Harry Nelson Pillsbury (December 5, 1872 - July, 1906), was United States Chess Champion from 1898 until his death in 1906. Harry Nelson Pillsbury File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... December 5 is the 339th day (340th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1872 was a leap year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ... July is the seventh month of the year in the Gregorian Calendar and one of seven Gregorian months with the length of 31 days. ... 1906 was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ... A chess table is a table with a chessboard painted or engraved on it. ... Winner list: 2005 Hikaru Nakamura 2004 Alexander Shabalov 2003 Alexander Shabalov 2002 Larry Christiansen 2000 Joel Benjamin / Alexander Shabalov / Yasser Seirawan 1999 Boris Gulko 1998 Nick de Firmian 1997 Joel Benjamin 1996 Alex Yermolinsky 1995 Nick de Firmian / Patrick Wolff / Alexander Ivanov 1994 Boris Gulko 1993 Alexander Shabalov / Alex Yermolinsky...

Pillsbury was born in Somerville, Massachusetts and grew up in Philadelphia. Seal of the city Somerville is a city located in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, just north of Boston. ... Philadelphia is a village located in Jefferson County, New York. ...

By 1890, having only played chess for two years he beat noted chess expert H. N. Stone. In April 1892, Pillsbury played a match against World Champion Wilhelm Steinitz, (giving Pillsbury a pawn advantage), Pillsbury won 2 games to 1. His rise was meteoric, and there was soon no one to challenge him in the New York chess scene. Wilhelm Steinitz Wilhelm Steinitz (May 17, 1836, Prague, Czech Republic (then Austrian Empire) - August 12, 1900,New York City, United States) was an Austrian chess player, and the first official World Champion of chess. ... The pawn (♙♟) is the weakest and most numerous piece in the game of chess, representing infantry, or more particularly pikemen. ...

Sensation at Hastings

The Brooklyn chess club sponsored his journey to Europe to play in the Hastings 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 champion Lasker and former world champion Steinitz and his recent challenger Mikhail Chigorin who was second. 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 the powerful Siegbert Tarrasch.[1] A map highlighting Brooklyn and the rest of New York City. ... World map showing location of Europe When considered a continent, Europe is the worlds second smallest continent in terms of area, with an area of 10,600,000 km² (4,140,625 square miles), making it larger than Australia only. ... The chess tournament that was conducted at Hastings, England from August 5 to September 2 1895 has been called by many commentators as the greatest of all time, and a milestone in the history of chess, for several reasons. ... Emanuel Lasker (December 24, 1868 – January 11, 1941) was a German chess player and mathematician, born at Berlinchen in Brandenburg (now Barlinek in Poland). ... Wilhelm Steinitz Wilhelm Steinitz (May 17, 1836, Prague, Czech Republic (then Austrian Empire) - August 12, 1900,New York City, United States) was an Austrian chess player, and the first official World Champion of chess. ... Mikhail Chigorin (12 November 1850 - 25 January 1908) was a leading Russian chess player and the first grandmaster from Russia. ... The Queens Gambit is a chess opening that starts with the moves 1. ... The 1890s were sometimes referred to as the Mauve Decade, because William Henry Perkins aniline dye allowed the widespread use of that colour in fashion, and also as the Gay Nineties, under the then-current usage of the word gay which referred simply to merriment and frivolity, with no... Siegbert Tarrasch (March 5, 1862 – February 17, 1934) was one of the strongest chess players of the late 19th century and early 20th century. ...

Further career

His next big tournament was in St. Petersburg the same year, where 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 tournament, he was affected by severe headaches in the second, and lost no less than six games, ultimately finishing third. Saint Petersburg (Russian: Санкт-Петербу́рг, English transliteration: Sankt-Peterburg), colloquially known as Питер (transliterated Piter), formerly known as Leningrad (Ленингра́д, 1924–1991) and Petrograd (Петрогра́д, 1914–1924), is a city located in Northwestern Russia on the delta of the river Neva at the east end of the Gulf of Finland... Depression-era U.S. poster advocating early syphilis treatment Syphilis (historically called lues) is a sexually transmitted disease (STD) that is caused by a spirochaete bacterium, Treponema pallidum. ...

Lifetime records

Pillsbury had an even record against Lasker (+5-5=4). He even beat Lasker with black pieces at St Petersburg in 1895[2] and at Augsburg in 1900[3]. Saint Petersburg (Russian: Санкт-Петербу́рг, English transliteration: Sankt-Peterburg), colloquially known as Питер (transliterated Piter), formerly known as Leningrad (Ленингра́д, 1924–1991) and Petrograd (Петрогра́д, 1914–1924), is a city located in Northwestern Russia on the delta of the river Neva at the east end of the Gulf of Finland... Augsburg is a city in south-central Germany. ... 1900 is a common year starting on Monday. ...

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 beat David Janowski (+6-4=2) and Geza Maroczy (+4-3=7) and crushed Carl Schlechter (+8-2=9). Joseph Henry Blackburne, nicknamed Black Death, dominated the British chess world during the latter part of the 19th century. ... Dawid Janowski (1868 - 1927) was a leading Polish chess master. ... Geza Maroczy (1870-1951) was a leading Hungarian chess master. ... Carl Schlechter Carl Schlechter (March 2, 1874 - December 27, 1918) was a leading Austrian chess master at the turn of the 20th century. ...

Blindfold skill

Pillsbury was a very strong blindfold chess player, and could play checkers and [[chess] simultaneously while playing a hand of whist, and reciting a list of long words. His maximum was 22 simultaneous blindfold games at Moscow 1902. However, his greatest feat 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 Pillsbury scored +3-7=11. As a teenager, Edward Lasker played Pillsbury in a blindfold exhibition in Breslau, aagainst the wishes of his mother, and recalled in Chess Secrets I learned from the Masters: Blindfold Chess is a way to play chess, whereby play is conducted without the players having sight of the positions of the pieces, or any physical contact with them. ... starting position on a 10×10 draughts board Draughts, also known as checkers, is a group of mental sport board games between two players which involve diagonal moves of uniform pieces and mandatory captures by jumping over the enemys pieces. ... This page describes the classic game of Whist (a trick-taking game) which was played widely in the 18th and 19th centuries. ... Moscow (Russian: Москва́, Moskva, IPA:   listen?) is the capital of Russia, located on the river Moskva. ... Map of Germany showing Hanover Hanover (in German: Hannover [haˈnoːfɐ]), on the river Leine, is the capital of the state of Lower Saxony (Niedersachsen), Germany. ... Edward Lasker (Breslau, December 3 1885- New York, March 25 1981) was a leading American chess and go player. ... Wrocław. ...

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.

Alexander Alexandrovich Alekhine (sometimes spelled Aljechin) (in Russian, Александр Александрович Але́хин), (October 31 or November 1, 1892 - March 24, 1946) was a chess master, one of the great world chess champions. ... Chicago (officially named the City of Chicago) is the third largest city in the United States (after New York City and Los Angeles), with an official population of 2,896,016, as of the 2000 census. ...

Tragic early death

Poor health would prevent him from realizing his full potential throughout the rest of his life. In spite of this, Pillsbury beat American champion Jackson Showalter in 1898 to win the U.S. Chess Championship, a title he held until he succumbed to syphilis in 1906. The stigma surrounding the disease makes it unlikely that he sought medical treatment. Some said that Pillsbury ruined his health by all his blindfold displays, but those critics were evidently unaware of the fatal organic illness. Jackson Whipps Showalter (1860-1935) was US Chess Champion From 1894-1897 and again from 1906-1909. ... 1898 was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar). ... See also: U.S. Womens Chess Championship Winner list: 2005 Hikaru Nakamura 2004 Alexander Shabalov 2003 Alexander Shabalov 2002 Larry Christiansen 2000 Joel Benjamin / Alexander Shabalov / Yasser Seirawan 1999 Boris Gulko 1998 Nick de Firmian 1997 Joel Benjamin 1996 Alex Yermolinsky 1995 Nick de Firmian / Patrick Wolff / Alexander Ivanov... 1906 was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ...

Along with Paul Morphy and Bobby Fischer, Pillsbury ranks as one of the USA's greatest-ever chess players. Unfortunately, like the former, Pillsbury too had a short career. Paul Charles Morphy (June 22, 1837 - July 10, 1884), The Pride and Sorrow of Chess, is considered to have been the greatest chess master of his time, an unofficial World Champion and, is considered by many, including some grandmasters (see below) the greatest chessplayer who has ever lived. ... Bobby Fischer. ...

Pillsbury is buried in Laurel Hill Cemetery in Reading, MA

External links

• Pillsbury's games at muljadi.org
• 20 Critical Positions from His Games