AJanuary 12 1896
The Boston Globe, Boston, Massachusetts, Sunday, January 12, 1896
CHAMPION PILLSBURY.
Career of the Wonderful Chess Player.
His Babyhood, Boyhood and Schooldays in Somerville.
How He Learned the Rudiments of the Game and Became Famous.
When Harry N. Pillsbury, the champion chess player, was a child he would content himself for hours at a time planning mimic battles with regiments of gaudily gotten up tin soldiers. He delighted in forming his fighting men in all sorts of positions and then moving them together until, with a grand sweep of his baby hands, both armies were annihilated in an indiscriminate charge.
He was born on Dec. 5, 1872. His father, L. B. Pillsbury, is a real estate agent in Somerville, but is perhaps best known as a school teacher, having been master in the high schools at Reading, Bridgewater, Hopkinton and Charlestown. He was also sub-master in the Somerville high school. Young Pillsbury's mother was a woman of gifted intellect and lovable disposition. She was a writer of no mean ability, but excelled in versification. Before her death her poems were collected under the title of “Old Mill and Other Poems.”
It was something of a surprise to the old schoolmates of Harry's who attended the Foster school when they first heard of his success as a chess expert.
Eight years ago, when Harry Pillsbury was 15 years old, his brother Ernest taught him the first moves in the game of chess. Ernest was not an expert, but could play a very fair game. Harry learned quickly. So fascinating was the game to him that it actually interfered with his studies. He was then in the high school, which he left before being graduated to give all of his time to chess. It soon came to pass that his brother was no match for him, and, there being a local club in East Cambridge, Harry joined that and began at once to make a reputation for himself.
C. F. Burrille of the Boston chess club, the chess expert, took a fancy to him and directed his play until he advanced from the odds of rook to that of knight player. While yet young in the game he became a member of the Deschappelles club in Boston, which included among its members some of the best players in this part of the country. His debut created a sensation. Old-timers went down before him like rickety chimneys in the path of a cyclone.
In 1889 the champion played a match with H. N. Stone, the conditions requiring that the style of game be the StoneWare defense, a famous Boston invention, and the young man won three games and lost two. Two years later he began a match with C. F. Burrille, one of the best match players in Boston, but the match was never ended. Pillsbury accepted the odds of pawn and move, and won four games, drew two and lost two.
When William Steinitz visited Boston Pillsbury played three games with him at the odds of pawn and move, winning two and losing one. In an even game Steinitz played Pillsbury, Snow and Barry in consultation, and was badly beaten.
After this Pillsbury started on a professional tour to Philadelphia, beating all opponents. When this tour was at an end he was invited by the Boston Press club to give an exhibition of blindfold playing. He began with one game, tried two, and added one after another until he succeeded, in December of 1892, in playing eight games all at one time.
In the winter of 1893-94 Mr. Pillsbury joined the Brooklyn chess club, and in conjunction with J. F. Barry, won for the association the championship of the Metropolitan press league. He competed with varied success in several tournaments until August of last year, when he went to Hastings, Eng., as the representative of the Brooklyn club and won the championship for himself and his club.
In the present tournament at St. Petersburg it was intended to bring together the five bright particular stars of the chess world, Lasker, Pillsbury, Steinitz, Tarrasch and Tschigorin—but just before the beginning of the tournament, Dr. Tarrasch was prevented by a business engagement from taking part. Play began on the 13th of last month, Pillsbury doing considerably more than holding his own.
Mr. Pillsbury is of medium size, with an intellectual head and classical features. He is of a resolute nature and incisive speech, at once courteous and fearless. Having the advantage of youth and energy he combines Yankee originality with analytical ability of a high order. His style of play is painstaking and solid, and he may be depended on not to lose a game for the sake of that false brilliancy which so often ends in defeat. In other words he plays to win and not for the gallery.
Before taking up chess professionally, Mr. Pillsbury was employed as advertising agent by one of Boston's big fancy goods houses. While so employed he became acquainted with newspaper men throughout the city, and was pronounced by all who came in business contact with him a very clever young man.
According to Mr. Pillsbury's father, the young chess expert can play a marvelous game of checkers, an accomplishment seldom found coexistent with the science of chess. As in the game in which he excels, all of the possible moves on the checker board are pictured in his mind the moment play opens. He once said that while playing eight games blindfolded, the picture of each succeeding move flashed before his mind's eye and passed on to give place to another as soon as the move was made.
