And I thought nobody read that New In Chess marketing stuff. Create a filter - straight to trash can. No more problems. 

Usually I don't have any problems with the marketing by New In Chess. I mean, I subscribed to one of their periodicals. And from time to time they send some ads around by email. But today it was more than odd. See for yourselves.

Today, their email was titled "we don't like to show off, but ..." and it was an advertisement for the 2008 book "The Lion". I've never been particularly interested in the book or this opening. But New In Chess site claims: "The opening system that was used by a German amateur to defeat World Champion Vishy Anand." (see here: http://www.newinchess.com/Shop/ProductDetails.aspx?ProductID=923&Currency=Euro). Therefore, I started to research a bit in the Web and here is some truth behind the false story.
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Every summer there is a team simul event by the well-known German chess club OSG Baden-Baden (German team champion 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009). Their Bundesliga team is quite strong with many stars from all over the world. And the purpose of this day with the team simul is to present their stars to the public, the press and the chess fans. That's why they are having this team simul as an open air event right in the center of Baden-Baden. The really nice location is the Trinkhalle in Baden-Baden (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinkhalle_%28Baden-Baden%29). The event allows about 150 chess players to face a set of players from Baden-Baden. By no means all of them are GMs, the team usually also consists of players of their second team and their Women's team. (some results and pictures see here: http://www.schachzentrum-baden-baden.de/?s=mannschaftssimultan)

Well, the event goes on like this: One player walks around to all of the 138 boards, shakes hands, and makes the first move. According to the pictures, it was Anand's turn to make the first move. Then another player of the Baden-Baden team makes the 2nd move, and again a different player makes the 3rd move etc.,... I think everyone gets the picture: much fun, and low level of play. We can assume that e.g. Anand has played the 1st, 11th, 21st and 31st move of each game. But in the meantime, other team colleagues have followed up with some contradicting plans, dropped material etc.

Back to New in Chess and their ad: 

It turns out that among the many chess amateurs who won a game in this fun event, there was one who was obviously very proud of his achievement. And he sent his game to the authors of the Lion book:

Quote:

(for lots of annotation etc, see: http://www.vanrekom.nl/thelion/indexgb.htm)

The issue with this notation: As explained before, it was not Anand playing white. It was not even a consultation game. It were just different players of different levels making white moves in a rotational system.

Next, New In Chess copied this game to their Website, dropped all information indicating that it might have been played in a team simul and added some mildly exaggerated comments:
     
Quote:



No, you really don't like to show off...