ChessBase Magazine #225: Prague 2026, Bent Larsen and the Trap of Cover Promises

I opened the file of ChessBase Magazine #225 on a rainy morning in Shanghai. On the cover was the name Bent Larsen — the Danish player with the gentle smile, the man who once made the entire chess world hold its breath with moves that could not be explained by dry logic. The headline "Learning strategy from Bent Larsen" sat there, beautiful as an invitation. I turned inside. I looked for a game of his. I looked for a story about him. I looked for any trace of a move bearing his signature. Nothing. There was nothing at all.

The cover of this issue promises more than its interior contains. That is an observation about how the chess content industry operates in 2026, when a legendary name can become a hook, while the real content sits somewhere else — quieter, humbler, and sometimes far more valuable than what the cover shouts.

ChessBase Magazine is not a news bulletin. It is a training product, packaged with sophistication. It does not report on a tournament the way a reporter does — it takes raw material from a tournament and turns that material into a learning asset. The right question is not "who won Prague", but "what does the buyer get, and what does the seller promise". ChessBase Magazine #225 is not selling news. It is selling the time of people who want to become stronger. And to do that, it needs a name big enough to make you stop.

The Chess Festival Prague 2026 is a closed round-robin tournament held in the Czech Republic, outside the world championship cycle. It is not a leg of the Grand Chess Tour, not the World Cup, not the Grand Swiss, and not a path to the Candidates. It is an invitational event, backed by Central European sponsors, and its value lies in two places: the quality of the invited field, and the editorial value it creates for content producers.

That field is a carefully selected cross-section. Anish Giri, the Dutch player in the world elite. David Navara, the number one of the Czech Republic. Aravindh Chithambaram, the rising Indian player. And Ediz Gurel, a young Turkish talent. Four names, four layers of meaning. A contemporary star. A national pride. A rising talent. A future seed. It is a marketing structure built with intent, not a coincidence of the calendar.

If you read this magazine to understand a race for the crown, you will be disappointed. No throne is discussed here. But if you read it to understand how the chess world makes money from its own games, then this is a valuable document.

Issue 225 carries a three-layer structure. The first layer is the opening section — ten specialist opening articles, accompanied by videos made by well-known authors. The second layer is the middlegame and endgame section — training on tactics, strategy and endgame technique. The third layer is the games section — twenty-seven short games, known as "miniatures", curated for selection.

These three layers are not equal in intellectual value. And this is where I want to pause.

The opening section is the most valuable part, and also the part least mentioned on the cover. Ten opening articles, if properly edited, are a treasure for any club player trying to build a repertoire. In an era when the engine has flattened every secret, the value of an opening article does not lie in revealing a new variation — something that barely exists anymore — but in explaining why a variation works, and when to use it. A good opening article does not teach you to memorize. It teaches you to understand.

That is why the presence of named guides matters so much. Jan Werle, a Dutch grandmaster specialising in openings. Daniel King, an English grandmaster with the "Power Play" video series that has run for decades. Robert Ris, a Dutch international master, author of many works on openings and endgames. These three names are not playing stars. They are teachers. And in a training product, the teacher matters more than the star.

But here is what I need to state clearly, and I want you to read it as a dry fact rather than a criticism: every assessment of this product's quality comes from the publisher itself. "First-class training material" is an advertising claim, not a verified conclusion. The reputation of the guides makes that claim plausible, but it does not make it true. Plausibility and truth are two different roads, and the wise buyer is the one who can tell them apart.

The third layer — twenty-seven short games — is the most intriguing, and also the layer that creates the greatest tension with the issue's title. A "miniature" is a game that ends quickly, usually under thirty moves, with a decisive mistake by one side and a finishing blow by the other. Its value is the value of a surprise, a moment, a thunderbolt.

"Strategy" is something else entirely. Strategy is patience. Strategy is accumulating small advantages over forty moves, understanding a good structure, knowing when to trade and when to keep. Strategy and short games sit at opposite ends of a spectrum. When a magazine promises to teach you strategy through short games, it is promising two different things in a single sentence.

This is where I hear the voice of the departed. The empty stadium still holds the applause of those who have passed. And Bent Larsen, who passed in 2026, is one such departed figure. He was a player of beautiful moves, of reckless sacrifices, of a kind of chess that the modern engine calls "inaccurate" but that people call "courageous". If this issue truly taught strategy from Larsen, it would contain Larsen's games. It does not.

So what is that name on the cover? It is an emotional bridge. The publisher knows that a certain group of readers — lovers of classical chess, people who believe chess is an art rather than a calculation — will stop when they see that name. That name sells a magazine. But it does not describe the magazine.

That is a romantic mistake. And this is perhaps the moment to confess: my most romantic mistake was believing that the pieces can write poetry. I believed that when I was a young player in Vietnam. I still believe it, in a way. But I have learned that this belief, placed in the hands of marketers, can be bent into a sales tool.

Let me tell you a story. In 2026, I once skipped a newsroom meeting to sit and watch a seventeen-year-old boy practise free kicks at a reserve training ground. He hit the top corner seven times out of ten. I wrote a long piece about the poetry in the left foot of anonymous children, instead of writing about the sixty-million-euro transfer that was dominating the front pages. I chose the boy. I always choose the boy.

But a magazine does not choose the boy. A magazine chooses the star. It chooses Anish Giri, whose reputation guarantees quality. It chooses Aravindh, who represents the Indian wave now at the centre of the chess world. It chooses Ediz Gurel, who represents the future. And it chooses Bent Larsen, who represents a glorious past. Four names, four arrows fired at four different readerships. That is marketing, and there is nothing wrong with it. But the reader needs to know they are reading marketing, not a historical summary.

This is where I want to go against the consensus. People often look at a product like ChessBase Magazine #225 and are disappointed that it does not deliver a new technical discovery. No new opening variation. No game for the ages. No reversal of fortune that makes people stand up.

But that disappointment is misplaced. The real value of this issue does not lie at the technical layer. It lies in how it is delivered to the user.

Issue 225 is released in multiple formats: a PDF as a booklet, a download key for the database, and a "ChessBase Book" app running on tablets and Mac. That is a multi-platform distribution strategy. And behind it is a bigger idea: the publisher is not only selling content, but an entire ecosystem in which to read that content.

A download key is a form of access control. The ChessBase Book app is a form of locking users into the publisher's ecosystem. This is a familiar strategy of every digital platform, from music to film. It is not a conspiracy. It is a business model. But it has a consequence the buyer should know: you cannot easily transfer this content to someone else, and you depend on the publisher's app continuing to be updated.

In a market where open databases provide millions of free games, and video platforms provide thousands of hours of free analysis, what makes a person pay for a magazine? The answer does not lie in knowledge — knowledge has become almost free. The answer lies in curation and in brand. You pay for someone to have selected what is worth learning, and for the reputation of the guides to guarantee that selection.

That is why the presence of Daniel King, Jan Werle and Robert Ris matters more than any of the twenty-seven short games. They are the guarantee of curatorial quality. In a world flooded with free information, the curator becomes the most valuable asset.

And here is what I want to say about the Indian wave. The presence of Aravindh in this issue is not a random choice. It is a signal that the Indian chess market has become one that cannot be ignored. When a Western content publisher places an Indian player alongside a world top-10 player, they are telling Indian readers: we see you. It is a commercial calculation, but also a cultural acknowledgement. The Indian wave is no longer a phenomenon to observe from afar. It has become part of the market structure.

And this is what I realise when I think about Aravindh and Gurel: when the seventeen-year-old prodigy does not yet know he is about to become a legend. Both young players are at exactly that moment — the moment before they become names everyone knows. One day, perhaps, a magazine will print their names on the cover as legends. And by then, no one will remember that they were once small names in the humble index of an issue whose headline spoke of someone else.

That is the paradox of this industry. It uses the past to sell the present, and the present to sell the future, while itself never stops drifting by.

Let me say more about the four names, because the way they were chosen says a great deal about the state of the chess world.

Anish Giri is the Dutch player in the world elite, with a rating that usually hovers around 2740. He is one of the most stable players of his generation, a man who almost never loses easily. In the context of this issue, Giri plays the role of guarantor of the highest class.

David Navara is the number one of the Czech Republic, with a rating around 2680. He is a player with a sharp attacking style, and has been the pride of Czech chess for many years. His presence in an issue tied to a tournament held in his homeland is natural.

Aravindh Chithambaram is the Indian player rising strongly, with 2026 form that put him in the conversation about the 2700 group. He is one link in the Indian wave — a generation of young Indian players pouring into international tournaments in numbers and quality never seen before.

Ediz Gurel is a young Turkish player, with a rating around 2600. He represents the next generation, and his presence in the issue is a signal that the publisher is courting a younger readership.

I need to state clearly: the rating figures I have just given are external context, not data from the issue itself. The issue provides no rating figures, no tournament results, no head-to-head records. These four players appear as annotating authors, not as the subjects of a competitive claim. This is an important point. An issue that provides no competitive data cannot be judged as a competitive report. It must be judged as a product.

And if we judge it as a product, I must say that the selection of these four players is a marketing-optimal choice. It covers four readerships: fans of the elite, national fans, fans of the new wave, and fans of the young generation. It is a coverage without gaps.

There is one more aspect I want to touch on, and it concerns risk. The greatest risk of a product like this is not technical risk, but information-quality risk. All the praise for the product comes from the publisher itself. In an ecosystem where the publisher both produces the product and owns the media that reviews it, such reviews are prone to inflation. This is a systemic risk, not a personal accusation.

The second risk is the risk of obsolescence. The content tied to Prague 2026 will age very quickly, as soon as the next elite tournament takes place. But the evergreen content — openings and endgames — will retain its value for years. A buyer who understands this will weight the evergreen sections heavily, and treat the event-tied material as a bonus.

So what should we do with a product like this?

I do not think the answer is to boycott it. I think the answer is to read it soberly. A wise buyer will ignore the cover headline, and go straight to the opening section — the part with long-term value, the part that does not rot with time. The Prague 2026 material will age as the next tournament takes place. But the ten opening articles, and the endgame training, will retain value for years.

This is a lesson in how to read chess content in the digital age. When free information floods in, value shifts from content to curation. And when curation becomes the most valuable asset, the curators — teachers like Werle, King, Ris — become the most important people. Not the stars. The teachers.

I have written about sport for thirty-seven years. I have written about games, about goals, about golden moments, about romantic mistakes. And I have learned one thing I want to pass on: never let a cover write for you what you are going to think. Turn inside. Look for the seventeen-year-old boy who hit the top corner seven times out of ten, the boy no cover bothers to mention. Look for that boy, because that is where the real poetry is.

Bent Larsen is gone. But his moves are still there, somewhere else, not on this cover. And I still believe, though I have been fooled more than a few times, that somewhere in today's games there is a child playing a move that thirty years from now no one will understand — except those who dare to turn inside.