Learning the Scandinavian from Vishy Anand

Dennis Monokroussos writes:

To my mind, no one wins nicer games than Viswanathan Anand does when he's in good form. His openings are always extremely well-prepared, his tactical imagination is astounding, and his play strikes me as forceful – but in a "correct" rather than speculative fashion. Many of his wins are model games, and that's true of this week's offering as well, his win with the white pieces over French GM Joel Lautier from Biel 1997.

Indian super-star and world number two chess player Vishy Anand

Lautier offered up a surprise with the Scandinavian Defense (aka the Center Counter) but Anand's home preparation – upon which he improved over the board, with an apparently risky but deeply calculated variation – gave him the advantage. Finally, Anand was able to conclude with a beautiful and brilliant attacking idea, putting the icing on the cake.

So join me this Monday night at 9 p.m. for our chess dessert: not only is it a great game, but it gives us the opportunity to discuss the Center Counter, an important opening that has received little-to-no coverage on the show thus far.

All the entertainment and twice the instruction – don’t miss out this Monday night at 9 p.m. ET!

Dennis Monokroussos' Radio ChessBase lectures begin on Mondays at 9 p.m. EDT, which translates to 02:00h GMT, 03:00 Paris/Berlin, 13:00h Sydney (on Tuesday). 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.

Note: you can watch older lectures by Dennis Monokroussos here:

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).

Dennis Monokroussos is 39, lives in South Bend, IN, and is an adjunct professor of philosophy at the University of Notre Dame.

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.

Here are the exact times for different locations in the world. Since Europe has switched from Summer to Regular time please double-check at World Time and Date for your time zone.

Tue 06:00

Mon 22:00

Mon 20:00

Tue 05:00

Tue 09:00

Mon 21:00