Dennis Monokroussos writes:
Think the Kramnik-Topalov match has been acrimonious? This match has nothing
on the 1978 match between then-champion Anatoly Karpov and his challenger,
Soviet defector Viktor Korchnoi. They battled over what flavors of yogurt Karpov
could receive and when. They battled over who was permitted in the audience
and where they could sit. And most of all, they battled over the chessboard,
where Karpov emerged victorious by a 6 win to 5 margin after 32 grueling games
and a fantastic Korchnoi comeback.
For this Monday's show, we'll review some of the more entertaining goings-on
from that match, and then we'll dig into one the flawed but fascinating game
17; a game that came to mind while watching game 8 of the ongoing Kramnik-Topalov
match. In the 1978 game, Korchnoi, with White, had the advantage almost all
the way through - sometimes a winning advantage – but never cashed in
on his chances. Ultimately, he found nothing better than an ending with two
rooks and three pawns against a rook and two knights (thus the similarity to
the aforementioned Kramnik-Topalov game – complete with passed a-pawn!),
where the knights promised enough counterplay to draw, but Korchnoi could at
least continue to press a little. Then tragedy struck.
To see this memorable, painful episode from world championship history, join
me this Monday night at 9 p.m. ET: you'll be glad you did!
Dennis Monokroussos'
Radio ChessBase
lectures begin on Mondays at 9 p.m. EDT, which translates to 02:00h GMT,
03:00 Paris/Berlin, 13:00h Sydney (on Tuesday). 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).
Dennis
Monokroussos is 40, 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.
