The Undervalued Chess and the Fear for Sale: The Education Market's Ledger Behind Six Videos

On the far side of Nevsky Prospekt, in an old blitz club, on a January evening, a nineteen-year-old set up the board in front of me. With my eyes closed I could have called his next four moves — Bf4, e3, Nf3, Bd3. For six straight months in this city's clubs I have sat across the same rehearsed conversation. The boy was not playing chess; he was reciting it. He knew the next fifteen moves, so did I, and both of us knew that neither of us held the answer to who is actually better in that position. That night, back home, I opened a piece whose headline announced: chess is massively undervalued. The quote was tied to a name — Turlov. And beneath that headline was nothing more than an advertisement for six training videos by the Bulgarian coach Valeri Lilov.

That night I understood that the loudest market in chess today is no longer the club room. It is an education market. And I know its language, because I have been writing in it for more than twenty years.

Valeri Lilov is not a new name. An International Master whose real identity is trainer rather than competitor. The promise of these six videos is simple: for every White system that keeps Black players awake, one plan. The Colle System, the Trompowsky Attack, the Torre Attack, the London System, the Catalan, the Blackmar-Diemer Gambit, the Richter-Veresov Opening. To club players, these names are familiar dread.

I stopped at the list, because I recognize it from somewhere else too. In 2026, at the World Cup in Tbilisi, a 128-player knockout, I sat down wearing a streaming headset — no studio, no producer, just a laptop and a chat box. That day I learned that an audience does not want the final score; it wants an image of the next moment. In 2026, at the Batumi Olympiad, that lesson hardened: more than 180 federations, and almost no cameras. There I realized that chess is most played exactly where it is least watched.

In 2026 that absence peaked. From my Saint Petersburg kitchen I commentated the Online Olympiad — a final that ended not in checkmate but in a disconnection. In Dhaka the Premier Division League went dark, and players with day jobs stopped receiving match fees. That day I understood that 'chess is undervalued' is not a new sentence. What is new is who is saying it, and what is being sold beneath it.

These six videos are a sample of that education market. After 2026, demand for chess instruction exploded worldwide — new players, new courses, new subscriptions. In this market the phrase 'chess is undervalued' is no longer an elegy; it is a marketing tune. And I have seen a concrete trace of that market myself: between 2026 and 2026 the active player counts on online chess platforms multiplied, and the largest share of that growth came from new, improving players — precisely the audience these system videos target.

Now to the real question — who are these videos for, and what do they deliver. Look closely at the list and a technical gap appears. Seven systems are bundled as if they were one family. They are not. The Colle, the London and the Torre usually arise after 1.d4 d5, where White deliberately declines 2.c4, sidestepping the main theory of the Slav, the Semi-Slav, the Queen's Gambit Accepted and Orthodox Queen's Gambit Declined. The Trompowsky and the Richter-Veresov, by contrast, usually arise after 1.d4 Nf6. And the Catalan is no system at all — 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.g3 is a full main-line opening that loads theoretical weight onto Black rather than easing it. The Blackmar-Diemer is a different species entirely — 1.d4 d5 2.e4, a gambit in which White gives a pawn without hesitation for rapid development.

Seven things sold as one tactical package have three different origins, three different purposes and three different risk profiles. The very act of bundling them tells you the product is packaging, not research.

The loudest claim — that these systems are extremely dangerous — how true is it? The honest answer is conditional. At elite level, a prepared Black player sits comfortably against these setups, because their ideas are simpler than main-line theory, and a prepared opponent can neutralize a simple idea quickly. The London System is the exception — in recent years it has returned to the top boards as a low-risk weapon, and that is probably the commercial parent of anti-London products like this one.

The genuine danger lies elsewhere — at club level, roughly 1500 to 2200. There the opponent is less prepared, the clock is tighter, and an unplanned Black cannot stop White's easy scheme. So the real buyer of these videos is not the elite player but the club player — and that is where their value is genuine.

And the evidence? The advertisement for six videos shows not one game, no engine match rate, no average centipawn loss, no win-draw-loss statistics. The claim shouted loudest — the painful experience of many players — is an unsourced generalization. Lilov's authority rests on his coaching reputation, not on current tournament results. That is not weak evidence, but it is not evidence either — it is an appeal to experience.

Now let us place this product on the industry's tiers. Chess economics has three layers: youth training and talent supply upstream, tournaments and platforms in the middle, content and commerce downstream. Lilov's six videos are a sample of the lowest layer. They exert no influence upward — they build no school, develop no coach, change no talent pipeline. They do one thing: package a narrow solution for a specific, high-intent audience and sell it — the lowest-risk, highest-margin model in the education market.

And it is precisely here that the phrase 'chess is undervalued' stops me. Because I come from a country where chess is valued not in speeches but in ledgers. The annual budget of the Bangladesh Chess Federation is roughly 1.1 million taka — less than a single franchise cricketer's bat deal. There, 'undervalued' is a political charge. Sitting in Saint Petersburg, I watch the same word become the tune of a course sale. The same sentence in two places: in one it is an accountant's figure, in the other a market's advertisement.

Here is the real transmission point: chess's value is no longer measured in trophies but in monthly subscriptions. Where a federation's annual budget is 1.1 million taka, a single niche anti-system course's yearly revenue can eclipse that figure — and still build no school.

Behind the marketing, this piece carries one genuine signal. If low-theory setups such as the London, the Colle and the Torre have become so common that dedicated anti-products are profitable, it means the amateur chess world has drifted away from main-line theory toward practical, low-preparation openings. That is a signal of demand, not of talent.

Now to where the ordinary reading goes wrong. Everyone reads 'chess is undervalued' as a slogan of struggle. Read this piece carefully and you see what chess's value is actually being converted into — a six-video product. The question is not whether chess is undervalued; the question is who profits from that undervaluation.

Deeper still lies a pedagogical risk. When a system opening is sold as a single answer, what is learned is memorization, not understanding. A player who memorizes fifteen moves of the Colle but never grasps why White declined 2.c4 will stall at the next step. Lilov's video can be a useful supplement for an improving player; it cannot be a substitute for principle.

Another blind spot hides in history. Twenty years ago many mocked the London System as a coward's drawing weapon. Today that same setup is back on top boards, and separate commercial products are being built against it. That turn of memory shows what the chess market fears, it later sells — fear itself is the raw material.

And the most visible signal of all is the mismatch between headline and body. A quote under Turlov's name at the top, Lilov's product beneath — with no connective logic between them. That mismatch tells you how chess content is now sourced and recycled: a quote from an influential name is borrowed to lend prestige to a product. The quote was likely lifted out of context, and who Turlov is — patron, executive, or merely a name — this piece never confirms. That uncertainty is the reader's largest warning.

So I return to that January blitz club. The boy set up the London in front of me, and I knew he could recite the next fifteen moves. But I could not ask him either why White declined 2.c4. The pitch remembers what the camera missed. The board is set, being sold, subscriptions are rising — yet the question nobody asks is this: when chess is finally valued, whose hands will that value fall into?

Two pitches, one year, and the quiet math of belonging. In 2026 I saw two crowds on two fields — one roaring, one silent. The board is the only witness that never stopped recording. Six videos will end, new courses will arrive, new slogans will be written. But before he rises from the board, the boy must ask one question — why White declined 2.c4. The day that answer comes, chess will find its true value; and it will not come from a subscription, but from a club room.