A lesson for budding Sicilian players

Dennis Monokroussos writes:

The FIDE World Championship in San Luis, Argentina is just around the corner, and with that in mind, I thought it high time to remedy an omission and do a show featuring previously uncovered participant Peter Svidler. Svidler's résumé is extremely impressive: he's #6 on the current FIDE list (excluding the retired Kasparov), won three Russian championships before his twenty-second birthday, and has won numerous other significant events in his career.

One of his most notable tournament victories was also one of his first. Tilburg 1997 was an extremely strong event, featuring (among others) Kasparov, Kramnik, Shirov, Adams, Polgar and Leko. The 21-year-old Svidler didn't have much experience outside of Russia, but proved himself a member of the world elite, beating Kasparov in their individual game and tying with him and Kramnik for first place.

The win over Kasparov would itself make for a great show, but we're going to take a look at a different game, one which, according to Svidler himself (as of June 2004), was the best game of his career. This game, with wild man Alexei Shirov, offers an outstanding example of the resilience and counterattacking potential of the Sicilian Defense. Shirov plays for the kingside attack with his customary aggressiveness, but Svidler proves that White's attack has left more weaknesses in its wake than it has done damage. A terrific game, and very instructive for all budding Sicilian players.

Hope to see everyone this Monday night at 9 p.m. ET!

Dennis Monokroussos is 38, 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.

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