Who first said, 'The pen is mightier than the sword”? The words were first written by novelist and playwright Edward Bulwer-Lytton in 1839, in his historical play Cardinal Richelieu.
Who first said, “The penguin is mightier than the swordfish”? I always thought it was a silly pun by the player/author/publisher Al Horowitz, but he wasn't the first.
There are a number of children's books with the title, but it apparently is from a children’s poem by Oliver Herford.
A Penguin Poem
The Penguin sits up-on the shore
And loves the little fish to bore;
He has one enervating joke
That would a very Saint provoke:
"The Penguin's mightier than the swordfish";
He tells this daily to the bored fish,
Until they are so weak, they float
With-out resistance down his throat.
Oliver Herford (1860 - 1935) was an Anglo-American writer, artist, and illustrator known for his witty remarks and skewed sense of humor. He was born in Sheffield, England and his family moved to Chicago in 1876 and to Boston in 1882. His sister Beatrice Herford was also a humorist, delivering comic monologues on stage.
In any case, I just happened to think about the pun when I came across a game played by Boris Spassky that appeared in Czech GM Ludek Pachman’s classic book Modern Chess Tactics.
Pachman devoted a lot of space discussing Restricting the Effectiveness and Co-ordination of the Pieces. He wrote, “Striving to make the effectiveness of one's own pieces as great as possible naturally always involves restricting the effectiveness of the opponent's pieces.” To demonstrate the point he used a lot of examples showing tactical means which can serve to achieve the goal.
The following smartly played game by Spassky is an object lesson on pins.
Boris Spassky (born 1937) was the tenth World Champion, holding the title from 1969 to 1972. His opponent was a Candidate Master named Sergey Avtonomov. About all that I known of him is that he was born in 1931 and he was educated as a lawyer. In his school years he was part of the youth team of Leningrad.
Boris Spassky–Sergey Avtonomov1–0D28Soviet Junior QualifierLeningrad URS1949Stockfish 16
D28: Queen's Gambit Accepted 1.d4 d5 2.c4 dxc4 Seldom seen, the QGA's
success rate is statisticallt is about the same as declining it with either 2..
.e6 or 2...c6. The Queen's Gambit is not a true gambit, because the Pawn is
either regained or can only be held in a way that is not favorable to black.
By accepting the P black surrenders the center and white will try to seize
space and use it to launch an attack. Forid part, black will try to weaken
white's center with the hope of gaining an advantage in the ending. This
usually involves moves like ..c5 and ...cxd4. White either ends up with an
isolated d-Pawn or his will disappear and the position will be one of little
promis. 3.f3 f6 4.e3 c5 5.xc4 e6 6.0-0 a6 7.e2 c6 8.c3 b5 9.b3
The standard move. 9.e5 is wrong because after xe5 10.dxe5 d7 11.d3 xe5 black has recocered his P and he has the more active position. 9.d3 c4 10.b1 If (when) black plays ...O-O white can set up a Q+B battery with
Qc2 attacking h7. But, even more to the point is white aims for e4. e7 11.d1 b7 12.e4 9...cxd4 Apparently black hopes to get play against the
isolated d-Pawm...almost always a questionablecdecision. 9...b7 10.d1 c7 11.d5 Here black almost always takes 11...exd5, but that's not the correct
move. b4 12.dxe6 c4 13.a3 13.c2 fxe6 is equal. 13...fxe6 14.e4 cxb3 15.axb4 c4 16.e3 xb4 17.b6 c8 18.xb5 is equal. Gowever, it should
be noted that there are very few example of this line starting at move 9 and
11...Nb4 would very difficult to spot OTB! 10.d1 This first pin has us a
tactical element that will have a decisive bearing on the further course of
play. b7 10...a5 This is black's best try. 11.xd4 c7 12.e4 b7 13.g5 xb3 14.axb3 d6 15.xf6 gxf6 with equal chances. Yakovich,Y (2570)
-Savchenko,S (2595) Maikop 1998 10...e5 It should be notes that lack
cannot defend the d-Pawn with this. 11.exd4 e7 12.dxe5 g4 13.h3 gxe5 14.d5 and white has a decisive advantahe. 11.exd4 b4 From the positional
standpoint this move is correct, but at this point it comes too late to
blockade the d-Pawn. 11...a5 is the best that black has, but white will
still have a clear advantahe after 12.d5 xb3 13.dxe6 c8 14.exf7+ xf7 15.axb3 12.d5 Well plyed by the future Wotrld Champion!. White pins the black
pieces in three ways and obtains an irresistible attack. His advantage is
alresy decisive/ 12.e5 This was played in Kaluga,S (2227)-Dolsonov,A
(2095) Novokuznetsk 2008 and while it yields white a slear adbanatge it is not
nearly as good as Spassky's move. d5 13.xd5 bxd5 14.a4 b4 15.g5 e7 16.c6 with yje better game. 12...bxd5 13.g5 Pins....1)Black's e-Pawn is
pinned by the Q, 2) his N on d5 by the R and 3) his N on f6 by the B. Black's
problem is that he cannot get rid of these pins without gravely weakening his
Ps. e7 14.xf6 Forcing a P weakness. gxf6 14...xf6 loses a piece. 15.xd5 xd5 16.xd5 15.xd5 Forcing an additional weakness. xd5 15...exd5 This is actually a better choice because at least he can use the B to defend
the d-Pawn. But after 16.d4 d7 17.ac1 there is nothing about black's
position that would cause one to want to play it. 16.xd5 exd5 17.d4
Besides weak Ps, black is now unable to complete his development.. f8
Black needs to get out of the pin on the B. but it's too late to repair the
damage. 17...0-0 is out of the question. 18.c6 d7 19.xe7+ 18.f5 h5 There is no longer an adequate defence for black. 18...c5 19.ac1 c8 20.b4 xb4 20...b6 21.xc8 xc8 22.e7+ g8 23.h6+ g7 24.xf7+ xh6 25.xf6+ h5 26.xd5+ mates 21.g4 g8 22.xb4+ mates in 3 19.xd5‼
xd5 19...e8 20.d2 d8 21.e1 Yet another pin on the B. xd5 22.xd5 and the B is lost. 19...g8
20.xe7+ g8 21.xf6 Facing mate or the loss of his Q
black resigned. 21.xf6 h7 22.e7+ 1–0
Good night. The Spassky vs Avtonomov game is well known. Is Avtonomov alive? There is a Russian legal scholar called Sergey Stanislavovich Avtonomov, born on the 9 March (The same day as Bobby Fischer!) 1959. Maybe his son? Here is the source:
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexei_Stanislavovich_Avtonomov
Thank you for your attention.
They appear to be the same.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessplayer?pid=114553