Dennis Monokroussos writes:
Two of the strongest young players in the world today are Ian Nepomniachtchi
and Francisco Vallejo Pons. Nepomniachtchi is one of the three extraordinary
talents born in 1990 (the other two are Magnus Carlsen and Sergey Karjakin),
whose developing resume includes a victory earlier this year in the Aeroflot
Open. Vallejo Pons is a more established player. 25 years old, he has participated
in several Linares events, has wins over Anand, Kramnik and Topalov to his credit,
and is the strongest native-born player in Spain. Both players have a lively
and aggressive style, and it’s not surprising that a game between the
two young lions would be a display of ferocity.

That’s just what happened when they played in the 2007 Aeroflot Open.
Nepomniachtchi had the temerity to play the Center Game (1.e4 e5 2.d4!?), an
opening that sees White sacrifice a pawn and castle long in the hopes of whipping
up an attack on Black’s king. Black generally tries to keep things under
control, while White assumes the initiative as a matter of course and tries
to make something happen. Not in this game! Nepomniachtchi played a rare line,
and his 14th move was an OTB novelty, having played only once before, more than
35 years ago, in a correspondence game. Though Black in the earlier game was
a very strong postal player, he didn’t find the brilliant rejoinder Vallejo
sprung on his poor opponent. His new move was imaginative, deep and accurate,
and enabled him to completely take over the initiative. When the smoke cleared,
Black had three pawns for the exchange and a better position as well, and went
on to win in an endgame.
The game was voted one of the Ten Best in Informant 99, and it also caught
the eye of none other than Viktor Korchnoi, who annotated the game for ChessBase
Magazine. Some of the strongest players in the world have voiced their
approval of this game, but it’s not the sort of game whose appeal is limited
to the highbrow set. Players of every level will find this a wonderfully entertaining
contest, and it’s also a good excuse to take a look at a rare but important
opening for those who meet 1.e4 with 1…e5. Interested? Then join me tonight,
Wednesday night, at 9 p.m. ET in the Broadcast Room on the playchess.com server.
The show is live, free, combines downloadable analysis with my audio commentary,
and makes for an all-around good time. See you there!
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
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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.