Dennis Monokroussos writes:
Amos Burn (1848-1925) is best known to us for his variation in the French Defense
(1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 dxe4) and for his horrible loss in the famous
"pipe game"
with Frank Marshall. If you're especially literate in chess history, you may
even know of Burn's reputation as a player with a passive, stodgy style.
That's part of the story, but only a part. (For any reader with a serious interest
in Amos Burn, this monster volume
will sate you.) Despite his often less than crowd-pleasing style, his great
strength also enabled him to play some excellent and exciting games; this week,
we'll take a look at one of them, a see-saw game featuring one of the most amazing
moves of all time. It was just a casual game, but as with the games of so many
19th century figures (though this game, against a player named MacDonald, took
place in 1910), the informal setting proved conducive to more energetic chess,
as we shall see.
So join me this week for an exciting game with a spectacular finish; best of
all, it’s a real game featuring the advertised players. Enjoy!
Dennis Monokroussos'
Radio ChessBase
lectures begin on Mondays at 9 p.m. EDT, which translates to 02:00h GMT,
03:00 Paris/Berlin, 13:00h Sydney (on Tuesday). 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. |
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
* indicates that the place is currently observing daylight saving time
(DST)
