Dennis Monokroussos writes:
Nowadays, there's a tendency to think that any chess player over 30 is about
to start his downhill slide, if he's not already skiing down the slope to senility.
So if you match up a 67-year-old on the one hand and a 19-year-old genius on
the other, the result will be perfectly clear: a rout.
And so it was in the game we'll cover this week, but it was the wizened elder
administering the punishment, just as he had to several previous generations
of whippersnappers. Vassily Ivanchuk was a great talent who has become one
of the world's strongest and most creative players, but his opponent, Vasily
Smyslov, was no less strong or creative in his own day. Further – and
in this respect only Korchnoi and Lasker can compare – Smyslov's prime
and near-prime extended for an absolutely insane 40-50 year period! Smyslov
was among the world's very best players from the early 1940s, became World
Champion in 1957, and remained among the elite through at least the mid 1980s,
even making it to the finals of the Candidates' cycle in 1984 before losing
to Kasparov.
In this week's game, Smyslov demonstrates the harmoniousness his play is known
for. Early in the middlegame, Ivanchuk thinks he has reached a safe, solid
position where his queenside play and the opposite-colored bishops will allow
him to draw without difficulty, but he is mistaken. Brick by brick, Smyslov
builds his position, keeping his opponent from penetrating while slowly improving
his own attacking prospects, until a powerful exchange sacrifice allows him
to reach a winning endgame.
It's a masterpiece by the former Champion, and, as with almost all his best
games, extremely instructive. I hope, therefore, that the combination of aesthetic
and educational benefits will encourage you to join me this Monday night at
9 p.m. ET – I think you'll be glad you did!
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
program (Shredder, Junior, Tiger, Hiarcs) to follow the lectures, or
download a free trial client. |
Note: you can watch older lectures by Dennis Monokroussos here:
Enter the above archive room and click on "Games" to see the lectures.
The lectures, which can go for an hour or more, will cost you between one and
two ducats.
That is the equivalent of 10-20 Euro cents (14-28 US cents).
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. Since Europe
has switched from Summer to Regular time please double-check at World
Time and Date for your time zone.
If your own city or time zone is not listed you can find it at World
Time and Date