Dennis Monokroussos writes:
Back in 1971, Anatoly Karpov was a rapidly rising star, but no one thought
the 20-year-old grandmaster would become world champion in just four more years.
Vassily Smyslov, his 50-year-old opponent, was a former world champion and still
one of the best players in the world. Neither was at his prime, but they were
still very strong and this clash in the 39th Soviet Championship was intriguing
and significant to the final standings. Although the title was won that year
by Vladimir Savon in one of the great surprises in Soviet chess history, Smyslov
had a fantastic result, going undefeated and tying for second with Mikhail Tal.
Karpov was half a point behind Smyslov, finishing alone in fourth place, ahead
of such luminaries as Stein, Bronstein, Polugaevsky, Taimanov and Geller in
only his second shot at the national title. The event was a good sign for players:
for Karpov, of his inevitable rise to the top, and for Smyslov, an indication
that age was far from catching up with him. Indeed, 13 years later, at the age
of 63, he would play Kasparov for the right to face Karpov for the world championship
– an incredible achievement.
Turning from the broader picture to the game itself, which was won by the older
man, we might think that the win came as the result of technical prowess. After
all, Smyslov is known as a great endgame technician, and it’s what we
would expect from an older player beating a youngster. That’s an understandable
assumption, but a mistaken one. Smyslov is a fine attacking player, and especially
adept at handling isolated queen pawn (IQP) structures. Karpov is completely
overwhelmed by Smyslov in this game – strategically, tactically, every
which way! It’s a tremendous performance by the 7th world champion, and
one we can learn from in at least two ways. First, there are the general lessons
of the IQP we can glean from the game. These are enduring ideas that show up
in a wide range of openings, from the Caro-Kann to the Nimzo-Indian to a host
of Queen’s Gambit lines. Second, there’s a nifty trap Karpov fell
for – and that Smyslov failed to take advantage of! Remarkably, quite
a number of strong players have fallen into this trap (and a few others with
White have failed to take advantage), so this is something you can add to your
own bag of tricks.
Entertainment and instruction thus awaits you tonight – Wednesday night
– at 9 p.m. ET in the Broadcast room on the Playchess.com server. I’ll
be presenting the game live, free for those with server access. Hope to 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
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.