Look & Learn Chess with Pillsbury.

Picked up a pile of these for 10p each.

Inside one of them was a piece revealing how the name ‘Osborne’ came about.
Seemingly William the Conqueror gave the name to one of his Knights after he
beat the Conqueror at a game of Chess. (though back then they spelt it ‘Chesse’.)


Inside the same issue (10th June 1978) was this chess puzzle.


Which I’ll use for the first puzzle.


White to play and mate in three.

Reveal Hidden Content

This next one was in Look and Learn 11th March 1978 (White to play)

Reveal Hidden Content

This one (28th January 1978) is Black to play and ‘gain a material advantage.’

Reveal Hidden Content


Back to the first puzzle and the claim it was played nearly a century ago.


This prompted a fruitless search through my databases and then onto my neglected
chess library where I cannot find the game or position. And yet my floppy disc of
a brain keeps telling me I’ve seen it before. Maybe I saw it in the L & L in 1978!


The closest I came to finding anything like was a ‘might have been’ finish.

J. Zukertort - J. Minchin St George's Chess Club, 1877


18. R7f5+ Bxf5 19. Qxf5+ Nxf5 20. Bf7 Mate.


But that is not how the game ended and was not played nearly a century ago.
(The L & L said it was played nearly a century ago, but how near is nearly?)

Having cast aside the search I looked for Red Hot Pawns games that had the same
game criteria. A Queen sac, a Rook sac, and a Bishop checkmate. all within 5 moves.

One of the games I found has a Rook sac, A missed mate in one, Queen sac, Rook sac
and then a Bishop mate all in 8 moves. This game was played just over two years ago.

serap - Your Chess Master, RHP January 2023
(The Conqueror would have named these two Sir Blunder and Sir Lose-a-Lot 🙂 )


Next an OTB game I did find with the a Rook sac, Queen sac, Bishop mate search.

H. N. Pillsbury - NN, 8 board Blindfold simul, Toledo, USA1900

Blindfold games often throw up a brilliancy. This will be partly due to the opponent
thinking the blindfolded player will miss something or as in this case become confused
because they are playing eight blindfold games simultaneously. This may explain
some of Black moves. 6....Bd6 instead of 6...Bb7 and 14...a5. A good instructive game.




A pitfall one of the kids coach walked into in a training game. Eight Red Hot Pawn
players have fallen into the same hole. The good news is 36 RHP players have been
standing on the same trapdoor but did not trip the wire. The bad news is 26 RHP
players have lost a piece due to the greedy pawn grab that I mention after 5...Ng4.

Algirdas11 - fortom RHP 2018


STOP PRESS: the position from the Look and Learn I could not find
was from the game Vaccaroni-Mazzoni, (or Mazzocchi) Rome, 1891.
a couple of eminent Chess Historians found it. Thank You lads.

The thread accompanying this blog is Thread 202238