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.