Dennis Monokroussos on the frisky Schliemann
11/28/2007 – The Schliemann Defense to the Ruy Lopez (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 f5!?) is a
club favorite, but even super-grandmasters like Korchnoi, Topalov, Aronian and
– as recently as yesterday – Radjabov have trotted it out. Tonight
our Playchess lecturer tells us what
to do about it. You can start licking your chops.
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Dennis Monokroussos writes:
The Schliemann Defense to the Ruy Lopez (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 f5!?) is one of the friskier ways to meet the Spanish torture. It's a club favorite, but even super-grandmasters like Korchnoi, Topalov, Aronian and – as recently as yesterday – Radjabov have trotted it out against elite competition. According to mainstream theory, Black should expect nothing worse than a slight disadvantage if White knows everything, while Black gets lively play and a puncher's chance if White slips up.
On paper, that sounds pretty good. But is that really how things stand? We'll take a closer look tonight, and see if that's really true. I have a fair amount of experience with this opening, and I'll do my best to show you where the dead bodies are. Maybe I can't guarantee an outright refutation, but if your Schliemann-wielding opponents don't watch this video, you can start licking your chops. If they do, they'd better come up with something good! (And if they do, please let me know!)
That ought to whet your appetite. The show is tonight (Wednesday night) at 9 p.m. ET. I look forward to seeing you there!
Dennis Monokroussos' Radio ChessBase lectures begin on Wednesdays 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).
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.
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