Dennis Monokroussos writes:
One of the first great American players was Frank Marshall (1877-1944). His
fame continues to the present day on account of his gambit in the Ruy Lopez,
and his contributions to opening theory go far beyond that one idea. He was
the shock winner of the very strong Cambridge Springs tournament of 1904, U.S.
Champion from 1909 to 1936, one of the original five players dubbed grandmasters
(at St. Petersburg 1914) and an enormously important figure in American chess.
Furthermore, his founding and securing the Marshall Chess Club (which continues
to thrive to the present day) is almost as important as his great successes
on the chess board.
Marshall, then, is one of the great figures of early 20th century chess. But
there's great, and then there's great, and when Marshall played a world
championship match against Emanuel Lasker (1868-1941) in 1907, that difference
became clear. Lasker, who was not only the world champion from 1894-1921 but
also had a Ph.D. in mathematics, faced off against the American in a race to
eight wins. Nowadays a match like that might take six months to a year to finish,
but in their contest Lasker dismantled Marshall, winning the eighth game without
a single loss and only seven draws. Thud.
Despite the lopsided result, almost all of the games were interesting and most
carried through to the endgame. That's what happened in the first game of this
match, which we shall examine tonight (Wednesday at 9 p.m. ET) in our weekly
ChessBase show. After a strategically interesting but brief middlegame, the
players reached a rook and minor piece ending. With best play, it would have
been equal, but Lasker's virtuoso treatment Marshall needed to play very accurately
to hold – and he didn't. This got Lasker off to a great start, and with wins
in the next two games as well he never looked back.
There are, as always, good reasons to tune in tonight, and this is especially
the case if you're a 1.e4 e5 player. Though our game this week arose via a minor
Berlin sideline, the pawn structure is one that can occur in the Scotch and
the Two Knights, and as such is one that ought to be understood by 1...e5 aficionados.
Additionally, it's simply a great ending by Lasker, and for those with eyes
to see, there are lessons to be learned. So please join me tonight – the show
is free and runs an hour or so; just go to the broadcast room of the Playchess.com
server, select the Marshall-Lasker game at the relevant hour, and enjoy! (Further
directions here.)
Hope to see you there.
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.
