Twenty-two moves of pure creativity

Dennis Monokroussos writes:

Though it's only twenty-two moves, our game for this Monday has more than enough content for a rich hour's show. Albin Planinc (also spelled "Planinec" in some sources - ChessBase's databases, for example) is now retired, but in the mid-60s and 70s was among the world's most creative players.

You want proof? Take a look at what he does to Rafael Vaganian, then a young, up-and-coming GM. White's opening play was ambitious, taking time to secure the bishop pair and then, at Planinc's invitation, to win a central pawn. Vaganian's king remained in the center as his kingside pieces slept, but it didn't seem that his opponent had enough development to do anything about it.

That's how it seemed, but as you can imagine, things worked out differently. To see just how differently, you'll want to tune in this Monday night at 9 pm ET as we explore a game I can almost guarantee you'll long remember!

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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