Dennis Monokroussos writes:

This week’s show will feature the spectacular game Rudolf Spielmann-Gösta Stoltz, Stockholm (match, game 5) 1930.

Rudolf Spielmann (left, 1883-1942), author of the classic The Art of Sacrifice in Chess, was renowned as a brilliant player. But in this game he's on the receiving end of an inspired sacrificial idea by Stoltz (1904-1963). A sharp line of the French gets sharper still when each side offers material in pursuit of the initiative, but it looks as though White's 13th move puts him in control. Black had seen this coming, however, and unleashed a magnificent, albeit speculative, idea. Sacrificing his queen for a piece or two and the initiative, Stoltz demonstrated that it's not so much the abstract material value of the pieces that counts, but what the pieces can actually do in the given situation. Perhaps White could have defended somehow – we'll take a closer look during the show – but his defensive task was no picnic.

So I hope you’ll join me this Monday as we look at this fantastic but little-known game. Those interested in French Defense theory are likely to find something of real interest, and I'll also spend some time philosophizing on the preconditions for speculative sacrifices, itself a very important topic deserving significant reflection. See you there!

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.

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