Dennis Monokroussos writes:
The late Lembit Oll (1966-1999) was a very talented and strong Estonian GM.
Like any strong grandmaster, he could play to the needs of the position, but
he seemed especially at home in extremely sharp opening variations. That makes
his games a real pleasure for fans to play through, and the game we’ll
look at this week is no exception.
Playing in the 1989 USSR Championship against Mikhail Ulibin, Oll, with White,
went into a sharp line of the Winawer French, going into a subvariation that
had recently become popular at GM level. Thanks in part to a brilliant idea
of Oll’s first demonstrated in this game (subsequently refined), it went
out business in a hurry. The concept is a beautiful one and it still sometimes
catches amateurs by surprise, so it’s worth your time both as an aesthetic
experience and as something you should know if you play or face the Winawer
French.
It’ll make for a great show, and all you need to do is show in the Broadcast
Room at 9 p.m. ET and find “Oll-Ulibin” under the Games Tab. It’s
free to watch for registered Playchess.com members. Hope to see you then!
Dennis Monokroussos'
Radio ChessBase
lectures begin on Wednesdays at 9 p.m. EST, which translates to 02:00h
GMT, 03:00 Paris/Berlin, 13:00h Sydney (on Thursday). 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. |
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
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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.
