Dennis Monokroussos writes:
We continue our series previewing the upcoming World Championship in San Luis,
Argentina, and this week it's Veselin Topalov and Peter Leko taking center
stage.
As the number two and three seeds by rating, the title could quite conceivably
come down to their mini-match, and if it does, Leko will be in excellent shape,
if history is any guide. Even when Leko was in his early teens, he was torturing
the older, higher-rated Topalov, and on this week's show we'll take a look
at one of those early games.
Topalov vs Leko in Dortmund this year
In Vienna 1996, the 21-year-old Topalov was in fine form, tying for first
with Gelfand and Karpov and adding to his impressive 2750 rating. Yet although
just short of his 17th birthday, Leko was a contender as well, finishing just
half a point behind the victorious trio and destroying Topalov in their individual
game.
Leko played the Caro-Kann in that game, and despite the defense's ultra-solid
reputation, their game (as with most of their games over the years) became
complicated in a hurry. Topalov had chances to develop a queenside attack,
and over a period of several moves, if Leko hadn't played incisively, White
would have been in good shape. He did, however, and while Topalov was repeatedly
just one move short of consolidating, Leko's initiative grew into an overwhelming
attack, and White was crushed.
In addition to the value of the game as a whole, it's also of interest from
a theoretical standpoint for those who play either side of the Panov-Botvinnik
Attack against the Caro-Kann. So I hope to see everyone this Monday night at
9 p.m. ET!
Dennis Monokroussos'
Radio ChessBase
lectures begin on Mondays at 9 p.m. EDT, which translates to 02:00h GMT,
03:00 Paris/Berlin, 13:00h Sydney (on Tuesday). Other time zones can
be found at the bottom of this page. You can use Fritz or any Fritz-compatible
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Dennis
Monokroussos is 39, lives in South Bend, IN, and is an adjunct professor
of philosophy at the University of Notre Dame.
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.
Here are the exact times for different locations in the world