Dennis Monokroussos writes:
The city of Baku, Azerbaijan, seems almost a factory for great chess players.
Garry Kasparov, Teimour Radjabov, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Vugar Gashimov, Vladimir
Akopian, and the star of today's show, Emil Sutovsky. While he's a bit lower-profile
than most of the other Baku natives these days, the Israeli transplant has had
a career almost everyone – including almost every GM – would be
proud of: grandmaster, former world junior champion, former European champion,
winner of nearly 40 international tournaments and a career peak rating of 2697.
Further, it's not only his results that have been exceptional; he is renowned
for playing beautiful attacking games. Perhaps his greatest game so far came
against Ilya Smirin, from the 2002 Israel Championship. Smirin, himself a great
player (a few months before this game he was over 2700), played a novelty in
an anti-anti-Sveshnikov variation, but Sutovsky was either better prepared or
experienced some over-the-board inspiration. Whatever the story, this week's
hero devised a real two piece sacrifice that gave him enduring attacking chances,
but nothing that could be calculated to a finish in advance. Sutovsky's idea
proved absolutely correct, and after a number of accurate building moves, he
finished the job with a beautiful final blow. All in all, a masterpiece in miniature.
It's a game worth seeing, and watching the show this Wednesday night at 9 p.m.
ET is a great way to pass the time between the just-finished FIDE Grand Prix
(in Baku!) and the pending MTel Masters. The show is free and directions can
be found here.
Hope to see you then!
Dennis Monokroussos'
Radio ChessBase
lectures begin on Wednesdays at 9 p.m. EST, which translates to 02:00h
GMT, 03:00 Paris/Berlin, 13:00h Sydney (on Thursday). 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
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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.
