is there a doctor in the house?"

(In audiance, standing in darkened outine)  "I have an honorary degree from Anderson College!"

(Curtain closes; all die)

That, by the way, is a good strategy for when you get in a tight spot defending your doctoral thesis.

Oh yeah? Well if you know so much, who killed Fyodor Pavlovich?

Portia

 you could just as easily ask

Who killed the fish in the Old Man and the Sea?

I think Hamlet, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet would be lousy players. Hamlet would remain undecisive for too long and always get into time trouble. Macbeth would dwell on the inaccuracies he made in the earlier moves of the game and would lose his concentration. Romeo and Juliet would enjoy a game or two between each other, but would lack the killer instinct at the right moments.

I think Caesar would see chess as an opportunity of a comeback. He has what it takes. He'd be good.

Lady Macbeth would be the best chess player--she's the only character to have obviously scored a victory:  "My mind she has mated & amazed my sight," says the good Doctor who has been summoned to Dunsinane to attend the Queen.

MacBeth..........Act 1 scene 5 and Lady MacBeth speaks.......

The raven himself is hoarse 
That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan 
Under my battlements. Come, you spirits 
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, 
And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full 
Of direst cruelty. Make thick my blood, 
Stop up th’access and passage to remorse, 
That no compunctious visitings of nature 
Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between 
Th’ effect and it. Come to my woman’s breasts, 
And take my milk for gall, you murd’ring ministers, 
Wherever in your sightless substances 
You wait on nature’s mischief. Come, thick night, 
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell, 
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes, 
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark, 
To cry ‘Hold, hold!’ 

This speech shows the audience that Lady Macbeth is the real steel behind Macbeth and that her ambition will be strong enough to drive her husband forward.  Shakespere  Novice ...how else does one learn?

alrighty then ! Now I know ..

Coriolanus.  He would want to prove to his mother he is the champion of Rome. 

He won most of his battles.

To e4 or not to e4, that is the question.

That was a good one

Iego from Othello...He is bad but very smart. He knows well to take advantage of his opponent's weakness.

Timon of Athens would give his pieces away. Not him.