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Dennis Monokroussos writes:
One of the most successful players at the end of 2007 was American GM Hikaru Nakamura, who managed to win the round-robin event in Barcelona, the knock-out Corsica Masters, and the North American Open in Las Vegas. These three victories are helping him draw near the magic 2700 marker, and as you'd expect from a very strong player on a great run, he's producing some terrific chess.
So we'll have a look at a game from the first event, the tournament in Barcelona, one which Nakamura himself has dubbed the best game he has ever played. This was his game against Polish GM Michal Krasenkow. In a sort of Catalan/Queen's Indian hybrid, Nakamura managed to seize the initiative with the black pieces, and this turned into a small advantage. The situation would have remained tolerable for Krasenkow, had he patiently accepted the situation, but he found a very promising-looking tactical idea that seemed to place his opponent in a critical situation.
You will have surmised, of course, that the emphasis is on seemed; Nakamura had seen farther. We'll have a look for ourselves, and even if we're not able to find the problem ourselves, we can certainly appreciate Nakamura's brilliant idea, one which deserves a wide audience and to be revisited and remembered for some time. I hope therefore that you'll join me tonight – Wednesday night – at 9 p.m. ET as we ring in the New Year with this great game!
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 |
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.
