- Harry Nelson Pillsbury
Infobox chess player
playername=Harry Pillsbury
caption=Harry Nelson Pillsbury
birthname=Harry Nelson Pillsbury
country=USA
datebirth=birth date|1872|12|5
placebirth=Somerville,Massachusetts ,United States
datedeath=death date and age|1906|6|17|1872|12|5
placedeath=
title=
worldchampion=
womensworldchampion=
rating=
peakrating=Harry Nelson Pillsbury (b. Massachusetts, USA
December 5 ,1872 -June 17 ,1906 ), was a leadingchess player. At age 22, he won one of the strongest tournaments of all time, but his illness and early death prevented him from challenging for theWorld Chess Championship .Biography
Early life
Pillsbury was born in
Somerville, Massachusetts , moved toNew York City in 1894 and then again toPhiladelphia in 1898.By 1890, having only played chess for two years, he beat noted chess expert
H. N. Stone . In April 1892, Pillsbury won a match two games to one against World ChampionWilhelm Steinitz , who gave him odds of a pawn. Pillsbury's rise was meteoric, and there was soon no one to challenge him in the New York chess scene.Hastings 1895
The
Brooklyn chess club sponsored his journey toEurope to play in theHastings 1895 chess tournament , in which all the greatest players of the time participated. The 22-year-old Pillsbury became a celebrity in the United States and abroad by winning the tournament, finishing ahead of reigning world championEmanuel Lasker , former world championWilhelm Steinitz , recent challengersMikhail Chigorin andIsidor Gunsberg , and future challengersSiegbert Tarrasch ,Carl Schlechter andDawid Janowski .The dynamic style that Pillsbury exhibited during the tournament also helped to popularize the
Queen's Gambit during the 1890s, including [http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1109079 his famous win over Siegbert Tarrasch] .St. Petersburg 1895
His next big tournament was in
Saint Petersburg the same year, a six-roundround-robin tournament between four of the top five finishers at Hastings (Pillsbury, Chigorin, Lasker and Steinitz; Tarrasch did not play). Pillsbury appears to have contractedsyphilis prior to the start of the event. Although he was in the lead after the first half of the tournament (Pillsbury 6½ points out of 9, Lasker 5½, Steinitz 4½, Chigorin 1½), he was affected by severe headaches and scored only 1½/9 in the second half, ultimately finishing third (Lasker 11½/18, Steinitz 9½, Pillsbury 8, Chigorin 7). He lost a critical fourth cycle encounter to Lasker, andGarry Kasparov has suggested that had he won, he could well have won the tournament and forced a world championship match against Lasker. [ [http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=3182 Kasparov on Pillsbury] ,Chessbase , 17-Jun-2006]U.S. Champion 1897
In spite of his ill health, Pillsbury beat American champion
Jackson Showalter in 1897 to win theU.S. Chess Championship , a title he held until his death in 1906.Decline and death
Poor health would prevent him from realizing his full potential throughout the rest of his life. The stigma surrounding
syphilis makes it unlikely that he sought medical treatment. He succumbed to the illness in 1906.Pillsbury is buried in Laurel Hill Cemetery in Reading, MA.
Lifetime records
Pillsbury had an even record against Lasker (+5-5=4). He even beat Lasker with black pieces at
Saint Petersburg in 1895 and atAugsburg in 1900 (however this was an offhand game, not played in a tournament):Chess diagram|=
tright
= 8 |rd| | |qd|rd| |kd| |= 7 |pd|pd|pd| |bd| |pd|pd|= 6 | | | | | | | | |= 5 | | | |pl| |pd| | |= 4 | | | | |bd|pl|bl| |= 3 | | |bl| | | |ql|nl|= 2 |pl|pl|pl| | | |pl|pl|= 1 | | |kl|rl| | | |rl|= a b c d e f g h
The position after 16. Bxg41. e4 e5 2. f4 d5 3. exd5 e4 4. Nc3 Nf6 5. Qe2 Bd6 6. d3 O-O 7. dxe4 Nxe4 8. Nxe4 Re8 9. Bd2 Bf5 10. O-O-O Bxe4 11. Qg4 f5 12. Qg3 Nd7 13. Bc3 Nf6 14. Nh3 Ng4 15. Be2 Be7 16. Bxg4 (see diagram) Bh4 17. Bxf5 Bxg3 18. Be6+ Rxe6 19. dxe6 Qe8 20. hxg3 Bxg2 21. Rhe1 Bxh3 22. Rd7 Qg6 23. b3 Re8 24. Re5 Bxe6 25. Rxc7 Qxg3 26. Kb2 h6 27. Rxb7 Rc8 28. Bd4 Qg2 29. Rxa7 Rxc2+ 30. Kb1 Qd2 0-1
Pillsbury also had an even score against Steinitz (+5-5=3) and Tarrasch (+5-5=2), but a slight minus against Chigorin (+7-8=6) and surprisingly against
Joseph Henry Blackburne (+3-5=4), while he beatDavid Janowski (+6-4=2) andGeza Maroczy (+4-3=7) and crushedCarl Schlechter (+8-2=9).Blindfold skill
Pillsbury was a very strong
blindfold chess player, and could playcheckers andchess simultaneously while playing a hand ofwhist , and reciting a list of long words. His maximum was 22 simultaneous blindfold games atMoscow 1902. However, his greatest feat was 21 simultaneous games against the players in theHannover Hauptturnier of 1902—the winner of the Hauptturnier would be recognized as a master, yet Pillsbury scored +3-7=11. As a teenager,Edward Lasker played Pillsbury in a blindfold exhibition inBreslau , against the wishes of his mother, and recalled in "Chess Secrets I learned from the Masters"::But it soon became evident that I would have lost my game even if I had been in the calmest of moods. Pillsbury gave a marvellous performance, winning 13 of the 16 blindfold games, drawing two, and losing only one. He played strong chess and made no mistakes [presumably in recalling the position] . The picture of Pillsbury sitting calmly in an armchair, with his back to the players, smoking one cigar after another, and replying to his opponents' moves after brief consideration in a clear, unhesitating manner, came back to my mind 30 years later, when I refereed Alekhine's world record performance at theChicago World's Fair, where he played 32 blindfold games simultaneously. It was quite an astounding demonstration, but Alekhine made quite a number of mistakes, and his performance did not impress me half as much as Pillsbury's in Breslau.References
External links
*
* [http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2006/02/04/a_move_made_to_remember_a_chess_great/ The Boston Globe article]
* [http://www.hastingschess.org.uk/history_pillsbury.htm A New Grave Marker with Reunited Family]
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