Dennis Monokroussos writes:
This week we’ll take a look at two great, short games by the ill-fated
but legendary Leonid Stein. In his brief 12 years as an elite chess player,
Stein won three Soviet championships, the Moscow super-tournaments of 1967
and 1971 and numerous other international events prior to his death of a heart
attack at the age of 38. Three times he nearly qualified for the Candidates’
events – twice missing because of a discriminatory quota system against
Soviet players, the other time losing out on tiebreaks after a playoff.
Despite these grave disappointments, Stein played great chess throughout his
career, and we’ll take a look this week at two of his fine attacking
efforts against elite players. The first is from his break-out event, the 1961
USSR championship in Moscow. Tigran Petrosian won the event – another
success on his way to winning the world championship title in 1963 –
but in his game with Stein, then a mere master, his Winawer French is hammered
into submission as the result of a moment’s strategic carelessness. The
second game occurred during the Stockholm Interzonal the next year. Stein,
with the white pieces against fellow up-and-comer Lajos Portisch, rapidly but
subtly builds a kingside attack against his opponent’s Kan Sicilian.
It looks as though Portisch will be okay, thanks to his central counterplay,
but as we shall see, Stein has looked more deeply into the position.
The two games last a combined 47 moves, and that was not unusual for Stein,
whom Kasparov has likened to Tal and the young Spassky in their laying the
groundwork of the modern, ultra-dynamic chess of the present day. Those of
you familiar with Stein’s chess will know these games are well-worth
a second look, while those of you new to the chess of Leonid Stein are in for
a real treat!
Dennis Monokroussos'
Radio ChessBase
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Dennis
Monokroussos is 38, 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.
Here are the exact times for different locations in the world
