Great Players of the Past: Harry Nelson Pillsbury

[@Angelos-Georgiadis]

Great lectures of the past.

[@askthepizzaguy]

Didn't win any games after 33 years of age, but he had a good excuse.

[@tomswiftyphilo2504]

the truth hurts

[@mattmolzan3992]

Put it in H

[@owen429]

He didn’t lose any either. Best that, Capablanca!

[@zacharyheflin6794]

This has definitely become one of my favorite series

[@dannygjk]

I remember looking at some games of Pillsbury decades ago and I couldn't believe his ability to find his way through long tactical sequences.

[@schusterlehrling]

Pillsbury was also a checker player at Grandmaster level. He played both simultanously at the same time.

[@pukulu]

Charousek's Wikipedia page is short too, which is a shame. He was still improving when he got so sick that he could no longer play, and he died at 26 years old from tuberculosis.

[@a_doggo]

Pillsbury is the most underrated chess player. He was so far ahead of every one of his contemporaries, and literally had an illness that gave him dementia and killed him. I'd have loved to see his chess if that hadn't happened. At least we have these games. Hastings is cool.

[@joelcuerrier4833]

Not sure you'll read this, but I'd love if this higher quality content like the Great Players of the Past was posted on a different channel. Nobody can watch all the thousands of hours of content you put up on this channel, but many would always want to watch those series. I'm sure the view count would go up if they were easier to find. To locate this video, I had to browse through all recent uploads. It's buried within 100+ misc videos of stream content. It used to be on the chess club channel and that was ideal. This split should still exist.

[@GMBenjaminFinegold]

Check out our playlists, it separates the content so you don’t have to spend time scrolling. There’s a Great Players of the Past/Present one. - Ben’s Editor

[@joelcuerrier4833]

@@GMBenjaminFinegold Right, thank you. Should have went there.

[@mitshua]

Pillsbury is one of the richest chess players cause he made dough

[@tomswiftyphilo2504]

ah! nice!

[@Rspknlikeab0ssxd]

Pillsbury was the first player to pass Morphy's highest rating record, Capablanca eventually passed Pillsbury and held the title until Fischer got it, then Kasparov, Kramnik, Kasparov *again* , and now Carlsen. Pretty fucking solid list of players for Pillsbury to be together with, definitely underrated player

[@schusterlehrling]

Ahem, there were no ratings in Morphy's or Pillsbury's time.

[@Rspknlikeab0ssxd]

@@schusterlehrling People calculate it by comparing how rated players did against older generations and you can keep going back to Morphy

[@pralinesouffle]

At 20:15, where Ben suggests that Winawer resigned because Pillsbury had a pretty mate in two (Q checks on either square covered by the N, then moves to the other square for mate), Winawer actually has several resources for avoiding that mate. The most clever is f5, cutting off Pillsbury's N from its defending B. Mate is still imminent, but f5 means that even if Pillsbury checks with Qf8, the black K escapes and Pillsbury must make the Morphyesque rook lift and play on for another half dozen moves or so to win.

[@zwebzz9685]

Pillsbury was likely familiar with mnemonics and memory palace especially for the lists of random words it is a standard use case. Memory athletes using mnemonics can memorize 50 random words perfectly in 50 seconds. These techniques can also be adapted for blindfold simul.

[@davidgoble8891]

Pillsbury's games are very enjoyable to watch

[@augandoh]

I found it interesting that u mentioned Jackson Whoops Showalter, a five-time US champion, on one of ur videos. Showalter beat Pillsbury after Hastings, 1895. Maybe someone would sponsor a video on Showalter as well because of ur GM analysis..

[@jeffmiller6954]

Newell Banks could have met Pillsbury. I met an older guy who had met or seen Banks who lived 70 years after Pillsbury died, probably still living people who played Banks.

[@surfingmantis6162]

great lectures from the past

[@dropway9108]

If countries could put up their best five players in an all time round robin tournament, say against 31 other (country) entrants, then Bobby Fischer, Harry Nelson Pilsbury and Paul Morphy would make an incredibly formidable triumvirate for the U.S. team, capable of putting a dent in any other country's top three. Pilsbury was that great.

[@36AccountsBlockedRIP]

Hard to say who the other two would be. As much as I like Fine and Reshevsky, I'd have to give the nod to Nakamura and Caruana. I wonder who'd make the Russian/Soviet team...

[@queenbrynja]

I forgot what Ben looked like without his beard and I got scared :)

[@JojenReed]

Came to this player video specifically for Ben's jokes about Pillsbury brand

[@shanastroskyphazer8172]

Awesome chess/history lecture Ben thanks ! Be cool if you could also include someone showing any old photographs of the players or events, would be really cool too. Thanks ! was super interesting

[@varishnakov]

At 40:00 there's another win for Black, though not so clear-cut. ...Qxd4

[@igorrromanov]

The guy was TOO handsome and elegant. Paragon of British gentleman... RIP❣️❣️❣️

[@predragnikolic3040]

I love this aproach GM Benjamin Finegold, learn history and chess.

[@RMF49]

In the first tactical game-snippet I saw Bf3 threatens mate but then I lazily saw Nxf3 stops mate and I missed that it undefends white’s queen. So instead I went with Qxd4 to remove the knight and at least that wins too.

[@fireballxl-5748]

Old and reposted....tsk, tsk. But this was one of Ben's best lectures sooo...... Ben gets a pass on this one. Love the lectures. BTW, @8:00 at the bottom part of the Wikipedia page a book is mentioned, The Fireside Book Of Chess by Fred Reinfeld & Irving Chernev....I have that book & have enjoyed reading it many times.

[@Dragonten312]

Pillsbury v Mason = GOAT game

[@ralfrotstein4457]

What about Henrique Mecking?

[@Lodabar-1]

love your videos Ben!!

[@animalntelligence3170]

I don't think people often or ever got over syphilis in those days (maybe if caught very early and could be treated topically -- not sure). There were no effective treatments and while the progress might be slow, the microorganisms are busy causing central nervous system damage as well as damage to the skeleton, etc. Ironic that such a superior intellect contracted this awful disease which gradually destroyed the mind.

[@victorfinberg8595]

43:33 such an easy move for the Botez sisters to find 😜

[@seanyager3177]

(forgets to wear a cup) *OUCH!* Right in the Harry Nelson!! 😱😨😫😩😭🤕

[@jaylenlenear3944]

Can you do Amos Burn

[@zbigniewopenchowski8140]

Love you Maryja

[@kero1132]

i think he is mor accurate than paul morphy His game accuracy reaches 93 or 88 in most of games i analysed his games to paul morphy. He only learned chess at 16 and at 17 he beated most of strong players like lasker and steinitz…. What do u think is he better than morphy?

[@xavier3153]

no morphy was slightly better

[@OliverRainer-f6f]

it's hard to compare. Morphy learned the game at a very early age, around 5 years old, by only watching his father and uncle play and was immediately better than them and went on to thrash anyone he met, first in New Orleans, then in NY and finally in Europe. Pillsbury on the other hand learned chess at a comparatively late age, he was already 16 or 17 and then rose meteorically. They definitely were both exceptional natural talents.

[@sir_Edguhh]

Ben is so silly getting the date wrong nd shit. Hey ben it’s actually august 2022

[@Antipodeano]

Yeah you are one of those internet geniuses, I can tell.

[@dannygjk]

The video was reposted.

[@sameash3153]

@@Antipodeano based

[@TheMrBennito]

@@dannygjk yes 😂

[@Eidenhoek]

I always thought his defense was too soft. To easy to poke. HA HA HA HA JOKES but thank you for the lesson!

[@Antipodeano]

I am NN...terrible.

[@rickdynes]

blindfoltaneous

[@tomswiftyphilo2504]

ugh. a video about a chess player with a short wiki and a pronounceable name. Next you'll be playing f6. terrible.