Dennis Monokroussos writes:
Yes, it's time for ChessBase shows again!
We'll start back up this week, our first post-world championship show, with
a look back at the first (real) FIDE world champ, Mikhail Botvinnik. The "Patriarch",
as he is sometimes called, cast an immense shadow over 20th century chess, having
made an impact as a player (for starters, he was the world champion for 13 of
15 years from 1948 to 1963), as the leader of Soviet chess, as the model of
the contemporary professional, as a trainer (among his pupils one can count
Karpov and especially Kasparov) and even as a chess programmer.
Former world champion Mikhail Botvinnik
We could all recite his resume and be impressed, but it's better to look at
and learn from his chess. Many of his best games are strategic masterpieces,
and that's what we'll see this week, in his 1960 victory over (then West) German
grandmaster Lother Schmid. Schmid is obviously a fine player in his own right,
and in addition to his over the board chess successes he's also noteworthy in
at least four other respects. First, he has one of the largest chess libraries
in the world. Second, he had the surreal experience of serving as the arbiter
for the 1972 world championship match. Third, he has enjoyed great successes
as a correspondence player, coming in second in the 2nd world correspondence
championship. And fourth, he has a chess opening named after him – the
Schmid Benoni – and that's what was played in our game.
German GM (and arbiter) Lothar Schmid
Schmid rattled off his first ten moves against Botvinnik, and it was all perfectly
thematic, as we will see. It looked like he was in time for his thematic break
on b5, and White too late with his on e5. Botvinnik, of course, had other ideas,
and it's both fascinating and instructive to see these two very strong players
battle for their conceptions. It's an entertaining game, comparatively low on
theory and tactics, but very useful for understanding key Benoni concepts.
Since it has been a while, it bears repeating that the show takes place Thursday
night at 9 p.m. ET – see you then!
Dennis Monokroussos'
Radio ChessBase
lectures begin on Thursdays at 9 p.m. EDT, which translates to 01:00h
GMT, 02:00 Paris/Berlin, 11:00h Sydney (on Friday). 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. |
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).
Dennis
Monokroussos is 41, 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.
