Dennis Monokroussos writes:
The year is 1929, the place is Karlsbad, and our protagonists are José
Raúl Capablanca, the third and then-recently deposed world chess champion;
and Karel Treybal (1885-1941), a strong Czech master whose resume includes a
tournament win over Alexander Alekhine.
José Raúl Capablanca
Treybal had an affection for Dutch Stonewall type positions (it was with such
an opening that he defeated Alekhine), and that's what he used against Capablanca.
Although it left him with left space and one of the worst light-squared bishops
in recorded human history, the seriously locked pawn structure probably left
Treybal relatively optimistic about holding the game. One would expect Capa
to look for some way of blasting the position open: in the center, the kingside,
the queenside – somewhere.
Instead, the great Cuban kept locking up the board. Early on, he eliminated
the realistic possibility of breaking in the center, and then he locked up the
whole kingside and almost everything on the queenside. Almost. Only the a-file
was open, and although White was able to achieve absolute ownership over it,
it was far from obvious that he could achieve anything there. That Capablanca
knew that he could break through in due course, despite Black's ability to shift
his cramped pieces to the danger zone, shows his legendary ability to think
schematically.
It's an impressive game, and one that's extremely picturesque. I first saw
the game as a young child, and the strong impression it made on me then has
stuck with me to the present day. I think you'll enjoy it too, so please join
me tonight – Wednesday night – at 9 p.m. ET (that's Thursday at
3 a.m. CET) on the Playchess.com server. The show is free, and you can find
full directions here.
Hope to see you on the server!
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.
