Harry Nelson Pillsbury A Genius Ahead of His Time

HARRY NELSON PILLSBURY: A Genius Ahead of his Time
Author: Alexander Cherniaev
131 pages
$29.95

Reviewed by John Donaldson

When one thinks of the best American players of all time it's not uncommon to hear conversations that start with Morphy, then add Marshall, Reshevsky and Fine to the mix, follow with Fischer and finish with a bunch of contemporary players headed by Kamsky. Some might add Steinitz who was a naturalized American. Others might argue for a spot for Kashdan. Unfortunately all too often they forget the "Hero of Hastings", Harry Nelson Pillsbury, who won Hastings 1895 (defeating Lasker, Tarrasch and Steinitz among others) and for a period right before and after the start of the 20th century was among the best players in the world.

A new book by GM Alexander Cherniaev, HARRY NELSON PILLSBURY: A Genius Ahead of his Time seeks to draw attention to the American giant on the 100th anniversary of his passing through various brief writings from Pillsbury's time, 50 annotated games (drawing from contemporary notes, modern sources like Kasparov and the author), career statistics and crosstables and an introduction by Alexei Shirov. The latter mentions that Rubinstein and Nimzovich are commonly thought of us as the first great non-champions to contribute greatly to the game but in Shirov's opinion Pillsbury should be added to the list.

There is no shortage of books on Pillsbury in English. One can mention PILLSBURY'S CHESS CAREER (1922 by Watts and Sergeant), GREAT AMERICAN CHESS PLAYERS: H.N. Pillsbury (1948 by Wenman), LASKER vs. PILLSBURY (1960 by Brandreth) and PILLSBURY THE EXTRAORDINARY (1990) by Soltis and Smith) but clearly the gold standard is HARRY NELSON PILLSBURY: AMERICAN CHESS CHAMPION by Jacques N. Pope that was published in 1996. Within its 376 pages Pope's book contains almost every known Pillsbury game, many with contemporary annotations. Though not designed to be a biographical work, HARRY NELSON PILLSBURY: AMERICAN CHESS CHAMPION is the most thorough and reliable source on the life of one of Caissa's most brilliant but short-lived talents. Unfortunately Pope's book has long been out of print and might not have been available to Cherniaev who clearly enjoys the greats of old (in 2005 he co-authored a book on Janowski with Alexander Meynell).

All earlier works are in English descriptive notation, so if one is looking for a book on Pillsbury in algebraic and doesn't get lucky finding a second hand copy of Pope, this is it. HARRY NELSON PILLSBURY: A Genius Ahead of his Time benefits from Cherniaev's observations. Describing Pillsbury's style of play, he is of the opinion that Pillsbury had a modern all consuming desire to win and fought to the end. Contrary to someone like Lasker, he was not a universal player and was not particularly adept at positional maneuvering and endgame play but compensated with a genius at playing with the initiative. Notes to the games favor prose over variations but concrete analysis is given when needed.

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