motörhead wrote on 12/05/15 at 10:54:34:
MM0621 wrote on 11/05/15 at 16:28:29:
I never heard of the author. How can we find his rating?
But there are at severe indications that the author is a German: He publishes with a german based publishing house [...]. He uses a load of german books and magazines as references. And not too well known at that, e.g. the magazine Kaissiber, that you surely won't get the easy way in India. [...] And there are some translation hints on the german speaking nature of the author [...].
I think that there is some logic that the author is of second or even lesser rank regarding the rating and title. Would he be a titled player [...] he would have gone to one of the usual thematic publishing houses to offer his manuscript. [...] But, given the asumption that Bannerjee is a pseudonym, who is he? [...]
When browsing through the book I more than once came across the name Syed. [...] Searching for a chess player called Syed leads to Tarek Syed from Frankfurt [...] with an ELO of only 2056... Looking through his games shows that he is a real devotee to OI-themes with both colours.
But, okay, that is reading coffee grounds...
A few comments on the book
Novelties in the Old Indian Defence by Mahesh Chandra Banerjee, 7th edition, December 2015 (
http://www.epubli.de/shop/buch/45636/excerpt).
Some aspects (cover, layout, index of variations) have already been dealt with here, and I'll concentrate on two questions: 1) Who is the author? 2) Is the chess any good?
1) Who is the author (MCB)? An interesting question, without doubt. To quote from
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (vol. 1, ch. IV): "I know there are readers in the world, as well as many other good people in it, who are no readers at all, – who find themselves ill at ease, unless they are let into the whole secret from first to last, of every thing which concerns you." – This is the author, Laurence Sterne, speaking to himself ...
Well, I think it is pretty obvious that Mahesh Chandra Banerjee (MCB) is a pseudonym. And it is also easy to establish that the author is from Germany (Austria, Switzerland, …). In any case, he must be used to communicating in German every day. This can be inferred from the following facts (already mentioned here in the forum, but I'll elaborate on them a little bit):
1. The author has published the book with a Berlin print-on-demand house; the book has an entry in the catalogue of the
German National Library.
2. The author quotes from many German chess books and magazines. It seems he didn't have much trouble getting access to these sources, which should not be readily available in other parts of the world, and obviously he is also able to read them; he quotes terms such as "Hemmung", "hässlich", "abscheulich", and "Verrammelungsstrategie" explicitly in German.
3. The author's English betrays him. I'll give some examples also to be found in the excerpt available online. The following table of expressions is structured as follows:
'English' as used in the book – intended meaning in German – correct English (for what it's worth ...)
lesser precise (p. 15) – weniger präzise – less precise
tactical motive (p. 22) – taktisches Motiv – tactical motif
eventually (p. 20) – eventuell – possibly / perhaps
eventual (p. 27) – eventuell – possible
adaequate (p. 26) – adäquat – adequate
preparation of (p. 53) – Vorbereitung von – preparation for
as more as (p. 57) – umso mehr als – all the more so as
broshure (p. 68) – Broschüre – brochure
an own section (p. 76) – einen eigenen Abschnitt – a section of its own / its own section
example for (p.77) – Beispiel für – example of
Evidently, here the author has 'translated' from the German a bit too directly …
(Actually, this table could be made much, much longer, but I have included only cases that appear at least twice in the book. That said, "motive" [instead of "motif"] turns up on almost every page.)
Another hint: Also at least twice in the book one discovers "Chigorins" (p. 24), i.e., the German form of the genitive case (instead of "Chigorin's").
Still not convinced? Well, roughly a dozen times the author accidentally uses German chess notation, e.g., "Sg3" (instead of "Ng3"; p. 47), "Lf1" (instead of "Bf1"; p. 78), and "Tb1" (instead of "Rb1"; p. 82), etc.
(However, I have no idea why he uses the word "derivation" (p. 7) [Ableitung] when he means "deviation" [Abweichung]. He does so not only once or twice, but umpteen times throughout the book.)
So the author of the book is fluent in German. But who is he?
First of all, I think it's reasonable to assume that he is not a strong GM; otherwise he would not have published the book under a pseudonym. And it's also reasonable to assume that the author has included a few of his own games in the book. Accordingly, it has already been surmised here by
motörhead that MCB could be Tareq Syed, Germany, born in 1972, current ELO 2037. He plays for his club
SC Brett vorm Kopp Frankfurt (Frankfurt am Main).
Fair enough. Of the approximately 135 'main games' in the book, 3 are by Syed as Black, and at least 5 more of his games get a mention in the annotations. A remarkable number, I think, even if Syed has played the Old Indian for at least 20 years, with many of his games published in ChessBase's
Mega Database 2016. As Black, only Jörg Hickl, Lutz Espig (both renowned experts on the Old Indian), and Eric Lobron are represented in the book by more than 3 'main games' each (6, 6, and 5, respectively). And they are strong GMs …
Of particular interest is a game Dominik Klaus – Tareq Syed (open tournament Oeffingen, 9th June 2014): It is quoted in the book, even though no reference to it can be found in the
Mega Database 2016; online databases don't contain this game either. And as it was drawn after only 14 moves, the game probably has not appeared in print. So where did the author get its score from? – Well, perhaps he knows Syed and got the score from him. Or he was among the onlookers as the game was in progress. Or – most likely, I think – the author is Syed himself.
But then the author might also have downloaded the game. Actually, the Oeffingen chess club published a PGN-file with 64 games of the tournament in 2014, including the said encounter Klaus – Syed. (By now this file has disappeared again from the homepage of the club, but its president was kind enough to send me a copy ...) Still, who would have downloaded these games? The author of a book on the Old Indian who did not participate in that tournament himself? I doubt it. But what if the author
did participate in it? Let's see. The strongest players there (ELO > 2100) were V. Shishkin (2489), G. Schnepp (2303), M. Holzhäuer (2287), H. Degenhardt (2254), A. Vaysberg (2178), and T. Heining (2117). However, none of these guys plays the Old Indian defence. But Tareq Syed does …
Now, this name does not sound genuinely German. Does Tareq Syed speak German? – Well, I am sure he does: All of his 287 games in the
Mega Database 2016 were played in Germany, mostly in the Frankfurt area, over a period of almost 23 years (1992 – 2014). Furthermore, on
Amazon I found a little German brochure by a certain Dr Tareq Syed (
Studium Biologie: Zoologie – Ergänzungsreader Zoologisches Grundpraktikum). The author was born in 1972, and he studied at the University of Frankfurt, where he got his PhD from. Hang on! 1972? Frankfurt? It would seem that the author of this brochure is none other than Tareq Syed, the chess player.
Hence, supposing the author of
Novelties in the Old Indian Defence is Tareq Syed, one should not be surprised at his English sounding a bit 'German' here and there.
Another detail perhaps worth mentioning: I got my copy not directly from
epubli, but (via
Amazon) from Karin Afshar, who has designed the cover of the book. And she lives in Frankfurt, too …
But then, all this may be pure guesswork, meaning nothing.
(To be continued ...)
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