Dennis Monokroussos writes:
Looking through my recent ChessBase shows and comparing them with the lineup
for the Grand Slam Final in Bilbao, it seems that the only player not to have
a win presented in the last couple of months is Veselin Topalov. This is an
omission to rectify, especially as he's in the final four for the world championship.
Another factor that makes him an easy choice is his very aggressive style. Whatever
one's views about Topalov and the controversies he has engendered, the man can
play some dazzling chess.
Accordingly, we'll look at one of the former world champ and #1's brilliant
games from 2005, his banner year. He won everything in sight then: Linares (tied
with Kasparov), MTel, and then – destroying the field – the FIDE
World Championship in San Luis. That year, he dominated like no one had
but Kasparov, and in his style, will to win, and superior opening preparation
he also resembled the "Beast from Baku". It is from this annus mirabilis
that we take our game of the week, the game Topalov-Ponomariov from the second
cycle of the MTel Masters.
Topalov vs Anand in San Luis 2005
Topalov hadn't gotten off to a great start and had lost to former FIDE champ
Ruslan Ponomariov in the first cycle, but now he caught fire. Although one rarely
associates the Queen's Indian Defense with sharp and lively play, Topalov (with
his second, Cheparinov) has detonated many dangerous novelties on the white
side of this opening, and we'll see one of them in this game. He came out of
his prep with a significant advantage, but the game still needed to be won.
That he did it, you all know, but how he did it deserves to be seen and savored.
Super-GMs can prepare brilliantly, but they can play brilliantly once the preparation
finishes – as you'll see for yourself.
At least, you'll get to see if you join me tonight – Wednesday night
– at 9 p.m. ET. The show is free if you catch it live on the Playchess.com
server; go into the Broadcast room when the time is right, select the games
tab, click on Topalov-Ponomariov, sit back and enjoy! (More details here.) Hope
to see you then!
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.
