Dennis Monokroussos writes: When picking a subject for my weekly
show, sometimes I choose a game from memory, sometimes I pore through my books,
and occasionally a recent game catches my eye. This week, something different.
Rather than allow lesser-known contemporary masterpieces slip away into the
anonymity of subsequent editions of the Mega
Database, I went looking for them! Seek and you shall find, it says, and
my search of ChessBase
Magazine 104 was a success.
Our game features a nice battle from last year's Olympiad in Calvia, between
rising star Baadur Jobava of Georgia and Neuris Delgado of Cuba. Delgado essayed
the normally quiet Queen's Indian Defense, an opening that generally gives
Black good control over d5 and e4. Jobava played a somewhat unusual line, however,
grabbing a massive pawn center. The usual question in such cases is whether
the pawn center is overextended, and so too in this game: Delgado set about
destroying White's pawns, while Jobava attempted to use the space advantage
as long as it lasted to build up a kingside attack. Whose plan succeeded? Tune
in Monday night (at 9 p.m. ET) to find out!
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. |
Dennis
Monokroussos is 38, lives in South Bend, IN (the site of the University
of Notre Dame), and is writing a Ph.D. dissertation in philosophy (in the philosophy
of mind) while adjuncting at the University.
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
