Where the Camera Wasn't: System Openings, the Education Market, and the Ledger of an 'Undervalued' Game

I keep an old file — messages from club players, stacked up since July 2026. Some wrote about rent, some about match fees that had simply stopped. That summer, the Dhaka Premier Division Chess League went dark, and the people whose bread depended on the board suddenly realised their game had never really been recorded anywhere. That year, nobody wanted tactics. Everyone wanted to be heard.

Four years later, this month, a very different link landed in my inbox. The headline claimed in large type that chess is 'massively undervalued', and that someone named 'Turlov' had said so. Open the link, though, and you find something else entirely: six instructional videos by the Bulgarian trainer IM Valeri Lilov, teaching a Black-side 'antidote' repertoire against White's favourite systems.

Somewhere between the headline and the body, a wire has snapped. And in my experience, it is precisely inside small inconsistencies like this that the real face of the chess-education market hides.

First, let us be clear about what these 'system' openings actually are, and why an entire market has grown around them.

In classical chess, when White plays 1.d4 and then commits to real queenside struggle with 2.c4, Black is dragged into the vast theory-ocean of the Slav, the Semi-Slav, the Queen's Gambit Accepted or the Orthodox QGD. That means memorising thousands of moves, analysing engine lines, and rebuilding against each opponent's preparation. Many White players — especially at club level — do not want to swim there. They want something playable with less theory, less preparation, but a solid structure.

That demand is the parent of the so-called 'system' openings. The Colle, the London, the Torre — in these, White often declines 2.c4, and Black's Slav and Semi-Slav theory becomes instantly irrelevant. The Trompowsky, the Richter-Veresov and the Catalan, meanwhile, usually arise after 1.d4 Nf6, sidestepping the main lines of the Indian defences.

Lilov's series packages exactly these seven systems into a Black-side counter-set. The idea is clean: give the Black player an antidote that breaks White's comfortable routine.

Why now? There is a number behind this, one the chess world knows but rarely writes down. The enormous inflow after 2026 — the online platform explosion, the habit of playing from home — created millions of new players worldwide. A huge share of them sit between 1500 and 2200: hungry to learn, willing to spend on improvement, but still untitled. These people are the real customers of the education market today.

Here my own notebook intrudes. In 2026, when a teenager from Dhaka — Niaz Murshed — became South Asia's first grandmaster, a full year before India's Anand, I was covering the sports pages in the print era. That moment is the origin point of the market we see now. Because after it, two countries took two paths: India built a machine on that moment — training, competition, funding — and Bangladesh built a statue. Every current story about the missing sixth grandmaster runs back through my notebook from that decade.

And here comes the Moscow mirror. In the country I live in, chess is a profession — salaries, schools, coaches, a state-built pipeline. In my birthplace, the federation runs on roughly eleven lakh taka a year, less than a single franchise cricketer's bat deal. There, chess education means an institution. Here, in the online market, it means a course sold direct to the buyer. One game, two entirely different economies.

Now to the real analysis. I want to split the claims around this video package into three layers — technical, market and structural.

The technical layer first. The seven openings are grouped as one 'after 1.d4 d5' family, but that classification is not technically accurate. The Colle, London and Torre arise in the world of 1.d4 d5, where White deliberately avoids 2.c4. The Trompowsky, Richter-Veresov and Catalan generally arise after 1.d4 Nf6. Folding them into one family is a simplification that can mislead a learning player into thinking they all obey the same logic. The truth is that these are not answers to one problem; they are answers to different questions, and stuffing them into one file produces more memorisation than education.

Second, the claim that these systems are 'extremely dangerous'. Honesty is needed here. At elite level, a well-prepared Black player is generally comfortable against them. For those raised on the deep theory of the Slav and the QGD above 2700, the London or the Colle is no mystery — often they become low-range, low-risk calculations that are comfortable for Black. So 'extremely dangerous' is not analysis; it is marketing.

But this is where the real truth hides: these systems genuinely are dangerous — not at elite level, but at club level, between 1500 and 2200. There, opponents are not prepared, do not recall the lines, and if White keeps pressure in a stable structure, Black suddenly finds himself in a planless game. The danger claim is true, but it has been mailed to the wrong address.

Note, too, that only one of the seven has genuine elite relevance — the London System. In recent years it has appeared at the super-tournament table, even in the hands of top players, as a low-risk weapon. That is the market's real engine: the London's arrival at the elite table is what creates club-level demand for an 'anti-London'. The catalyst is not a theoretical advance; the catalyst is the popularity of one high-profile opening.

Then there is Valeri Lilov himself. A major limitation appears here: the article gives no rating, no ranking, no recent competitive results. His relevance is as a trainer and content creator, not as a competing player. The International Master title and training pedigree are the basis of his authority. But that authority is a kind of argument — an appeal to experience, not evidence. No game, no analysis, no data is shown to verify the quality of the six videos.

And the absence of data is not limited to Lilov. Across the whole presentation there is no engine match rate, no ACPL (Average Centipawn Loss), no win-draw-loss statistic. Instructional material should carry this, because in the chess-education market verifiability is now itself a product. To say 'dangerous' without a single statistic is to shift the burden of the claim onto the reader.

One technical nuance matters too. A 'novelty' and a 'system' are not the same thing. A novelty is an engine-verified new move nobody has played before. A system is a structure built on understanding that can be played again and again. Lilov's material is the second kind. Its value therefore depends on whether the player can understand it, not just recall it. Anyone reading it as a 'list of magic moves' will be disappointed.

Now the market layer. This article is essentially a product advertisement — a 'niche-repertoire' product of a specific kind. The model is familiar: take a narrow, high-intent problem (what do I do against the London?), build one specific solution, and sell it to the people suffering from exactly that problem. Low risk, high margin. This is not new theoretical research; it is a packaging strategy in the chess-education market.

It is important to see who the customer is. He is the aspirational improver — afraid that his opponent is better prepared. That fear is the raw material of the product. The market feeds the fear regularly: each new course, each new headline plants doubt — 'am I falling behind?' Then it hands him the solution. This is not the market for chess tactics; it is the market for chess confidence.

And this strategy works because chess education is now a separate layer of the chess economy. Tournaments, players, broadcasts are one world. Courses, video series, subscriptions are entirely another. The second world's revenue is roughly assured, because 'improvement' is a permanent demand. And what drives that demand is not tactics — it is anxiety. The education market does not sell tactics; it sells anxiety, and turns the antidote into that anxiety's medicine.

Let me draw on my own broadcasting experience. In 2026, at the FIDE World Cup in Tbilisi, I commentated a 128-player knockout with no studio — just a laptop and a chat window scrolling faster than I could read. There I learned that an unseen audience must be caught with something fast, simple and graspable. Today's online course market runs on exactly that logic: fast answers, simple promises, instant reassurance. Six videos, one plan per opening — that is not an accident; it is the same second-screen logic I learned staring at a chat window.

And in 2026, at the 43rd Chess Olympiad in Batumi, I saw more than 180 federations under one roof, almost without a camera. China took gold in both the open and women's sections, the first federation to sweep both since the Soviet era. The silence of that hall and the noise of online education are both parts of the same game, but two entirely different economies.

One more thing deserves notice. A common misconception in the training market is that memorisation alone suffices. But reliance on system openings, if it becomes memorisation rather than understanding, does not develop a player's opening sense at all. These systems rest on principles — central control, piece coordination, a safe king, breaking the structure with c4 or e4 at the right moment. A player who only remembers moves, without understanding them, is lost at the first unexpected position.

This is where a long-held view of mine becomes clear, though I do not state it directly — I show it through example: data models and theory packages always inflate the price of youth or novelty, but real strength on the board comes from understanding — just as in the transfer market the price of young talent climbs, while dressing-room chemistry is what actually wins matches.

Then a structural observation. The rise of antidote products is itself a large signal: the playing habits of amateurs have changed. They no longer dive into the deep sea of the Slav and Semi-Slav; they play low-theory, comfortable, repeatable systems. So Black players meet these systems again and again, and demand for antidotes in their hands is created. So this product is really a demand indicator for the chess market, not a supply indicator. It shows what millions of amateurs are playing, not that anyone has discovered something new.

Now to the quote that frames the whole piece: 'chess is massively undervalued.' The context in which the sentence appears is not clear — it is pinned in the headline to someone named 'Turlov', yet has no logical link to the body. The quote was likely lifted from elsewhere and rubbed onto the product so that the shine of an influential voice reflects onto it.

But the claim inside the sentence deserves thought. Is chess really 'massively undervalued'? Here is my objection. The moment chess education became a course market, chess could no longer be called undervalued — there it is valued with extreme precision, video by video, subscription by subscription, package by package. So 'undervalued' here is not the argument of the game's side; it is the argument of the market's side. In a market where everything is correctly priced, the word 'undervaluation' is really the seller's language.

And here my Moscow mirror returns from a different angle. If chess truly is undervalued, the question should be: where? In Moscow, institutions value chess — salaries, schools, coaches. In Dhaka, chess's problem is not valuation but employment. Bangladesh has produced no new grandmaster for seventeen years — that is not a shortage of talent, it is a shortage of a profession. Parents send their children to engineering rather than the board because that is a rational economic decision. So 'chess is undervalued' rings hollow from Dhaka's vantage — there chess is not undervalued, chess is unemployed.

This is where my second long-held view becomes relevant, though again I do not declare it as doctrine — I show the structure: academies and courses built on a former star's name are often branding, while the real foundation — grassroots coach education — is chronically underfunded. Lilov's six videos are that branding-layer product. The question is: for the teenager learning from these videos today, who will supply a trained coach five years from now?

Finally, one matter I cannot skip as a journalist. An influential name in the headline and six videos in the body — this mismatch is the biggest signal of all. It shows the content is probably placed on a platform or affiliate blog, where headline and body are stitched together from separate sources. A reader who remembers the name 'Turlov' from this piece is really remembering an incomplete source. No quote may be used without verifying its primary source — that is the first rule of journalism.

Let me leave one question behind. Right now the chess-education market is selling thousands of courses, thousands of videos, thousands of 'antidotes' — and all of them prove how valuable chess really is. But value and valuation are not the same thing. A game gains true value only when its education stands as an institution, not merely as a market. However good Lilov's videos may be, they do not answer the question — they pronounce it more loudly: who is the coach who will keep the next generation sitting in front of the board?