A willingness to give up material in unusual ways

Dennis Monokroussos writes:

Bela Perenyi (1953-1988) was "only" an IM, but his mark on the game it out of proportion to his title. Just for starters, two immensely important main lines in the Najdorf are named for him, and he made significant contributions to other openings as well. And there's no doubt that he would have made an even bigger mark on the chess world, were it not for his tragic death in a car accident 20 years ago this month.

Lest you think from the foregoing that Perenyi was mainly a theoretician without any special aptitude for the game, I hope this week's show (and part of next week's as well) will make it clear that this is not the case. We'll look this week at a remarkable game played in 1985 against German FM Martin Fette. It defies easy description, but Perenyi's willingness to give up material in the most unusual ways for purely long-term compensation – in an endgame, no less – makes this a must-see show. This is no cookie cutter game, and you'll be glad you tuned in to see this contest, I assure you.

All Playchess.com members need to do is show up at 9 p.m. ET tonight - Wednesday night - go to the Broadcasts room, find "Fette-Perenyi" under the games tab, double-click, watch and enjoy. I look forward to seeing you then.

You can find the exact times for different locations in the world at World Time and Date. Exact times for most larger cities are here. And you can watch older lectures by Dennis Monokroussos offline in the Chess Media System room of Playchess:

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).

Monokroussos in Mexico: World Championship 2007

Dennis Monokroussos is 41, lives in South Bend, IN, where he teaches chess and occasionally works as an adjunct professor of philosophy at the University of Notre Dame and Indiana University-South Bend.

At one time he was one of the strongest juniors in the U.S. and has reached a peak rating of 2434 USCF, but several long breaks from tournament play have made him rusty. He is now resuming tournament chess in earnest, hoping to reach new heights.

Dennis has been working as a chess teacher for ten 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.