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2

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Gabriel Petesch, Pittsburgher, Chess Master, and Chess

instructor talks about his chess career.

Exclusive interview to the En Passant

EP: Describe how you learned chess, what

age, who taught you, why you picked it up.

GP: I first learned chess

when I was about 4 years

old. My dad taught me

how to play. I think he

taught me chess so that I

would have something to

focus on because I was

pretty wild and had a lot

of energy at that age. At

that age I was not yet in

school…

EP: When was the first time you won

something in chess and how did you feel

about it?

GP: The first time I won something in chess

was at a library tournament I went to when I

was 7 years old. I got a second place trophy,

and the first place trophy went to someone

much older than me. It felt pretty good to

win a trophy at my first tournament. I also

remember feeling excited to compete in a

tournament, so after that I wanted to do

more tournaments. After this tournament, I

started competing in youth tournaments in

and around the city.

EP: When and how did you became a Chess

Master and how much effort you put into it

to get there? Also, how did you go from

1,600 to 1,800 to 2,000 and then did you feel

you could become a Chess Master.

GP: I crossed

2200 when I had

a good

performance in

the PA State

Game 60

Championship in

in 2009. To get

there, I put in a

lot of time and effort. From 1600 to 1800 I

mainly focused on tactics, and I studied a lot

of tactics books. To get from 1800 to 2000 I

focused more on my openings, and I learned

my openings much better than I had known

them before. After I crossed 2000, I felt like

I could eventually become a Chess Master,

because it didn’t seem so far away anymore.

But I also knew that in order to get there, I

would have to study different materials- I

started studying more endgames and

reviewing my own games more closely so I

could learn from my own mistakes. In

general, the higher your level, the harder it is

to make progress. When I was younger,

sometimes my rating would increase 200 or

more points in a year, but that kind of quick

rating improvement is basically impossible

for anyone over 2000. At that point, it’s

important to hone in on smaller and smaller

parts of your game to try to find areas that

you can improve.

Petesch is the one facing the camera.

Preparing materials for

a lecture at the PCC

4

EP: Has anything changed after you crossed

2,200?

GP: I can’t remember any special invitations

or special treatment since I’ve become a

Chess Master. It’s not bad to be called a

Chess Master, but I hope to be called an

International Master or Grand Master at

some point.

EP: Give your readers who want to improve

their ratings what they should do to improve

GP: I would recommend going through a

game, I usually recommend Fischer or

Alekhine, and try to “guess the move” when

the game gets to the middle game. Take a

lot of time to guess each move and make

sure to take time to analyze a few different

candidate moves. And when your guess is

wrong, try to figure out how the

Grandmaster found the “correct” move.

Tactics are also very helpful, and books like

1001 Brilliant Chess Sacrifices and

Combinations and 1001Brilliant Ways to

Checkmate by Fred Reinfeld helped me a lot

when I was younger.

at GM Kaidanov’s blindfold exhibition

EP: What were the major moments of your

career?

GP: One major win I had was that I beat

Jacob Aagaard in an international

tournament in 2015. That was the first

Grand Master I’ve ever beaten in a regular

time control game, and it was nice to beat

him because he’s a very famous author.

One result that was big for me was in 2013

when I tied for first place in the Cleveland

Open. At that point, I realized I was able to

compete at larger tournaments than I had

been previously, and I realized I could be

competitive at some big money tournaments.

EP: What plans do you have for the future?

I plan to keep teaching and playing chess. I

plan to compete in Norm tournaments so

that I can compete to gain the International

Master title.

Gabriel Petesch is a Board Member of the

Pittsburgh Chess Club, and a private Chess

Instructor in the city of Pittsburgh.

Contact info: gabriel.petesch@gmail.com

After-interview question: Why did you go from

long to short hair?

At a store in Edinburgh, Scotland.

GP: I got tired of long hair. Usually I have long hair

though.

5

An annotated (by Gabriel Petesch) game

of Petesch v. Berry, Edinburgh, 2014.

I played this game in Edinburgh in 2014. I believe, and

my opponent was a 2300 named Neil Berry (I was white

this game)

1. d4 Nf6

2. g3 d5

3. Bg2 c6

4. Nf3 Bg4

5. Nbd2 e6

6. b3 Nbd7

White’s development is a bit unusual here.

7. Bb2 Be7

8. o-o o-o

9. c4 a5

10. Qc2 a4

11. c5

My goal now is to play on the queenside, and to use

black’s a-pawn push to my advantage. The a-pawn all

the way on a4 will be weak. However, if black trades on

b3, this will open up my rooks which I’m happy about.

11. …. Bf5

12 Qc3 Ne4

13. NxN BxN

14. b4 Bf6

15. Qe3!

The queen finds a nice, and unusual square on e3. From

here, the queen can support my knight when it moves to

e5 (my knight will want to go to e5 to stop black from

pushing to e5). And also, the queen has vacated space

for my bishop, and now my bishop will be able to move

and allow rooks to flow behind my b-pawn. If black

plays Qc7 here, I’ll still play Ne5, because if NxN, dxN

Bxe5, BxB QxB, and then f3 wins the Bishop.

15. … Re8

16. Ne5 BxB

17. KxB NxN

18. dxN Be7

Here, white has more space but still the position looks

drawish. White needs to focus on attacking black’s

weaknesses.

19. Rab1!

Now, I’m planning to play b5 and breakthrough on the

b-file.

19. … f5

20. Bd4 Qd7

21. Rb2

I’m able to take my time here because black has no

significant counterplay.

21. … Rf8

22. f4

I take some extra time to shut down potential f4 ideas.

Now black really has no counterplay.

22. … Rfc8

23. Rfb1 Qe8

24. b5 Qf8

25. bxc6 Rxc6

26. Rxb7 Bxc5

27. Rd7

Now I’m going to double my rooks on the 7th and black

can’t do anything to stop it.

27. … BxB

28. QxB Rc2

29. R1b7!

I don’t need to worry about the black rook taking my

pawns. I’m too busy infiltrating into black’s position.

29. … Rxe2+

30. Kh3 Rxa2

31. Qb6

Black has won two pawns but it doesn’t matter because

my queen and two rooks are too strong. If black tries to

guard the e-pawn with Re8, I can follow with Qc7, and

I’ll have a queen and two rooks on the 7th, which will be

impossible to challenge.

31. … Rc2

32. Rxg7+ QxR

The final breakthrough is coming.

33. RxQ+ KxR

34. Qb7+ Kg6

35. QxR Kf7

36. Qa7+ Kf8

37. Qxa4 Rc7

38. Qa8+ Kg7

39. Qe8

1-0

6

FM Gabriel Petesch Lectures at the

Pittsburgh Chess Club

Greg Thomas

Active Pittsburgh Chess

Club Member.

Recently I had the pleasure of attending the FM

Gabriel Petesch Winter Chess Lectures which were

conducted at our own Pittsburgh Chess Club. There

were four sessions which occurred on Jan 20, Jan

27, Feb 3 and Feb 10 of this year. I attended all

four and they were well attended. There was only

one session that had less than six people.

The topics covered many things that were

extremely useful in the opening and the middle

game. Some of the topics included pawn levers,

knight outpost, how to identify true knight outposts

and those that are not, trading bishops for knights,

eliminating the defender, and finally isolated pawns.

I guess the endgame will have to be a topic for

another lecture.

We were given insights into how he viewed the

game. Not only were the enemy isolated pawns

easy to capture but they were primarily used to limit

your opponent's bishop scope or range. By

identifying simple strategic maneuvers to equalize

for a better position, we could create weaknesses in

our opponent's position. His personal belief is that

when there are two or more weaknesses there is

usually some way to gain a winning game or loss of

your opponent's material.

His lecture style is very interactive. He would

start with a position and a simple demonstration of a

topic whether it be pawn levers or knight outposts.

He would then set up other positions and see

whether we can identify other moves that were

similar. Each time he demonstrates how the

position gets better for the one he uses. By the

fourth lecture, we found ourselves identifying and

using four or five techniques in the same game

position. My only regret is that I did not take

pictures of some of the complicated positions on the

demonstration board developed by the students

themselves with little or no prompting.

From interacting with him and his interest in

the student's game, I can tell he likes teaching. He

gets excited as we pick up on many of the concepts

that he is teaching. His style of delivery is low key

and humble but he is able to focus and get us back

on the topic at hand when the tactical variations

stray very far.

Overall I would say it was definitely worth the

money. Even some of the lecture notes were

emailed to us. While I was not able to fully utilize

everything I learned to defeat Gabriel Petesch in the

Simul against him in the following week I did feel

my game got better.

7

BOOK EM

One Hit Wonders

By Steve O’Connor

Horatio Caro

Horatio Caro spent his life as a second tier player

playing in second tier tournaments. He occasionally

played in a major tournament when another player

was needed to even the number of participants.

Caro was born in Newcastle upon Tyne, England in

1862, but spent most of his chess career in Berlin,

Germany. He played several matches. In 1892, he

drew with Curt von Bardeleben, lost to Simon

Winawer. In 1897, he lost to Jacques Mieses. In

1903, he drew with Bardeleben. In 1905, he won

against Moritz Dewitt.

In tournaments, he won in Berlin (1888, 1891,

1894, 1898, and 1903). He also took 10th at Berlin

1883, 4th at Berlin 1887, 2nd-3rd at Nuremberg

1888, 3rd at Berlin 1889, and 2nd at Berlin 1890.

He took 3rd at Berlin 1894, 9th at Berlin 1897, 4th

at Berlin 1899, 6-7th at Berlin 1902, 11-12th at

Coburg 1904, 7-8th at Barmen 1905, 9th at Berlin

1907, 3-5th at Berlin 1908, and 4th at Berlin 1911.

All of these tournaments were “B” tournaments.

Caro did defeat Emmanuel Lasker once in a rather

humiliating 14 move game.

Caro died in London at age 58.

His claim to fame is linked to the Caro-Kann

Defense which he analyzed along with Marcus

Kann and jointly published an article in the German

journal Bruederschaft in 1886, which, incidentally,

was owned by Caro.

Marcus Kann

Much less is known about Marcus Kann. He, like

Caro, was a mediocre player on the tournament

circuit.

Kann was born in Vienna in 1820. In the

4thGerman Chess Congress at Hamburg in 1885,

Kann soundly defeated Jacques Mieses in 17 moves

using a radical new opening. This was considered to

be the launching of the Caro-Kann Defense. The

game shows a high positional and tactical

understanding of chess and can be replayed on

Chessgames.com as can Caro’s win over Lasker.

The next year he published an analysis of this

opening jointly with Horatio Caro.

Kann died in Vienna in 1886

Armand Blackmar

Born in Bennington, Vermont on May 30, 1826,

Armand Edward Blackmar was a very good

violinist and pianist, a chess expert, and a charter

member (Club Treasurer in 1865) of the Chess,

Checkers and Whist Club of New Orleans. He is

best known for an article appearing in the July issue

of Brentanos Chess Monthly, 1882, wherein he

introduced an opening novelty 1.d4 d5 2.e4 dxe4

3.f3.

Later, this gambit was championed by Emil Joseph

Diemer, and today it is commonly known as the

Blackmar-Diemer Gambit.

By profession, Blackmar was a musician and music

publisher. He owned a rather profitable publishing

house in New Orleans. From 1861 to 1864,

Blackmar and his publishing house issued six

editions of "The Bonnie Blue Flag" music scores,

along with three additional arrangements. The tune

was so popular among the Southerners that Union

General Benjamin Butler arrested and fined

Blackmar for publishing it.

He died in 1888 in New Orleans.

8

Emil Diemer

Emil Joseph Diemer was born in 1908 in the

German town Radolfzell, in Baden. In 1931 Diemer

was out of work and decided to join the German

Nazi party. He eventually became the "chess

reporter of the Great German Reich," was present at

all important international chess events, and wrote

for several Nazi newspapers and magazines. After

the war, Diemer wrote in countless little magazines

and papers, sold chess books, gave simuls, but soon

found that it was difficult to support himself in this

way.

As a second tier master, his successes in chess were

few. It was not until 1956, in the Netherlands, that

Diemer finally enjoyed a true success, winning the

Reserves Group of the Hoogovens tournament and

later the Open Championship of the Netherlands.

Alas, his success in the Netherlands was not to be

repeated, as Diemer became less interested in chess,

and increasingly interested in Nostradamus, the

famous 16th century French clairvoyant. He

believed that he had cracked the great seer's secret

code. In 1965 he was committed to a psychiatric

clinic where he remained for the rest of his life. He

died in 1990.

Diemer played many unorthodox openings, but is

most famous for his refinements to an old idea by

Armand Edward Blackmar, commonly known as

the Blackmar-Diemer gambit.

John Lindsay McCutcheon

John Lindsay McCutcheon was a prominent

Pittsburgh Attorney and patron of chess. He lived

on Homewood Avenue, not far from the present

location of the Pittsburgh Chess Club.

McCutcheon was born in the City of Allegheny

(now the North Side of Pittsburgh) in 1857. His

claim to fame is the development of a rather

aggressive variation of the French Defense which

he sprung on Wilhelm Steinitz in 1885 and beat him

with it. This became known as the McCutcheon

Variation.

McCutcheon died at his home in 1905.

Karel Traxler

Karel Traxler was a Czech chessplayer and problem

composer. He was also a Catholic priest.

He was born in 1866 and died in 1936. His claim to

fame is the development of the Traxler Variation to

the Two Knights Defense. In the Western

Hemisphere, this is known as the Wilkes Barre

Variation. The variation consists of responding to

whites Ng5 with Bc5 ignoring the attack on f7. This

leads to wild complications which have yet to be

resolved. As a priest, Traxler did little competing in

tournaments. It should be noted that the Wilkes

Barre Chess Club spent a lot of time analyzing this

variation as well, hence the dual nomenclature.

PLEASE GO TO PAGE 9 TO TRY YISRAEL’S

TACTICS!

Then come back here to see the solutions!

The lines and numerical evaluations given below are based on

the analysis of Houdini 4. In general the solutions yield

evaluations at least 2 - 3 points higher than Houdini’s next

best move/line, which still may be sufficient to win.

#1 +299.89

1. Re8+ Ke8 2. Qh5+ Kg8 3. Qh7+ Kf8 4. Qh8#

#2 +3.54

1. Bh6 Rh6 2. e4 Qf6 3. Qd3 c5 4. e5 Re5 5.

Qc3 Re2 6. Qd3 Rf2

#3 -8.18

1.……Ne3 2. fxe fxe 3. Rc7 Rc7 4. g3 Rc1 5. Kg2 Rc2

6. Kf3 Rc2+

#4. +299.89

1. Bf3 Kh4 2. Ke3 (threat Kf4, Rh1#) Rg7 3. Rg7 Bg7 4. Kf4

Rg8 5. Rf7 Rg3 6. Rf6 Kh3 7. Rg6 h4 8. Bg4+ Kg2

#5. +14.98

1. Qf5+ g6 2. Qd7 gxh 3. Ng5+ Kg6 4. Qe6+ Kg5 5.

g3 h4 6. f4+ Qf4 7. Qg8+ Kf6 8. gxf Nc4

#6. -0.41

1…… Qb5 2. Kd2 Qb2 3. Ke1 Nc3 4. Rc1 N5e4 5. Rf

1 Qg2 6. e6 fxe 7. Rg1 Rc4

9

NEW CHESS PODCAST:

from Pittsburgh to the World

Hello PCC members.

This is Ben Johnson- I'm a relatively new Pittsburgh

resident and a new PCC board member.

I write to inform you all about a chess podcast I have

started. It is called the Perpetual Chess podcast, and I

think you may enjoy listening to it.

But first, here's a bit more about me: I moved to

Pittsburgh from New York a few years ago with my wife

(who is a Pittsburgh native) and family, and I have been

getting to know the Pittsburgh chess scene. I play in

tournaments when I can.

My chess rating peaked at around USCF 2270 at age 18,

then slowly descended to about 2100 over the next

decade as I played only in the occasional tournament,

often action tournaments. I spent these years living in

New York, and during this time, I stopped studying

chess but kept playing once in a while (bad idea!)

Here in Pittsburgh I am trying to get back to treating my

chess play seriously and to reclaim the chess strength

and rating points of my youth. Because I have young

kids and a job, the chess play is hardly a full time

pursuit. I am making slow progress, and my rating is

working its way back up. It currently stands at around

2150. I have enjoyed the tournaments in which I have

played in Pittsburgh, and I am glad to be able to play

some without having to abandon my family to travel.

While living in New York, I spent some years teaching

chess for a living, and I am glad to be doing that again

here in Pittsburgh. I am teaching chess at some schools

for Jerry Meyers and the PCC as well as teaching at

some other schools outside the PCC network. I greatly

enjoy the work, and I hope to do what I can to keep

scholastic chess vibrant in Pittsburgh.

Back to the news about my podcast--- for those who

aren't familiar with the growing medium, a podcast is

basically on-demand "talk radio" that can be downloaded

or “streamed” to any smartphone or computer/tablet and

played back at the convenience of the listener.

I am a huge fan of both podcasts and chess, and I was

frustrated by the lack of chess podcasts to listen to when

I drove from school to school in Pittsburgh. As a result, I

gradually came up with a plan to start a chess podcast

myself. After months of groundwork, in December

2016, I launched the Perpetual Chess podcast. The

format is that each week I choose a different chess

player or personality to interview about his or her life

and career.

I am lucky to have some good connections in the chess

world, so I have had some great guests already- GM Jan

Gustafsson, IM Greg Shahade, and GM Sam Shankland

among others. I also recently interviewed GM Ben

Finegold, who is opening a chess center in Atlanta. He

had some ideas about what works and what doesn’t for

chess clubs, a topic which could be of special interest to

PCC members.

I am really enjoying doing the interviews and have

gotten really positive feedback so far. I am pleased to be

reaching a wide audience with downloads from listeners

in 85 countries already. I think that talking to so many

strong players may have even helped my chess a bit.

For more information about the podcast or to listen to

interviews, go to my website Perpetualchesspod.com.

I encourage you all to check it out and let me know what

you think. Feel free to email me at

bennyficial77@verizon.net or say hi when you see me

around. Thanks- Ben

Ben Johnson is a Pittsburgh Chess Club Board

Member.

Contact info: bennyficial77@verizon.net

10

BLITZKREIG

By Rachel Gologorsky

Winnng by Zugzwang!

Simple Endgames, 19.02.2017

I have an endgame puzzle for you. Relatively plain

positions like the one below have long ago been solved

by tablebases; but here, the verdict is surprisingly White

to win. Can you find the way to win in this seemingly

uncomplicated endgame?

Would you play 1. Kb8 or 1. Kd8 here, or perhaps

agree to a draw?

Answer: 1.Kb8! wins, and 1. Kd8 draws.

1.Kd8= Draw. White has one threat, Be8-Be2, but once

Black defends against it, he holds, e.g.: 1… Kc6 2.Bb3

Kd6 3.Bc2 Bd7 4.Bd3 Bg4 5.Bb5 Bf5 6.Bd3 Bg4 7.Bb1

Bd7 8.Be4 Be6 9.Bb7 Bf5 10.Bc8 Be4 11.Bd7 Bb7

12.Bf5 Ba6 13.Be4 Ke6 14.Bd3 Bb7 15.Be4 Ba6=

(1...Bg4 2.Be8+- and there's no defense against Be2)

1. Kb8! After this move, White has a unstoppable

plan:

a) Bring the Bishop to f1 via g2, forcing Black’s

Bishop to now defend from the a6-c1

diagonal.

b) Using Black’s Bishop’s reduced scope, force a

Zugzwang.

The first stage is straightforward: 1...Kc6 2.Bh5 Kb6

3.Bf3 Bd7 4.Bb7 Bg4 5.Bc8

Now Black is forced away from the h3-c8 diagonal and

so must try to defend c8 from the a6-c8 diagonal, either

with …Bf3/..Bg2 or ...Be2/…Ba6. There’s not much

difference in both cases.

5… Be2 6. Bf5 Ba6. And now, one possible pretty

winning two-move combination is:

7. Bd3! Bg2 8. Bb5! And now we have our

picturesque Zugzwang!

Similarly, if 5… Bf3, 6.Bf5 Bb7 7.Bd3+-, Zugzswang.

(7… Kc6 runs into 8. Be4+)

I hope you enjoyed this “simple” endgame; it is just a

warmup for the one in the next issue!

11

CHESS IS 99% TACTICS by Yisrael Isaacson

Find the best winning line. Some positions may have a number of winning lines but the answers given are those that the

chess engine Houdini 4 evaluates as best and will have a valuation at least 2 – 3 points higher than the next best.

White to move . Salo vs Jarvinen, corr., 1980 White to move. Bellon Lopez vs Ljubojevic,

Palma de Majorca, 1972

Black to move. Kramnik vs Anand, Bonn 2008 White to move. Meyer vs Gelman, USA, 1991

White to move. Tal vs Antoshin, Moscow, 1957 Veetema vs A. Latvian (now American) GM,

Haapsalu, 1986

12

Editor Notes:

Deadlines for the 2017 En Passant editions:

EDITION DEADLINE FORMAT

June May 22nd Word.doc or docx formats ONLY with all images sent as attachment.

Do NOT format page layout with columns. Do NOT insert images into the

text (indicate with *** where image will go and send image at attachment.

NO pdf accepted. No odt. No .txt files. No text pasted into email accepted.

September August 25th

December November 24th

SMILE.AMAZON.COM

When you shop online through Amazon, please login as SMILE.AMAZON.COM and select the Pittsburgh Chess Club as

beneficiary or your purchase. Amazon will donate half of a percent of your shopping amount to the PCC at no cost to you.

MONTE CARLO NIGHT with gala dinner and events

Save the date! May 2nd, 6pm, at the Le Mont Restaurant in Mount Washington, Pittsburgh, PA. $75 per person. Tickets

with any Board of Directors Member. Questions? mike.stephan.113@gmail.com

KEVIN CARL:

2017 Pittsburgh Chess Club Champion! One of his annotated games will appear in our next edition.

VOLUNTEERS NEEDED:

We need stewards to open or close the Club on Wednesdays and Saturdays.

Please contact Boyd.m.reed@gmail.com

We need a volunteer to make phone calls to members:

Please contact profjohnbarroso@gmail.com

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PLEASE SEND FORM IN TO JOIN OR RENEW. MAKE SURE TO FILL IN DOB AND EMAIL. Tear page.

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