Pillsbury's Hastings Masterpiece

Harry Nelson Pillsbury was an American making his European debut at the Hastings tournament of 1895, and almost nobody expected the twenty two year old to challenge the world's best. In round two, played on 6 August, he sat down against Siegbert Tarrasch, then widely regarded as the leading authority on correct chess technique, and produced a game good enough that it is still studied as a model attacking performance in the Queen's Gambit.

Pillsbury builds a textbook attack on the kingside while probing for chances elsewhere, and the game swings back and forth for fifty moves: Tarrasch finds real chances of his own around moves thirty to forty, and for a stretch it looks as though Pillsbury's attack might have run out of fuel. Pillsbury keeps finding useful moves and eventually breaks through with a queen and knight attack against Tarrasch's king, finishing with 52.Qxh7 mate just as Black's own connected passed pawn on c2 arrives one tempo too late to matter.

The tournament result made Pillsbury's reputation overnight; he went on to win Hastings 1895 outright, ahead of Chigorin, Lasker, Tarrasch and Steinitz. For a club player this game rewards patience: watch how many quiet consolidating moves Pillsbury plays before the position is ready to be broken open, rather than expecting one clean combination to decide the whole game.