Dennis Monokroussos writes:
Max Euwe is sometimes considered an "accidental" world champion
by casual fans, but unfairly. His results when he won the title in 1935 were
excellent, and his lost rematch to Alekhine two years later was quite close
until very late in the encounter. While he didn't rank head-and-shoulders above
his contemporaries, they didn't evince any clear superiority over him, either.
Thus his games and career are very much worthy of attention, and on this week's
show we'll take a look at one of his best and most significant games. Dubbed
"the pearl of Zandvoort" by Tartakower, it was this victory that
practically assured his overall success in his first world championship match
with Alekhine. Enjoying a one-point lead - his first lead of the match –
with five games to go, one might expect the challenger to feel some nerves.
If he didn't, he didn't show them. Euwe boldly sacked a piece for three pawns,
and then threw in the exchange as well. Alekhine put up significant resistance,
but the challenger's outstanding play in the middlegame and the subsequent
ending carried the day. A great game, rich in creativity from both players.
This is a game that's worthy of the chess fan's time! Should you agree (and
why shouldn't you?), I hope you'll join me this Monday night at 9 pm ET on
ChessBase's playchess.com server – see you then!
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
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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 40, 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. Please
double-check at World Time
and Date for your time zone.
