Ulf Andersson's 'do not hurry' approach
12/9/2008 – Some games require analyzing loads of complicated variations to understand
them. No so with the one in this Wednesday's Playchess
lecture, which Dennis Monokroussos dedicates to a 2000 win by the Swedish GM
over Sergey Ivanov. For this game, he says, we have to use some different tools.
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Dennis Monokroussos writes:
Some games require analyzing loads of complicated variations to understand them, and we have examined many such games in the history of this program. This week's game is not one of them! Ulf Andersson is one of the most adept technical players in the history of chess, and to get a grip on his 2000 win over Sergey Ivanov we have to use some different tools. We'll see schematic thinking, the principle of two weaknesses, and the always fascinating interplay between Capablanca's "do not hurry" and the need to switch to concrete calculation when the moment is ripe for action.
Andersson really puts on a clinic, outplaying his grandmaster opponent from what looks like a dead drawn beginning. Best of all, we are the beneficiaries. All that's needed is to show up tonight, Wednesday night, at 9 p.m. ET (that's early Thursday morning for my European readers), to the Broadcast Room of the Playchess server. It's free for members, and you can find the game by looking for "Andersson-Ivanov" under the Games tab. 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 |
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.
