The Velimirovic Attack... continues

Dennis Monokroussos writes:

Last week we started to look at the terrific correspondence chess battle between former world champion Vytas Palciauskas and Vytautas Andriulaitis, but we didn't even make it out of the opening! The Velimirovic Attack in the Classical Sicilian leads to wild, sacrifice-filled play, and it's important to have some idea of what in the world is going on before rushing to the middlegame.

It isn't any less complicated where we left off, but at least now we'll have some understanding of what's happening, some markers to help find our way through the terrain. Surprisingly, the ultra-complicated phase only lasts another ten moves or so, when it resolves into a more generality-friendly position. Ironically, it is at that point that Andriulaitis finally errs, after which his opponent's accurate play gradually brings in the point.

A fascinating opening, wild variations, and accurate positional play – what more could a chess fan want? Join me this Monday night at 9 pm on the playchess server for a truly great game; you'll be glad you did!

Note: you can watch older lectures by Dennis Monokroussos here:

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).

Dennis Monokroussos is 39, lives in South Bend, IN, and is an adjunct professor of philosophy at the University of Notre Dame.

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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