Monday, February 2, 2026

2025 Club Champion Crowned - And Done for the Betterment of Society?

 

The Livingston County Chess Club meets every Monday night between

4pm thru 10pm

at the Buffalo Wild Wings in the Green Oak Mall in Brighton, MI. 

Stop in for some friendly chess, good food and 'refreshments'.

Everyone of all ages and playing strength are welcome to attend. And free lessons to all beginners!

The 2025 Club Championship was completed and the winner was Dr. Ken Tack! He finished undefeated at 3-0. Congratulations to our tournament director, who can not only run our tournaments, but win them too!

Thomas V. finished second and David W. finished third. Thank you to all ten entries in our tournament.

We also held our drawing for the beautiful wooden ebonized Russian chess set. To be eligible for the 2025 drawing, you had to have played in our club tournaments to get in the drawing. One entry in the drawing for every time you entered our tournaments.

The winner was Curt S. Congratulations to him!

And congratulation to our blog as we have surpassed the 400,000 visitor mark to the blog! Now gaining on the incredible half-million mark!

Now a little story that ……may or not be true. You decide:

There is a rumor that the great world champion made a confession on his deathbed to the nurse. He told her it all happened at the great St. Petersburg tournament in 1914.

One night at mid-tournament, there was a knock on Alekhine’s hotel room door. An old ragged Russian peasant demanded entrance in order to give the world champion the great chess secret he had discovered.

Alekhine although full of doubt, decided for his own amusement decided to see what this old man was babbling about. Alekhine let the old peasant in and said, “Ok, let’s hear it and make it fast so I can get my rest.”

The man said, “I have found a way for White to checkmate Black in nineteen moves or less, regardless of what Black does.” Alekhine after hearing this, begins to usher the old man out of his room, but the peasant is persistent and insistent.

To end the matter, Alekhine sets up his chessboard and plays the man. In eighteen moves, the world champion is checkmated. Red-faced, they play again and Alekhine resigns on move seventeen this time. A third time, repeats the world champion’s defeat in checkmate in nineteen moves!

Aghast, Alekhine hustles the old man over to the great Capablanca’s room across the hall. The same scenario happens to Capablanca in three straight games. Then the two chess greats play as a team discussing moves for two more games and losing just the same!

After stating this to the nurse, Alekhine goes quiet. The nurse, after a long pause of silence, finally had to ask, “Then what happened, sir?”

Alekhine said sadly but firmly, “Why we killed him of course.”


 Fiction? Probably. But one has to ask, is it possible that this has happened to others in history who found an answer to something that others do not want the answer found? 

Most definitely.

Monday, January 12, 2026

Club Championship Starts Tonight! - And the Amazing Harry Nelson Pillsbury

 


Harry Nelson Pillsbury

The Livingston County Chess Club meets every Monday night between

4pm thru 10pm

at the Buffalo Wild Wings in the Green Oak Mall in Brighton, MI. 

Stop in for some friendly chess, good food and 'refreshments'.

Everyone of all ages and playing strength are welcome to attend. And free lessons to all beginners!

Our last tournament for 2025 on the schedule is the 2025 Club Championship. But our illustrious Tournament Director is scheduling it to start after the holidays. So it will start tonight on January 12, 2026.

It is totally free of cost so come by for a tournament feel without any cost. The time limit is 60 minutes / game with a 5 second delay. We normally plan on starting around 6:30 pm. The tournament will go 3 or 4 rounds, depending on entries, but we play only one tournament round a week. So, this tournament will go on for 3 to 4 weeks, FYI.

It is semi-serious chess in a fun location and fun people. Stop on in!

Now a little history of one of the first great American blindfold chess players. These are players who specialize in playing multiple opponents and games at once, without looking at the boards!

Harry Nelson Pillsbury was born in 1872 in Massachusetts and moved to New York in 1894 and then Philadelphia in 1898. What was Pillsbury like? By all accounts he was a modest, unassuming, good natured young man. In serious games he would play with machine like concentration. A strong grandmaster in his own right. 

But at his spectacular exhibitions of blindfold skill, it was a different story! One time he was playing sixteen boards sight unseen, while taking part in a card game of Whist to keep himself busy during moves!

In between puffs on cigar and calling out moves to his unseen opponents he stated, “As I was saying, if I could, I would almost give up chess to play Whist full time. If I ever succeed in winning twenty simultaneous games of chess I shall probably quit and play no more.”

Pillsbury did play twenty-one games simultaneously during the Hanover Tournament of 1902. His opponents were all budding masters playing in the second division. He even allowed his opponents to consult one another on each other’s games and move pieces around if they liked.

After twelve hours of play, Pillsbury’s results were 3 wins, 11 losses and 7 draws. Still an amazing feat given the strength of his opponents and the consultant and piece moving advantage he let them enjoy!

On another occasion, he played twelve games of chess and six games of checkers blindfolded while playing Whist. He was able to recall and replay every move of all eighteen games of the match but also recite a list of 30 words he was given to read once before the event! Crazy stuff.

Pillsbury’s last chess tournament was in Cambridge Springs in 1904, where he had a bad result, except for a brilliant game against Lasker.

A myth developed that Pillsbury became mentally unbalanced because of the strain of his blindfold play. In 1905, he tried to commit suicide by jumping from the fourth floor of a mental hospital where he was being treated.

Unfortunately, he spent the last years of his life in mental hospitals or at home with his wife, whom he had married in 1901.

He died at the young age of thirty-three due to a stroke. Was his mind’s tremendous memory due to something that also the reason for his death? We will never know.

Lasker hailed Pillsbury in his magazine’s eulogy as “the pathfinder in the thicket of chess theory, gifted with pleasant and loveable traits. A source of pleasure and joy and a teacher for thousands.”