Levon Aronian – a future world champion?

Dennis Monokroussos writes:

We continue our series on the up-and-comers of today with a look at a player who, though still young, isn't a child prodigy. Nevertheless, the rise of Levon Aronian to the upper echelons of world chess has been dramatic the last two-three years, and he probably has as good a shot as anyone to become a world champion sometime in the near future.

Top Armenian GM Levon Aronian

In support of this claim, we'll look at his win over the current world champion, Viswanathan Anand, from the 2007 Morelia/Linares tournament. This game has been ranked highly in various 2007 game of the year contests, and with very good reason. Aronian developed what had been thought an innocuous opening approach into a strategically dangerous idea, outplayed Anand in the early endgame, and then devised an incredibly deep sacrificial idea where his rook and split passers were more valuable than Black's rook and two minor pieces! Start to finish, it's a great effort by Aronian, and the theoretical significance along with the brilliant combination referred to above make this a game very much worth seeing.

Anand (right) playing Aronian in this year's Morelia/Linares tournament (Aronian won)

Since watching is free, there's all the more reason to join me this Wednesday night (today, for many of you) at 9 p.m. ET on the playchess.com server. Hope to see you there!

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.