Moheschunder Bannerjee or Mahesh Chandra Banerjee as he was also popularly known as was a solid chess player from Bengal, now known as West Bengal. He had a very unique style of play and many of his game formats still lives fresh in our minds through the writings of John Cochrane, who regularly played Bannerjee between 1848 and 1860, during Cochrane`s tenure at the Calcutta (Kolkata) bar. In most cases his first name is misspelled as Mohishunder, though Mahescandra is a variant. Banerjee is a common Bengali Brahmin surname.
He was also famously known as "The Brahmin", and was a player from Mofussil or the suburn regions of Kolkata. He played conventional chess and during that time, pawns would promote to the piece of the square reached. Also, during that time, the chess rules in Bengal were different and it did not have the rule of castling. But an unchecked king could easily execute a knight`s move once during a game. However, there is not much difference in the middlegame and many Indian chess players were very powerful tacticians. Bannerjee is likely to have transitioned to western rules after contact with Cochrane and other Europeans.
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