Alexander Alekhine: the later years

Dennis Monokroussos writes:

Alexander Alekhine was the fourth world chess champion and one of the greatest and most appreciated players of all time. Chess fans are more familiar with his best games than those of any other player prior to Tal, I would guess, and yet...even in his well-covered career, there are some gaps that need to be filled. Alekhine's books of his best games cover the period from 1924-1937, and Kasparov in the first volume of My Great Predecessors likewise pays scant attention to the post-1937 phase of Alekhine's career. Yet although his later games may not have exemplified his best chess on as consistent a basis, there are still many beautiful efforts deserving to be known.

Naturally, this week's show will cover such a game. We'll take a look at his victory over the Finnish player Eero Böök (1910-1990, IM in 1950, honorary GM in 1984) from the 1938 Margate tournament (which he won). The game commenced as a safe, ordinary-looking Queen's Gambit Accepted, when Böök attempted a rather ambitious novelty. Unfortunately for the Finn, Alekhine refuted his conception over the board, even though it required committing to the sacrifice of a full rook for seemingly vague threats. Most of the time, Alekhine's attacking instincts were on the mark, and this was no exception.

It's a fine game, and an instructive one too, as you'll see when you join me this Monday night at 9 pm ET on the playchess.com server. See you then!

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