World championship of tournament chess

Dennis Monokroussos writes: Kasparov once called the annual super-GM event in Linares the world championship of tournament chess. If so, then the world championship starts next week, and this year’s edition will be especially interesting, as it brings together three of the four primary claimants to the unofficial title of world’s strongest players: Peter Leko, who drew a match for the world championship last year and won the recently-completed Wijk aan Zee tournament; Vishy Anand, the world’s second-highest rated player and by far 2004’s most dominant player; and finally and most intriguingly, Garry Kasparov, whose 2004 performances were rare and generally disappointing,

To whet our appetites for this event, this week’s game will examine one of Kasparov’s greatest and most important wins, his brilliant achievement in the 10th game of his 1995 title match against Anand. Down 5-4 as they approached the halfway point, Kasparov needed a win, and thanks to some tremendous opening preparation, he achieved a crucial victory, knocked out Anand’s primary opening choice and gained the psychological momentum in the match. This game was one of the best ever played in a world championship match, yet it has received significantly less recognition than it deserves. This Monday night, we shall do our part to remedy this relative neglect, and I think those who tune in will be in for a real treat, as well as a quick primer on the Open Ruy. See you then!

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.

Here are the exact times for different locations in the world