ChessBase Magazine #225: Bent Larsen, 27 Miniatures, and a Training Bundle That Needs Verification

On September 9, 2026, Bent Larsen died in Buenos Aires at the age of 75. He was the strongest Danish player in history, a four-time World Championship Candidate, famous for short, sharp, and sometimes merciless attacking games that left opponents unable to grasp what had just happened. Fifteen years after his death, his name appeared on the cover of an issue of a chess training magazine. I opened that issue's table of contents and counted line by line: 27 miniatures, 10 opening-theory articles, three opening-video authors, four players named in the annotation section. In that list, there was not a single game bearing Bent Larsen's name. Not a single analysis of his style. His name was in the title, and only there.

I trust footage more than testimony, because footage cannot lie. A headline is also a kind of testimony: it can be true, or it can simply be attractive. The writer's job is to rewind, count, and only then conclude. That is why I am sitting here, at 48, writing about a German chess magazine with the eyes of someone who has long counted athletes' footfalls on recorded tape.

Context: One Magazine, Three Formats, One Tournament

ChessBase Magazine is the periodical of ChessBase, the German chess-software company founded in the late 1980s by Frederic Friedel and Matthias Wüllenweber. The magazine was born alongside the world's largest chess database, and that fact shapes how it exists: each issue is not merely a stack of paper, but a database that can be opened by software, searched with tools, and cross-checked by an engine. By issue 225, the magazine had spanned nearly four decades, a lifespan few specialist sports publications anywhere in the world sustain.

Issue 225 was released in three formats: a PDF booklet with a download key, a ChessBase Book database for iPad, tablet and Mac, and access rights tied to the buyer's account. In content, the issue contains an opening section with 10 articles and opening videos by three authors, a tactics and endgame section, and a curated set of 27 miniatures. The annotation of games from the Prague Chess Festival 2026 features four players: Anish Giri, David Navara, Aravindh Chithambaram and Ediz Gurel.

The Prague Chess Festival is an annual Czech event held in Prague, comprising Masters, Challengers and Open sections. It is a closed invitational round-robin, outside the World Championship qualification system. It is not the World Cup, not the Grand Swiss, not the Grand Chess Tour. It is a tournament of high editorial value and zero systemic value. That matters, because it shapes how the magazine uses the event.

For a Vietnamese follower of chess, this context is familiar. We have Lê Quang Liêm, who once rose into the 2,740 band; we have Nguyễn Ngọc Trường Sơn; we have Phạm Lê Thảo Nguyên. We have also hosted international tournaments on our own soil, and we have also read foreign magazines to learn. The question is the same everywhere: does a training bundle actually teach what it promises?

27 Miniatures and the Question of Genre

In chess, a "miniature" is a game that ends very quickly, usually under 25 moves. The genre has its own training value: it teaches a student to recognize fatal mistakes, to build tactical reflexes, to punish a careless move. But it is a different genre from deep strategic analysis. A short game teaches you how to finish; a deep analysis teaches you how to build a position across thirty unremarkable middlegame moves.

The magazine's choice of 27 miniatures raises a genre question. The title promises "strategy." The content leans toward short games, which means tactics and the beauty of punishment. This is not an error. It is an editorial choice, and it says something about the reader the magazine is targeting.

I once did something similar in documentary film. When I reconstructed the technical segment on Nguyễn Thị Oanh at SEA Games 29, I chose a single frame: the final lap of the 1500m. I counted 47 footfalls per minute. That number does not capture her whole career, but it captures what the audience needed to see in two minutes. A miniature works the same way. It does not tell a player's whole story. It tells the moment when everything breaks open.

What is notable is that the magazine does not disclose which games, which openings, or which themes are among the 27. The list records only the number. For a reader deciding whether to buy, the number 27 is not enough. It is like a match report stating only "Team A fired 14 shots" without saying which hit the target and which struck the post. The data is there, but the meaning is not.

Here I must be clear about how I work. I allow myself only one piece of evidence per argument. Not because I lack evidence, but because I know the trap of my trade: sinking into verification until the article becomes a meeting minute. I keep the number 27 because it is the only number given. For the rest, I write "insufficient information to assess" and move on.

The Three Names Behind the Opening Videos

The opening section of issue 225 has three video authors: Jan Werle, Daniel King and Robert Ris.

Jan Werle is a Dutch Grandmaster, an opening specialist, and a former member of the Dutch national team. Daniel King is an English Grandmaster, famous for his long-running "Power Play" video series, one of the most familiar faces in English-language chess instruction. Robert Ris is a Dutch International Master and the author of many works on openings and endgames.

These three names create a soft signal of production quality. They are not newcomers. They are authors with standing in the chess-training market. But a teacher's reputation is not evidence of a particular lesson's quality. This is what I learned from documentary work: a good director can make a bad film, and a mediocre storyteller sometimes makes a frame nobody forgets.

I say this not to belittle anyone. I say it on principle. In a product, the producer's reputation is information, not a conclusion. It tells us what to expect, not what is.

More interesting is structure. If ChessBase operates as usual, the "opening articles" are most likely repertoire files embedded in the database, engine-linked, rather than purely prose essays. This changes how a student receives them. They do not read a chapter; they open an opening tree, test it, and let the engine judge. That is a very different way of learning, and it suits a generation raised on Lichess and Chess.com.

For Vietnamese players, this is worth weighing. We have a tradition of learning chess through translated books, through teachers, through group analysis sessions. Moving to engine-linked database learning is a leap in method. It is more efficient for memorization, but it can also produce a generation that knows the moves without understanding why. An opening tree does not explain the idea behind it unless someone writes the idea down.

Prague 2026 and Editorial Value

The Prague Chess Festival 2026 is the issue's editorial anchor. Four players are named as annotators of the event's games: Anish Giri, David Navara, Aravindh Chithambaram and Ediz Gurel.

Anish Giri is a Dutch Grandmaster, a familiar face in the world's top group for years, known for meticulous opening preparation and resilient defense. David Navara is the Czech number one, a veteran Grandmaster long tied to Central European events. Aravindh Chithambaram is an Indian Grandmaster, one of the names of the Indian wave now pouring into the 2,700 band. Ediz Gurel is a young Turkish Grandmaster.

These four names are not a random set. They are a deliberately chosen cross-section: a player from the world's top group, a national number one, a rising Indian, and a young talent. That is a marketing-optimal mix, covering the current elite, national pride, the new wave and the next generation.

But I must be explicit: this is a publisher's selection signal, not a signal about the balance of forces on the board. The four appear as annotation authors, not as the subjects of a competitive claim. The issue provides no Elo figure, no tournament result, no head-to-head score. Any conclusion about their form or strength drawn from this issue is an over-read.

This is where I want to pause, because it concerns how we consume sports news.

I once analyzed Saudi Arabia's 2-1 win over Argentina at the 2026 World Cup. Colleagues called it the greatest miracle in history. I opened the data: Argentina had 87% possession and 14 shots; Saudi Arabia had only 3 shots, but 2 were on target and became goals. I wrote that this was the result of pushing the defensive line high at the right moment, a repeatable tactic. Two days later, Japan beat Germany 2-1 with only 38% possession. My article suddenly became "strategic vision."

The lesson is simple: data often says the opposite of what the crowd is shouting. For issue 225, the data says this is a training product with an editorial peg, not an analysis of a tournament. Its value lies in the evergreen quality of the opening and endgame sections, not in the Prague 2026 coverage. Because Prague 2026 will age. But a correct opening idea does not age at the same speed.

Four Players, Four Generations

If the four named players are placed on a generational axis, a clear structure emerges.

Anish Giri belongs to the stable elite tier, the world's top group for years. David Navara belongs to the strong national tier, the man carrying Czech chess as number one. Aravindh Chithambaram belongs to the rising tier, a node in a structurally deep Indian wave. Ediz Gurel belongs to the young tier, a face of the next generation.

Aravindh's presence says something about the market. India has become a default inclusion in all elite chess content, much as the Soviet Union once was. This means Indian readers and players have become a priority audience in the commercial calculations of international chess publishers.

Gurel's presence says something else: the publisher is courting the young readership, the prodigy readership, the fans of emerging talent. This is a general trend in global chess media, where young annotators are increasingly valued for producing engaging content at lower cost.

And the presence of Giri and Navara says a third thing: they are recurring ChessBase authors, their relationships may predate this event, and their participation does not necessarily reflect their specific results here.

Those three layers of information combine into one conclusion: these four names are a marketing choice, not a ranking.

I have a hard-to-break habit from my days filming in Hà Nam. In 2026, when all tournaments were suspended, I built a written crisis procedure: shoot on phone, interview online, and record everything. The stadium was empty, and I turned the sound of studded boots into the heartbeat of the film. Listening back, I realized the studded boots of 11 girls on wooden flooring formed a rhythm like war drums. That was in none of the data I collected, yet it was real.

I tell this to make a point: in any media product, there are signals outside the numbers. The analyst's job is to read both kinds of signal, but never to confuse them. A soft signal is a soft signal. A number is a number.

Multi-Format Delivery and Ecosystem Strategy

How issue 225 is delivered is an important part of the story, and it says a lot about the chess industry.

The buyer receives a PDF booklet, a download key, and access to the ChessBase Book format on iPad, tablet and Mac. The download key implies a DRM-style access control, meaning resale or transfer may be restricted. The ChessBase Book format implies the publisher is integrating its periodical into its own reading and software ecosystem.

This is a light lock-in strategy. It is not an open standard. It is a soft competitive moat, built on convenience rather than exclusivity.

For Vietnamese players, this has practical meaning. A buyer in Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City will receive the product, but is tied to a specific software ecosystem. If they later want to switch platforms, they must convert data. That is a purchase condition worth knowing in advance, not one hidden away.

The positive side of multi-format delivery is that it shows genuine adaptation to changed reader behavior. Today's chess student reads on a tablet, searches on a phone, and runs an engine on a computer. A magazine that exists only on paper would not serve that way of learning. ChessBase's decision to put its periodical into three formats is a correct product decision.

What I want to stress is competition. Issue 225 sits in a crowded training-content market: Chessable courses, countless YouTube channels, free databases like Lichess, and community forums. ChessBase's differentiation is not exclusive knowledge, but curation, brand, and packaging format. That is a real advantage, but it is an advantage in distribution, not in content.

The Contrarian Angle: When the Headline Promises More Than the Content

This is the part I must write most carefully, because it is the part most likely to become an accusation rather than an analysis.

I am not saying ChessBase did wrong. I am saying there is a gap between what the title promises and what the content list shows.

The title suggests learning strategy from Bent Larsen. Bent Larsen was one of the greatest creative attackers of the 20th century. He was an icon of creativity, of willingness to play unusual openings, of refusing safe ruts. Using his name is a way to anchor into the classics-loving readership, the "learn from the old masters" school.

But the content list shows no game, no article, no theme tied to Larsen. This admits two readings. First: the Larsen name is an editorial theme label, meaning the whole issue is built around the creative-attacking spirit Larsen represents, even without a specific Larsen game. Second: the Larsen name is an attention hook, an SEO label.

I lean toward the second reading, but I cannot prove it from the issue's data. And this is the crux: a reader cannot verify the title's promise from the published content itself. That is a problem of information quality.

There is another risk, and it is larger. Issue 225 is a self-promotional product. All quality statements, including phrases like "first-class training material," are the publisher's claims, not independent assessment. And when a medium owned by the same publisher reviews that publisher's own product, its structure tends to produce inflated ratings.

I know this from inside the trade. I was once brushed aside by a male director because I was a woman. He said women know nothing about running, just write with emotion. I did not argue. I borrowed all the footage, sat counting Nguyễn Thị Oanh's footfalls, and noted 47 per minute in the final lap. In the end, the two-minute technical segment I reconstructed saved the whole film from a revenue disaster.

I tell this not to boast. I tell it to make a point: in every field, there are claims that cannot be verified, and insiders know it. The analyst's job is to point out which claims are verifiable and which are not. The claim about the three video authors' standing is verifiable. The claim about the product's first-class quality is not.

There is one more contrarian point I must make. Precisely because I tend to doubt, I must apply the same standard of evidence to my own contrarian argument. I have no proof that the Larsen name is a pure hook. I have only proof that it does not appear in the published content list. That is an important distinction, and I keep it.

The financial risk here is information risk. A buyer may pay based on expectations created by the title, and receive a product of real value but different from those expectations. The level is medium, the impact low to medium. Mitigation is simple: read independent reviews before buying, rather than relying on the publisher's description.

One more thing to weigh: the evergreen section. The opening and endgame articles have lasting value and age slowly. The analyses tied to Prague 2026 will age fast, as soon as the next elite tournament takes place. So a buyer who values the opening and endgame sections is less exposed to obsolescence than one drawn in by the tournament section. This is a strategic adjustment for the consumer, not a warning.

Conclusion: A Lesson for Vietnamese Players

If there is one thing I want readers to take from this piece, it is how to read a chess product.

Every documentary is a running track: the audience sees the finish, I live at every starting line. A training magazine works the same way. The buyer sees the title and the cover. The maker lives in every article, every game, every line. And the analyst must stand in between, reading both sides without letting either pull them away.

Issue 225 is a product of real value. The three opening-video authors are trustworthy names. The endgame and opening sections are evergreen. The delivery format shows adaptation to modern reader behavior. But its title promises more than the published content can confirm, and that is what a buyer needs to know before spending money.

Vietnamese chess is at an interesting stage. We have players strong enough to be written about, a young generation growing up with online platforms, and a growing demand for learning. In such a stage, the most important skill is not memorizing many openings, but telling a good product from a well-advertised one.

I have run hurdles all my life, only I was never timed. But I know one thing about the track: the one who finishes is not the fastest starter, but the one who can read themselves in every meter. Chess is the same. The fastest improver is not the one who buys the most material, but the one who knows which material truly teaches what they need to learn.

The question I leave readers is not whether issue 225 is worth buying. The question is: when was the last time you verified a training promise, instead of believing it?