Harry Pillsbury

Harry Nelson Pillsbury was born on December 5, 1872 in Somerville, Massachusetts. He began playing chess in 1888, and 2 years later he beat noted chess expert H. N. Stone. In April 1892 he played a match against World Champion Wilhelm Steinitz. Steinitz gave him a pawn advantage and won 2 games to 1. Pillsburry's rise was meteroric and soon there was noone to challenge him in the New York chess scene.

In 1895, the Brooklyn chess club sponsored his journey to Europe to play in the Hastings chess tournament, in which all the greatest players of the time participated. The 22 year-old Pillsbury became a celebrity around the world by winning the tournament. He finished ahead of the reigning world champion Lasker and former world champion Steinitz, as well as his recent challenger Mikhail Chigorin who came in 2nd. The dynamic style that Pillsbury exhibited during the tournament also helped to popularize the Queen's Gambit during the 1890s, including a famous win over Siegbert Tarrasch. His next big was in St. Petersburg of 1895. He appears to have contracted syphilis prior to the start of the event. Although he was in the lead after the first half of the event, severe headaches affected him during the second half, and he lost no less than 6 games on his way to a 3rd place finish.

Pillsbury was a very strong blindfold chess player. He could play checkers and chess simultaneously while playing a hand of whist and reciting a long list of words. His maximum was 22 simultaneous blindfold games at Moscow in 1902. However, his greatest fear was 21 simultaneous games against the players in the Hannover Hauptturnier of 1902. The winner of the Hauptturnier would be recognized as a master, yet he only scored +3 -7 = 11. As a teenager, Edward Lasker played Pillsbury in a blindfold exhibition in Breslau 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 the Chicago 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".

Poor health would prevent him from realizing his full potential throughout the rest of his life. Despite this, he beat American champion Jackson Showalter in 1897 to win the U.S. Chess Championship. He held the title until he died on June 17, 1906 due to syphilis. He is buried in Laurel Hill Cemetary in Reading, Massachusetts. Along with Paul Morphy and Bobby Fischer, Pillsbury ranks as one of the United States' greatest chess players ever. Unfortunately like Morphy, he too had a short career.

Download 129 chess games by Harry Pillsbury

Back to Famous Chess Players