The Botvinnik-Smyslov battle
10/17/2004 – Tired of Kramnik-Leko and all the draws? Hardly a timely question on the day the drama in Brissago reaches a climax. But if you want to see one of the bloodiest matches in history you should drop in at Playchess.com for Dennis Monkroussos's Monday night lecture.
Dennis Monokroussos writes: While the Kramnik-Leko match has had its exciting moments, the number of bloodless draws was distressingly high. This week, we’ll examine some high points from a match that was on the opposite end of the spectrum, the first Botvinnik-Smyslov match, in 1954. How different? The 24-game match (ultimately tied 12-12) had 14 decisive games, 12 of the first 16, including a streak of 8 decisive results in a row! All the games were full of fight, and many of the games were of theoretical significance. Technology and chess have come a long way in 50 years, but we can learn a lesson from them when it comes to fighting spirit – join us and see some great – and combative – chess!
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
| Abu Dhabi | Tue 05:00 | Halifax * | Mon 22:00 | New Orleans * | Mon 20:00 | ||||
| Addis Ababa | Tue 04:00 | Hanoi | Tue 08:00 | New York * | Mon 21:00 | ||||
| Adelaide | Tue 10:30 | Harare | Tue 03:00 | Odesa * | Tue 04:00 | ||||
| Aden | Tue 04:00 | Havana * | Mon 21:00 | Oslo * | Tue 03:00 | ||||
| Aklavik * | Mon 19:00 | Helsinki * | Tue 04:00 | Ottawa * | Mon 21:00 | ||||
| Algiers | Tue 02:00 | Hong Kong | Tue 09:00 | Paris * | Tue 03:00 | ||||
| Amman * | Tue 04:00 | Honolulu | Mon 15:00 | Perth | Tue 09:00 | ||||
| Amsterdam * | Tue 03:00 | Houston * | Mon 20:00 | Philadelphia * | Mon 21:00 | ||||
| Anadyr * | Tue 14:00 | Indianapolis | Mon 20:00 | Phoenix | Mon 18:00 | ||||
| Anchorage * | Mon 17:00 | Islamabad | Tue 06:00 | Prague * | Tue 03:00 | ||||
| Ankara * | Tue 04:00 | Istanbul * | Tue 04:00 | Rangoon | Tue 07:30 | ||||
| Antananarivo | Tue 04:00 | Jakarta | Tue 08:00 | Reykjavik | Tue 01:00 | ||||
| Asuncion | Mon 21:00 | Jerusalem * | Tue 04:00 | Rio de Janeiro | Mon 22:00 | ||||
| Athens * | Tue 04:00 | Johannesburg | Tue 03:00 | Riyadh | Tue 04:00 | ||||
| Atlanta * | Mon 21:00 | Kabul | Tue 05:30 | Rome * | Tue 03:00 | ||||
| Baghdad * | Tue 05:00 | Kamchatka * | Tue 14:00 | San Francisco * | Mon 18:00 | ||||
| Bangkok | Tue 08:00 | Karachi | Tue 06:00 | San Juan | Mon 21:00 | ||||
| Barcelona * | Tue 03:00 | Kathmandu | Tue 06:45 | San Salvador | Mon 19:00 | ||||
| Beijing | Tue 09:00 | Khartoum | Tue 04:00 | Santiago | Mon 21:00 | ||||
| Beirut * | Tue 04:00 | Kingston | Mon 20:00 | Santo Domingo | Mon 21:00 | ||||
| Belgrade * | Tue 03:00 | Kiritimati | Tue 15:00 | Sao Paulo | Mon 22:00 | ||||
| Berlin * | Tue 03:00 | Kolkata | Tue 06:30 | Seattle * | Mon 18:00 | ||||
| Bogota | Mon 20:00 | Kuala Lumpur | Tue 09:00 | Seoul | Tue 10:00 | ||||
| Boston * | Mon 21:00 | Kuwait City | Tue 04:00 | Shanghai | Tue 09:00 | ||||
| Brasilia | Mon 22:00 | Kyiv * | Tue 04:00 | Singapore | Tue 09:00 | ||||
| Brisbane | Tue 11:00 | La Paz | Mon 21:00 | Sofia * | Tue 04:00 | ||||
| Brussels * | Tue 03:00 | Lagos | Tue 02:00 | St. John's * | Mon 22:30 | ||||
| Bucharest * | Tue 04:00 | Lahore | Tue 06:00 | St. Paul * | Mon 20:00 | ||||
| Budapest * | Tue 03:00 | Lima | Mon 20:00 | Stockholm * | Tue 03:00 | ||||
| Buenos Aires | Mon 22:00 | Lisbon * | Tue 02:00 | Suva | Tue 13:00 | ||||
| Cairo * | Tue 04:00 | London * | Tue 02:00 | Sydney | Tue 11:00 | ||||
| Canberra | Tue 11:00 | Los Angeles * | Mon 18:00 | Taipei | Tue 09:00 | ||||
| Cape Town | Tue 03:00 | Madrid * | Tue 03:00 | Tallinn * | Tue 04:00 | ||||
| Caracas | Mon 21:00 | Managua | Mon 19:00 | Tashkent | Tue 06:00 | ||||
| Casablanca | Tue 01:00 | Manila | Tue 09:00 | Tegucigalpa | Mon 19:00 | ||||
| Chatham Island | Tue 13:45 | Melbourne | Tue 11:00 | Tehran * | Tue 05:30 | ||||
| Chicago * | Mon 20:00 | Mexico City * | Mon 20:00 | Tokyo | Tue 10:00 | ||||
| Copenhagen * | Tue 03:00 | Minneapolis * | Mon 20:00 | Toronto * | Mon 21:00 | ||||
| Darwin | Tue 10:30 | Minsk * | Tue 04:00 | Vancouver * | Mon 18:00 | ||||
| Denver * | Mon 19:00 | Montevideo | Mon 22:00 | Vienna * | Tue 03:00 | ||||
| Detroit * | Mon 21:00 | Montgomery * | Mon 20:00 | Vladivostok * | Tue 12:00 | ||||
| Dhaka | Tue 07:00 | Montreal * | Mon 21:00 | Warsaw * | Tue 03:00 | ||||
| Dublin * | Tue 02:00 | Moscow * | Tue 05:00 | Washington DC * | Mon 21:00 | ||||
| Edmonton * | Mon 19:00 | Mumbai | Tue 06:30 | Wellington | Tue 13:00 | ||||
| Frankfurt * | Tue 03:00 | Nairobi | Tue 04:00 | Winnipeg * | Mon 20:00 | ||||
| Geneva * | Tue 03:00 | Nassau * | Mon 21:00 | Zagreb * | Tue 03:00 | ||||
| Guatemala | Mon 19:00 | New Delhi | Tue 06:30 | Zürich * | Tue 03:00 |
* indicates that the place is currently observing daylight saving time (DST)
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