They will allow me the confidence, but before starting with this delivery I want to submit them to a mental stress test. It’s tough, I warn you. On my computer screen I have a list of thirty words written in English. I’m going to show them to you below, but I beg you as you read them, try to memorize what you can. I copy and paste: «Antiphlogistine, Periosteum, Takadiastase, Plasmon, Ambrosia, Threlkeld, Streptococcus, Staphylococcus, Micrococcus, Plasmodium, Mississippi, Freiheit, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Athletics, No war, Etchenberg, American, Rostgelterphy, Philosophy’s Pie , Salamagundi, Oomisellecootsi, Bangmanvate, Schlechter’s Nek, Manzinyama, Theosophy, Catechism, Madjesoomalops ». I already told you it was difficult. They have probably taken a line break in search of a more decipherable text. Let’s say that the brain, in this type of test, is stressed. The above list contains the list of terms that, in 1896, they showed the American chess player Harry Nelson Pillsbury when he passed through London. On this occasion, after a minute of concentrated reading, and in front of a crowd of onlookers, Pillsbury recited each of the thirty words in the correct order. The audience broke their silence with a roaring ovation. Then the young chess player (a small, skinny guy, a stubborn smoker) gave a display of 20 simultaneous games to the blind. After more than four hours of fighting blindfolded, Pillsbury repeated the strange list of words aloud. And in a display of skill, he stated them in reverse order. So today’s story, as you can see, has no similar. I invite you to know and taste the amazing and sad adventure of Harry Pillsbury, the memory man.
Pillsbury was born in Somerville, Massachusetts (USA), on December 5, 1872. He was the youngest of two brothers in a middle-class family. His mother, a teacher, died when Harry was 15 years old, prompting our protagonist to seek emotional refuge in chess. By then, he had mastered the art of checkers and the ‘whist’ (card game), but such excruciating pain required further relief. Pillsbury became an avid reader of ‘International Chess Magazine’, the magazine run from New York by the Austrian Wilhelm Steinitz, eventually the first world champion in the history of chess (1886). Despite this late start, Pillsbury proved in a few short weeks that he possessed extraordinary talent in the game of checks and castles.. In 1892, his admired Steinitz played in Boston against 21 rivals from the city’s chess club. Pillsbury sat at one of the tables. At the beginning of the games, Steinitz, to level the contest, gave his opponents some kind of advantage. Against Pillsbury, the world champion chose to play with black and with one pawn down, the one on f7. The latter is a very considerable handicap, since it leaves the king unprotected, initially, due to the dangerous diagonal drawn from the h5 square. I recommend you try it. Pillsbury, with the white pieces, did not miss the opportunity. He beat Steinitz in a long and beautiful opposing castling match, with tactical blows that are dynamite but also pure elegance.
At the age of 21, Harry settled in New York and began playing major tournaments. Given his uncanny ability to play blind, decided to make a living giving simultaneous shows and other memorial deeds. The press of the time echoed the superhuman prowess of Pillsbury, whom they dubbed ‘Boston Wonder’. Not only was he playing with a blindfold against half a dozen rivals, he was also able to mentally complete Euler’s problem (a knight, placed on any square, must leap across the board without stepping twice on the same square). Plus, Harry could add, divide, or multiply large figures with a glance. The thing was not bad at all economically, but Pillsbury had to stop, for the tremendous mental exhaustion to which he was subjected (He played more than 10 hours in a row) led to a terrible insomnia disorder. At night, at dawn, his brain continued to relentlessly review the games of the day, play by play, which turned into a terrible nightmare.
In 1894, in Montreal (Canada), when he was still in top form, he faced the blind against Frank Marshall, a 16-year-old boy who, years later, would be called to write another of the most remarkable biographies in the history of the Chess. At that Pillsbury meeting proposed a lady’s gambit, an opening that today is going through its glory days thanks to the worldwide impact of the Netflix series of the same name, which we already talked about in this section. You must know that Pillsbury was the one who, more than 120 years ago, popularized this way of breaking the game from the second White move. The New York chess player and psychoanalyst Reuben Fine wrote: «The two main weapons of a modern master, the Ruy López [apertura española] and the lady’s gambit, became popular, for the first time, thanks to the treatment that Harry Pillsbury gave them. In the words of the great master Alexander Cherniaev: “Pillsbury was ahead of his time”. Let’s go back to Montreal. Marshall won the game against the blindfolded genius and has always recognized that day as the start of his award-winning career ever since.
In those days, you can imagine, it was not easy to earn a living as a chess player, but Pillsbury pulled on his wits and reinvented himself. And how. In 1868, Charles A. Hooper, a carpenter from Bristol (England), presented in society an automaton called ‘Ajeeb’ capable of playing checkers and chess. Hooper designed this machine in the image and likeness of ‘The Turk’, the amazing automaton invented at the end of the 18th century by Wolfgang von Kempelen. After years of touring different cities in Europe, Hooper managed to exhibit ‘Ajeeb’ every night at the Eden Musée, a mythical entertainment center located in the heart of Manhattan, New York. Playing checkers against the machine cost 10 cents; chess, 25. When someone cheated or moved illegally, the figure with the Egyptian face that dominated the artifact would throw the pieces to the ground, in protest. In reality, it was all a hoax, as it was Pillsbury, ‘Boston Wonder’, who was driving the automaton from within, from a tiny wooden cabin in which he was hiding, contorted.
When Pillsbury fell ill, the automaton sported a sign with any technical excuse: “Broken” or “Undergoing maintenance.” Actually, ‘Ajeeb’ had several operators. In fact, Pillsbury took his body only a few years, although there is no consensus on the exact dates or periods. What we do know is that ‘Ajeeb’ faced Thomas Hendricks, Vice President of the United States; the illusionist and escapist Harry Houdini; world champion William Steinitz, whom he defeated; and the French actress Sarah Bernhardt, ‘the divine Sarah’, a regular rival every time she passed through New York. Much has been written about ‘Ajeeb’ playing US President Theodore Roosevelt, but it is not true. What did happen is that Roosevelt, when he was 10 years old (1869), visited the ‘Crystal Palace’ in London with his family. And there he was impressed when he saw the carpenter’s automaton Hooper in action. Roosevelt wrote in his diary: “The palace is wonderful. There were stuffed animals, live animals and a figure that played chess. Roosevelt certainly really liked the science game. On one occasion, he said: “Chess is, of course, the game of all games, in terms of skill, patience, strategy and mental agility”.
A curious fact is that Pillsbury, in 1895, bought the automaton and paid for it, according to the chronicles, “a large sum of money.” That same year Harry achieved his greatest chess triumph in Hastings (England). Never before has such a high-level tournament been held. The 22 best players of the moment met, which included the new world champion, the German Emanuel Lasker (1894). Without a doubt, the least known of the roster of superstars on the board was Pillsbury, who managed to participate thanks to the financial help of the Brooklyn Chess Club. Upon arrival, he stayed in a separate pension, away from the rest, because he did not want the slightest distraction. And the formula worked for him. Against all odds (he lost the first two games), won the triumph in a memorable performance. The excitement experienced in the last rounds of Hastings would suffice to justify another television series about the world of chess. Said it remains.
At the Hastings closing banquet, Russian chess player Mikhail Chigorin invited the top five finishers (including himself as runner-up) to an upcoming tournament in Saint Petersburg, on the shores of the Baltic. Doctor Siegbert Tarrasch (4th), due to his medical obligations, refused the offer, but the other four musketeers did draw, a few weeks later, their black and white swords. In the first part of the tournament in St. Petersburg, Pillsbury took the lead. However, in the second set he collapsed. Suddenly, He began to suffer continuous headaches, general malaise, and the tournament was won with authority by the German Lasker. The most widespread version suggests that Pillsbury lowered his performance because he contracted syphilis with a Russian prostitute. I do not think so, at least I doubt that it was infected during the course of the tournament. It could be, but syphilis takes time to manifest, depending on the phase, and does not lead to neurosyphilis until 10 or 20 years after the first infection. Syphilitics, a legion at the time (Tolstoy, Gauguin or Van Gogh are just a few examples in an endless list), tried to relieve themselves with mercury, a very painful treatment, and hence the expression “a night with Venus and a life with Mercury”.
Upon his return to the United States, Pillsbury again turned to his old shows as a way of life. He returned to Europe several times to participate in elite tournaments, but their results were mixed. In 1900, Harry passed through Havana (Cuba). Capablanca was then 11 years old and saw him play blind against 16 rivals at the same time. That ignited the Cuban genius’ interest in chess, who was “electrified by the effect of his exhibitions.” In 1904, Pillsbury played its last tournament. It was in Cambridge Springs (United States), where Frank Marshall, the boy he had met in Montreal a decade ago, achieved a masterful triumph.
Within days of Cambridge Springs, Pillsbury’s health worsened. He suffered constant delusions and hallucinations. I saw strange bodies. Insomnia, that old ghost, was killing him. Dr. Tarrasch tried to cure him through hypnosis sessions, but it did not help. He was admitted to a Philadelphia hospital and, under the influence of a psychotic break, tried to jump out of his bedroom window. Months after this incident, he had a stroke, which caused severe paralysis. Finally, on June 17, 1906, at the age of 33, his star stopped shining.
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Too soon, memory man. And too sad.
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