Dennis Monokroussos writes:
Svetozar Gligoric (b. 1923) was for many years in the world’s elite –
three times a Candidate, for starters – and had he not lost about six
years of his life to the ravages of World War II, it’s conceivable that
the ultimate crown would have been his. Even so, he was a great player whose
contributions to the game’s theory and practise were considerable.

Gligoric at 85 – in February 2008
The game we’ll look at this week, Gligoric-Tolush (from a Leningrad team
tournament in 1957), puts both qualities on display. At some moments of this
fine game, Gligoric’s play is recognizable to all (or almost all) of us.
While attractive and very well calculated, the way he prosecutes the attack
in the middle game will have a familiar look to most of us. Maybe we couldn’t
have finished the job ourselves, but it will all make good sense. The real trick
in this game is the way Gligoric set things up. It doesn’t take all that
long, but the way he gets there is a brilliant combination of logic in the opening
and non-stereotyped thinking a few moves later. It is here above all that he
demonstrates his class as a chess thinker.

Gligoric with the Maric sisters IM Alisa Maric and WGM Mirjana Maric-Stamenkovic
Sound interesting? The details will be filled in tonight – Wednesday
night – at 9 p.m. ET (or 3 a.m. CET Thursday morning, for my European
viewers) on the Playchess server. To watch, log on at the appropriate time,
go to the Broadcasts Room, and either double-click on my handle (“Initiative”)
or on Gligoric-Tolush in the Games list. Hope to see you there!

Gligoric with a recognition plaque awarded on his 85th
birthday
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.