Openings theory – blessing or bane?
26.04.2004 Keeping up with theory is a real pain in the neck. Who is to blame for the explosive growth and availability of openings knowledge? Some people say it is the kind folks who bring you this website. Dennis Monokroussos contends that in reality it is Mikhail Botvinnik, the first player to raise opening preparation into a science. Visit his lecture on Playchess.com tonight.
Dennis Monokroussos writes: Opening theory, for the chessplayer, is both bane
and blessing. By knowing theory, we’re able to understand a lot more
than we would by blind groping through trial-and-error; further, if we’re
better prepared than our opponents, our chances of a favorable result go up
dramatically. On the other hand, keeping up with theory is a real pain in the
neck, made both easier (because it’s easier to accumulate and structure)
and harder (because of its explosive growth and availability to our foes) at
the same time by, among others, the kind folks who bring you this website.
Blessing or bane, it’s the situation we’re in. Let’s instead
ask who’s to thank or blame for this mess! My answer: Mikhail Botvinnik,
the first player to really raise opening preparation into a science. The great
player, a former world champion for 13 years (off-and-on) and among the early
trainers of Karpov and Kasparov, to mention only some very selective highlights,
was not the first player to prepare the openings deeply. What he did do, however,
was to analyze them to such a depth, and with an eye not just on the BIG NOVELTY
but on reducing many early middlegames to “typical positions”;
that is, positions whose strategical content and key plans were well-known
to him, though not, of course, to his opponents.
Today’s game, from the historically important USSR-USA radio match in
1945, is an illustration of this sort of deep opening/middlegame preparation
by Botvinnik. Arnold Denker, with White, bravely walked into the ultra-sharp
and then fairly new Botvinnik Variation of the Semi-Slav. Making all plausible
moves, Denker nonetheless lost brutally in just 25 moves. As we go through
this game tonight, let’s see if we can learn from these players: not
just about the opening in question – though we will learn something about
this, one of the most fascinating of all opening variations – but about
what true preparation is and how to go about it. Enjoy!
Dennis
Monokroussos is 37, lives in South Bend, IN (the site of the University
of Notre Dame), and is writing a Ph.D. dissertation in philosophy (in the philosophy
of mind) while adjuncting at the University.
He is fairly inactive as a player right now, spending most of his non-philosophy
time being a husband and teaching chess. At one time he was one of the strongest
juniors in the U.S., but quit for about eight years starting in his early 20s.
His highest rating was 2434 USCF, but he has now fallen to the low-mid 2300s
– "too much blitz, too little tournament chess", he says.
Dennis has been working as a chess teacher for seven years now, giving lessons
to adults and kids both in person and on the internet, worked for a number
of years for New York’s Chess In The Schools program, where
he was one of the coaches of the 1997-8 US K-8 championship team from the Bronx,
and was very active in working with many of CITS’s most talented juniors.
When Dennis Monokroussos presents a game, there are usually two main areas
of focus: the opening-to-middlegame transition and the key moments of the middlegame
(or endgame, when applicable). With respect to the latter, he attempts to present
some serious analysis culled from his best sources (both text and database),
which he has checked with his own efforts and then double-checked with his
chess software.
Dennis Monokroussos' Radio
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