Free points from Pal Benko

Dennis Monokroussos writes: "These days Pal Benko is best-known for his endgame column in the U.S. Chess Federation’s Chess Life. For years, however, he was one of the best players in the world, twice making it to Candidates’ tournaments – a tremendous achievement for any player. Especially renowned for his virtuoso endgame technique, his best games are a wonderful resource for anyone wishing to improve their positional and endgame play.

In our weekly lecture we’ll take a look at one of his many positional masterpieces, this one against Fridrik Olafsson from the 1959 Candidates event (won by Tal). On the White side of a 6.Bg5 Najdorf (1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Bg5), Benko throws in an interesting positional twist that worked to perfection. Best of all, this is a line no one knows, so you can start counting the free points now! Tune in and watch a game replete with positional and technical ideas we can all use and benefit from; Benko, like Capablanca, has a way of making it look easy in his best games. Easy or not, they’re great to learn from, and that’s just what we’ll do this Monday night. Enjoy!"

Here are the exact times for different locations in the world

* indicates that the place is currently observing daylight saving time (DST)

Dennis Monokroussos is 37, 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.