1 Pillsbury’s Personality: From the Brooklyn Eagle, 1895 Edited by Robert T. Tuohey
We suffer from a deluge of information. Or, perhaps more accurately expressed, we are constantly pelted with bits and pieces of data, not only very often of doubtful authenticity, but regurgitated many times over, to boot. A nice case in point is nearly any article on Harry Nelson Pillsbury: one of the best pieces written during his lifetime was the Brooklyn Daily Eagle’s (note 1), September 8, 1895, Pillsbury’s Personality, Sketch of the Master Player of the World. And yet, trying to find the article reprinted complete can befuddle all but the most cyber-savvy. Other than adding a few brief notes, correcting some misprints (e.g. Murphy instead of Morphy), and inserting the pictures, this classic article is here reprinted. A number of interesting chess articles can be found within the archives at http://www.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/eagle/index.htm.
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Pillsbury’s Personality, Sketch of the Master Player of the World Character Method Style Training and Mental Traits Which Distinguish the Victor of the Hastings Tournament and Enabled Him to Defeat the Previously Recognized Leaders in the Mimic Strategy of the Chessboard. H.N. Pillsbury is not only the first Brooklyn representative to win a first prize in a first class chess tournament against the masters of the world, but is the first American since Morphy’s time, to gain the honor. Steinitz, McKenzie, and others, who have won the championship, have been foreigners, with an acquired American citizenship. Pillsbury is a distinct product of modern chess study, as it has been developed in this country, and his score in the Hastings tourney has something more in it than the mere majority of points. It is a victory for a style of game that has much in it of the dash and enterprise associated with the course of life on this side of the ocean. He was born in Somerville, Mass., a suburb of Boston, in December, 1872, where he lived until about two years ago. His introduction to the game was at the hands of C.F. Burille, the well known Boston expert. This was only four years ago, but one year of practice and study, under the guidance mainly of Burille, Pillsbury had quite a local reputation as a promising player. To a close and intelligent study of the science, there was united a natural aptitude for chess, which showed itself in daring combinations, which though coming to grief when opposed to the experts, evinced a thorough insight into the tactical possibilities of the board.
His practice was only among the experts during his second year of play, as indeed it was ever since he learned the moves, but he had reached the stage in skill where only the first class players could cope with him on even terms. Pillsbury was an indefatigable student,
3 however, and was ready to offer odds to whoever would play, in default of opponents of worthy metal. He was a constant habituĂŠ of the Boston chess resorts, joined the Boston Chess Club and in two years from his first move in the game was rated a first class chess player, able to challenge any of the Boston players on even terms and deemed almost good enough to meet the masters. Among the Boston players, Burille was considered a master, having played creditably in the Sixth American Chess Congress, and Pillsbury was able to give him a good argument. The latter was also rapidly acquiring a reputation as a blindfold player and in sĂŠances against teams of eight, from the Boston Chess Club. Boston Press Club and Harvard College respectively, won a majority of his games in this difficult phase of the art. During a visit of Mr. Steinitz to chess club Pillsbury was one of a team of fifteen against the master and won his game easily. He was the only player in the club to meet Mr. Steinitz on even terms and he made a very good showing against the veteran, though he did not win. In a consultation game against Steinitz, by a team composed of Messrs. Pillsbury, Barry, and Snow, the master was bowled over in brilliant style by tactics which bore the Pillsbury hall mark in its fullest development. Mr. Walbrodt was the next master to meet Pillsbury. It was in the winter of 1892-3, and the enormous advances of the new comer in the game were emphatically shown. Pillsbury offered the German Allgaier gambit on the first game and won in brilliant style in this, one of the riskiest openings of the science. Walbrodt could do no better in the other games with Pillsbury, and the latter soon after moved to Brooklyn with the brevet of a chess master. He made a tour of the country, giving blindfold exhibitions, as well as playing against whoever cared to meet him. His success was phenomenal. He devised a chess automaton at this time and that was a success, playing with uniform, and in the main, a prevailing skill with the Western chess cranks.
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Pillsbury’s first venture in tournament play and his initial bid for chess honors was in the Columbian Chess congress held in New York in the fall of 1893. It was an invaluable experience, bringing to a test the extremely personal quality of his style. He was just outside the list of prize winners, but established his reputation as a player of rare originality. His game with Lasker, especially, was a fine one, and though the Briton won it was only by drawing to the full on a store of chess knowledge that has made Lasker one of the great masters of the art. Always accurate, careful and safe, Lasker’s conservative soundness was just the style to cope with the tactical originality of the American player. This was proved, but it was demonstrated also, that Pillsbury had yet to perfect his title to champion. In the New York City Chess Club Open tourney he won first place, and in some minor matters easily held his own with the metropolitan players. He early connected himself with the Brooklyn Chess club after his arrival in the vicinity, and such prestige as has attached to his victories accrued to the local organization. His showing in the Columbian chess congress encouraged him to believe that with more careful preparation and relief from the cares of business he could successfully meet the masters of the world. It was urged after the congress that Pillsbury was seriously handicapped by the demands of his occupation, looking after the interests of his chess automaton at the Eden museo. He played in the evening after an exhaustive day’s work and did not give an exhibition of his real form.
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He was now in the full tide of his career as a professional chess player; though his work in the game partook largely of chess contributions to the newspapers. He followed the Lasker-Steinitz match from start to finish, furnishing scores and analyses to several newspapers. The work was of a character to develop his inherent skill and when the Hastings tournament was projected it was looked upon by the admirers of the American player as his chance at last. He would have nothing but the responsibilities of the tourney to contend with and there was ample time for preparation. He entered the list with the result now so well known. His score of 101/2 to 41/2 against the truly formidable array of chess talent aligned for the engagement, is as conclusive as it is gratifying. It is safe to say that every chess master in the world worthy of the name was entered and, as the Brooklyn player went down the line, they fell one by one, all but Lasker, Tschigorin, and Schlechter. Of the first two it may be said they are worthy peers of the Hastings champion. Schlechter’s game was lost through a contretemps familiar to chess players, where, to avoid a draw, the anxious player trusts the chances of a win on a daring combination, in the hope of distracting his adversary’s attention. Pillsbury’s combination was successfully solved by Schlechter, however.
In what has been said of Pillsbury’s style, as daring and original, it is not to be understood that profound and laborious study is dismissed as part of his education in the game. His growth in skill, while wonderful in its quick attainment, has been gradual and sure, withal it has reached the full fruition in four years. His grasp of the essential principles of the art was a feature of even his first year of play. Constant practice, day by day, begot confidence and readiness of resource over the board, but going with this was an unremitted study of chess literature. The precepts of the great masters in the game, as well as the incidental defeats in play, chastened a fondness for brilliant practice, as opposed to sound but relatively uninteresting strategy.
6 His advances in the art were step by step, as has been shown, and those who know him best feel assured that he will excel even his present magnificent form. A groundwork of study and supports a superstructure which among chess players is looked upon as one of the most interesting developments in the science. Of no modern player can it be so constantly said that his games offer the element of surprise and ingenuity as often as Pillsbury’s. The great majority of chess games are uninteresting to casual students of the art and most players, however good, rarely go far from the beaten and obvious track. Readers of Pillsbury’s scores, however, are ever on the qui vive for moves which come as near being exciting as can be said of any move in chess. One can imagine the interest aroused in this tournament when in his game with Janowski, for instance, he gave up his queen for an advantage in position and won out in brilliant fashion. It was but one of a series of moves which can be found throughout the Brooklyn player’s work in the tourney, where his opponent’s had deep and involved problems suddenly presented for solution, and the task proved too much. There may be an occasional game of Pillsbury’s that is monotonous, but none of the list of contending masters has such a number of genuinely interesting scores, full of delight of the student, whether expert or amateur, rivaling even the work of Tschigorin, who has been the model hitherto of combination or tactical play as distinct from strategic development. It should be noted that his tactical enterprise and daring were exhibited toward the close of a tourney where he was one of the three who could not afford to lose a single game. It is announced in the cable dispatches that in his game with Gunsberg, his last of the tourney, when everything depended on his winning, Pillsbury branched off into the new and relatively untried channels, risking entanglement with such an old and tried veteran as Gunsberg. It may be accepted as true, however, that, whatever Pillsbury tried on the British player was sound, for the latter is a master at puncturing the bubbles of frothy chess. The incident was entirely characteristic of Pillsbury, who never hesitates to assail a vulnerable point in his adversary, even at the risk of loss if there is any prospect of improvement in his position. It is the bent of his way on the chess board - to play as sound as possible but to attack at all hazards. One is reminded in a study of the Brooklyn boy’s games of the famous dictum of the French general on success in the art of war: “L’audace, l’audace; toujours l’audace.” ("Audacity, audacity - always audacity!" RT) Aside from his skill over the board and in blindfold play, in which by the way he is second only to Blackburne and very little inferior at all, Mr. Pillsbury is an accomplished annotator of the game. To most chess players who know him his skill in resolving other men’s chess work is an even more engaging side of his talent than the more spectacular winning in a tourney. He has done a lot of this for publication, and his brief notes appended to the scores give a larger view of the subtle strategy of the masters. It is a branch where, of course, only wide erudition would serve. Rare indeed must be the move which the Brooklyn master cannot identify, as novel or not, or the variation which has been devised to meet the exigency. All this stands in good stead in tournament play and was, one may be sure, a stumbling block to the European masters.
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Added to this the new champion is a good type of Young America, unassuming, self reliant, using to the full the resources that are in him, and mindful yet of the teachings of experience, the precepts of which he uses or discards as seems best suited to the game at hand. Notes 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Nelson_Pillsbury 2. On the automaton: http://blog.chess.com/batgirl/the-strange-and-wondrous-ajeeb