Pillsbury Method: Breakthrough

Pillsbury Method: Breakthrough

Another week another article!

This week we are having a look at one of my favorite grandmasters. This article alongside the Zukertort article flows intertwined in a manner that the typical structures that arise are very similar. While Zukertort focussed on the queenside , Pillsbury created a lovely kingside attack with similar structures.

At the age of 22 Harry Nelson Pillsbury won one of the strongest tournaments of the time (the Hastings 1895 chess tournament), but his illness and early death prevented him from challenging for the World Chess Championship. 

Pillsbury used breakthroughs to demolish opponent defences, often sacrificing pawns or even pieces to destroy the defenses in front of the opponent's king. We shall investigate this method in this article.

Method:                                                                         

1. Create a Oliisbury Setup Position                     
2. Create a Kingside Piece Majority                      
3. Look for a breakthrough                                   
4. If the attack fails , go for an better endgame 

Let's have a look at Pillsbury's fantastic games

Example 1

In this game we see how Pillsbury uses his precise calculation to launch an farsighted kingside attack.

Aspects:

• Kingside attack
• Pillsbury Setup
• Breakthrough
• KIngside piece majority

Example 2

We will now look at the typical endgames that could arise and how one can play energetically.

Aspects:

• Pillsbury Setup
• Endgame Technique
• Passed Pawns

Example 3

This game is a pure example of how Pillsbury creates a break-through to demolish a solid defense.

Aspects:

• Breakthrough
• Queen Endgame

Example 4

One more game where Pillsbury illustrates his preferred Ne5 post setup and a precise Rook Endgame

Aspects

• Rook Endgame

Example 5

In this game Pillsbury shows his setup used alongside the typical breakthrough pawn sacrifice and a fantastic piece predominance on the kingside collectively to win the game.

Aspects

• Breakthrough
• Pillsbury Setup
• Kingside attack

Example 6

As a final illustration we see again as in Example 5 how Pillsbury creates his typical f4,d4 and Ne5 setup to initiate a kingside attack. Here too he plays the f-pawn break to demolish the kingside defense

Aspects

• Kingside attack
• Pillsbury Setup
• Breakthrough

Summary

In summary we can conclude that Pillsbury had the following main aspects to his game,

1. Endgame Specialist
2. Pillsbury Setup (Ne5, d4 and f4  pawns)
3. Created Breakthroughs! (f-pawn , piece sacrifices)
4. He loved the Knight posted on e5

Have a look at the Zukertort article  and criticizing me is welcome if honest.