Bent Larsen on the cover of ChessBase No. 225: Memory, Prague 2026, and the question of real value

One October morning in Da Nang, I opened my inbox and came across an advertising line: “Learn strategy from Bent Larsen.” I sat still for a long while in front of the screen. Bent Larsen, the Danish player, one of the most creative attackers of the 20th century, who died in 2026, had suddenly appeared on the cover of a chess publication released in 2026. In my memory, that name is tied to an afternoon when I was seventeen, copying Larsen’s win over Spassky at Santa Monica 2026 into a squared notebook, my handwriting messy because my hand was shaking. Back then I did not know I would spend most of my life talking about other people’s games.

The name on the cover made me pause, not so much out of curiosity as out of a familiar feeling. I have seen memory turned into a label many times. In 2026, when I left the Da Nang Sports newsroom after eighteen years, I thought I had been exiled from the chessboard, only to find the chessboard led me deeper into myself. And now a publisher is doing something similar with Larsen: taking a sacred name, sticking it on a product, and letting the buyer imagine the rest.

I do not object to a magazine making a living by writing. Ours is a trade of selling words. But there is a line between suggesting and promising what you do not have. And that line, in this case, is as thin as a missed move.

Prague 2026 and four names

ChessBase Magazine No. 225 is the periodical of ChessBase, the long-established German chess-software publisher. The issue draws its material from the Chess Festival Prague 2026, a closed round-robin held in the Czech Republic. One thing must be said at once to avoid misunderstanding: this is not a stage of the world championship cycle. No Candidates spot was awarded in Prague. No Elo was accumulated for a title race. The event’s value lies elsewhere — a stage gathering strong players and, more importantly for the publisher, a rich source of games to mine.

The four names chosen to annotate the issue form a deliberate cross-section. Anish Giri, the Dutch player of Russian origin who has held firm in the world’s top ten for years, known for sharp opening preparation. David Navara, Czech number one, a familiar face of Central European chess with a calm, enduring style. Aravindh Chithambaram, a rising Indian player who in 2026 entered the 2700 conversation. And Ediz Gurel, a young Turkish player representing the next generation.

Reading those four names side by side, I see a familiar formula: a contemporary star, a national pride, an emerging spearhead, and a young seedling. That is the optimal marketing structure for reaching several readership groups at once. But one must stay sober: their presence here is as annotating authors, not a statement about playing form. The four appear as storytellers, not as contenders fighting for a crown.

Based on my experience following matches, I have realised that the Indian chess wave has become a default part of almost every elite piece of content. Aravindh’s presence beside Giri and Navara reflects a commercial calculation — Indian readers and players are now a priority market. That is a more notable signal than the issue’s technical content.

27 short games, 10 opening articles, and three narrators

The core of the issue consists of 27 “miniatures” — games that end quickly, often in a few dozen moves, where a mistake is punished at once. Alongside are 10 opening articles, plus opening videos by three authors: Jan Werle, Daniel King and Robert Ris.

Those three names are no accident. Werle is a Dutch grandmaster known as an opening specialist. King is an English grandmaster tied to the long-running “Power Play” video series, a training brand familiar to English-speaking improvers. Ris is a Dutch international master, author of much material on openings and endgames. Their presence is a soft signal of production quality — not proof of technical superiority, but proof that the publisher knows how to choose people.

There is a tension worth pointing out. The issue’s headline speaks of “strategy.” But a miniature, by its nature, is a different category. It belongs to entertainment and tactical training — where the beauty lies in the decisive blow, in instant punishment. Deep strategy is the opposite: long games where two players grapple over every square, where the merit lies not in one move but in a whole thread of ideas. Using 27 short games to teach strategy is like using proverbs to teach philosophy. You may learn something, but the soul is elsewhere.

I have commentated short games before large audiences. They are treats for the broadcast — fast, tight, with an emotional peak. But back home, what kept me awake was a sixty-move draw no one wanted replayed. The silence of long games is where strategy resides.

The publisher’s move

One thing is easily overlooked when we look only at content: how the product reaches the buyer. The issue is released in several forms — a PDF booklet, a download key, and the ChessBase Book app for tablets and Macs. This packaging shows the business model of a publisher in transition: physical, digital and app, three layers stacked on one another.

The download key carries a technical implication. It restricts access, ties the product to an account, and limits resale. For the buyer, this is worth knowing before deciding. For the publisher, it is a way of locking customers into its ecosystem — a soft rampart against the tide of free content.

I see here a pattern already formed in chess: the annotator becomes a brand. Giri, Navara, Werle, King, Ris — they sell their expertise across many media channels, from books to video to apps. It is the same mechanism driving the economy of streamer-players online. Stars do not merely play chess; they turn playing chess into a commodity. Every time I look at a product like this, I remember that I once thought I had been exiled from the chessboard, only to find the chessboard led me deeper into myself — and that depth is not inside a download key.

The truth about long-term value

There is an aspect advertising usually avoids: the lifespan of content. The miniatures and opening articles are evergreen content. They do not expire when Prague 2026 ends. By contrast, the event-tied part — commentary on a specific tournament — ages quickly once the next event arrives. A wise buyer will weigh these two parts differently.

For me, this recalls a professional memory. In 2026, the station sent me to Russia to cover the World Cup. When nineteen-year-old Mbappe scored in France’s 4-3 win over Argentina, I said on air that he was not running on grass, he was running on the memory of an older generation. That night I wrote a 1,200-word piece without a single statistic. It was shared thousands of times. But ten years later, if someone asks me the score of that match, I still remember 4-3. Event memory fades fast; what lingers is emotion. Training content is the same: the event-tied part fades, the evergreen part remains.

Notably, in the issue’s content list, no game by Bent Larsen is explicitly listed. The name on the cover seems to be an editorial hook — a label evoking the image of classical players, romantic attackers — rather than a genuine Larsen feature. The buyer expects one thing and receives something nearly similar. The gap is not large, but it is real.

The counter-intuitive angle

This is where I want to linger longer, because it touches something I have thought about for years.

Modern chess is addicted to one kind of data: the machine’s evaluation. We have score bars running move by move, average-error indices, numbers presented as if they were truth. I find this identical to how people abuse the expected-goals metric in football. A number can tell you a player shot from a good position, but it cannot tell you why he hesitated half a second before shooting. It cannot measure fear. It cannot explain a decision.

In chess, the machine’s evaluation is the same. It can say a move loses half a point, but it cannot say why an exhausted player chose that move on move forty. It cannot measure the pressure of a closed tournament, where every game has an audience, where a mistake is remembered forever. When a training product sells you numbers without selling you understanding, it is selling half the truth.

The counter-intuitive point is this: in a market flooded with machine data, the scarcest thing is human judgement. A good commentator is not one who reads the score bar, but one who understands why a player’s hand shakes on move forty. And that is why I still believe in writing with soul over tables packed with figures.

Another blind spot of collective memory deserves mention. We often praise beautiful wins, brilliant combinations, short games that enter history. We seldom remember the stubborn draws, the games where a player saved half a point through extraordinary patience. Yet those are precisely where character is forged. If a training product selects only short, pretty games, it indulges collective memory rather than challenging it.

On young players

One thing in the list of four names caught my attention: Ediz Gurel, a young Turkish player. His presence reflects a trend spreading through chess media — putting young talents on the big stage earlier than ever.

I have watched many generations of young players pass through that whirlpool. There is a cruel rule: the body and mind of an unformed player are easily crushed by the adult pace. Dense tournaments, piled-up expectations, praise arriving too early — all create pressure few can bear at that age. I am not saying chances should not be given. I am saying that celebrating a young talent must come with the responsibility to protect him from that very celebration.

In a training product, inviting a young player to annotate is a fine signal — it gives the new generation a voice. But it is also a way of pulling him into the commercial mill earlier. The line between opportunity and burden is thinner than we think.

What advertising does not say

There is a risk readers seldom notice: source risk. Phrases like “first-class training material” are the publisher’s own self-assessment, not an independent appraisal. That does not mean the product is poor. It only means we should read it as a sales pitch, not a verdict on quality.

The market for improver content is crowded. There are paid course platforms, countless free video channels, open databases anyone can consult. Against that backdrop, a magazine’s differentiation lies not in monopolising knowledge — for no one can monopolise chess knowledge — but in curation, brand reputation, and packaging. That is a real advantage, but also a fragile one before shifting reader habits.

I think of young people today who learn chess on a phone, watch a two-minute video, and rarely sit with a game for more than thirty minutes. That is a different world from the world of my squared notebook. And in that world, a format like 27 short games is timely — but also a concession to attention spans growing ever shorter.

Where memory should rest

I return to the opening image: the squared notebook at seventeen, the messy handwriting, and Larsen’s game. Back then I learned chess by copying every move by hand, with no machine, no score bar, no video. I learned by asking why. Slowly, clumsily, but deeply.

I do not want to deny the value of products like ChessBase Magazine No. 225. They are useful. They bring convenience, fine annotators, a systematic approach. A beginner can learn a great deal from 27 short games and 10 opening articles. But I want readers to remember one thing: a product cannot replace your own curiosity. No download key can buy you the moment you discover a move yourself.

I thought I had been exiled from the chessboard, only to find the chessboard led me deeper into myself. And perhaps the same awaits those who use memory as a mirror held up to the present, not as a label to stick on merchandise.

The name Bent Larsen on the cover will last a few months. His games will last forever. What I long for is not a cleverer advertisement, but a generation of chess learners who ask their own questions before every move — even when no one is selling them the answers.