Topping off Mtel – the early Topalov

Dennis Monokroussos writes: In commemoration of Topalov's victory in the just-completed MTel Masters, we'll take a look at a notable game from early in his career, at a time when it seemed the successes he's now enjoying were going to happen within one or two years rather than eight or nine.

Our game for this week features the razor-sharp 6.Bc4 variation against Kasparov's Najdorf. Played in round 1 of the 1996 Amsterdam VSB tournament, in which the two players tied for first (1.5 points ahead of Short and Anand and 2 points ahead of Kramnik and Lautier), Topalov played in his characteristically savage fashion, acquiring a decisive advantage after a brilliant opening and middlegame. His technique wasn't perfect (and we can learn from that, too), but he brought home the point, showing the chess world that there was a new force to be reckoned with.

So join me this Monday, not only to see a fantastic game, but also for the opportunity to catch up on the theory of an always topical opening variation!

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.

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