Bent Larsen on the Cover, Prague Inside: A Chess Magazine Telling Its Own Story

I opened the download package of ChessBase Magazine issue 225 on a rainy afternoon in Nha Trang, next to a notebook yellowed from the days when I organized chess tournaments for schoolchildren in Khanh Hoa. The cover printed the name Bent Larsen — the Dane with the gentle smile and the most reckless moves of the twentieth century. I set the notebook down, thinking I was about to meet him again through some game. Going through every section, I found no game of his. Only 27 miniatures, 10 opening articles, and a few video presenters. That feeling was exactly like the time I followed a former 800m athlete for two months: they promised me a person, then handed me a file.

This magazine has lived for more than two decades, numbered up to issue 225, and the way it survives is the real subject. ChessBase does not sell paper in the old sense. The buyer receives a bundle: a PDF booklet, a download key, and reading rights on the ChessBase Book app for iPad, tablet or Mac. Each issue is a database (CBV) of annotated games, with video and documents. Issue 225 uses the Prague Chess Festival 2026 as its content peg, with analyses signed by Aravindh, Giri, Gurel and Navara. The opening section has three video presenters: Jan Werle, Daniel King and Robert Ris. There are also separate pieces on tactics, strategy and endgames. And 27 miniatures are curated as a dessert.

I sat commentating chess for VTC for 32 years, long enough to know one thing: in the chess-training world, the annotator's credibility matters more than the advertising copy. Werle is a Dutch grandmaster and opening specialist, King an English grandmaster famous for his long-running Power Play video series, Ris a Dutch international master who writes on openings and endgames. These three names are a soft signal of production quality. They are not newcomers. But a soft signal is not proof of technical superiority, and I must state that boundary clearly.

Then come the four annotators. This is a carefully calculated cross-section. Giri is a Dutch grandmaster in the world's top band. Navara is Czech number one. Aravindh is a rising Indian grandmaster. Gurel is a young Turkish talent. Four people, four tiers: current elite, national pride, the new wave, and the youth pipeline. Nothing in that choice is accidental. It is how a publisher tells four different readerships: we have a section for you.

The most telling detail is that Aravindh appears alongside Giri and Navara. A few years ago, a young Indian grandmaster might not have made the annotation list of a European magazine. Now he is included as a matter of course. The Indian chess wave has become a compulsory item in elite content, not as a special topic but as a permanent presence. I have seen the same in athletics: when a nation produces enough athletes, their presence stops drawing attention and starts becoming the backdrop.

In other words, this is a packaged training product. The buyer does not receive a technical thesis but a bundle: opening theory, tactics, strategy, endgame technique, and a set of 27 short games to train the eye. The model targets the club-to-professional band, players who need repertoire ideas and technique, not theoretical invention. It follows the mainstream flow of the chess-training market, where knowledge is not scarce and only the arrangement is worth money.

And it is the word strategy in the title that makes me pause longest. The title suggests something about Larsen, about learning strategy from a legend. But the listed content shows no game, article or theme tied to Larsen. The 27 miniatures are entertainment and tactical training, a category quite different from deep strategic analysis. There is a genre tension inside the product itself: the cover promises one thing, the inside delivers another.

I do not rush to call this deceit. In my documentary work, we still use an opening image to pull viewers in, then tell the real story behind it. The problem is when the opening image becomes a promise, the reader has a right to be disappointed. A reader who loves Larsen, who opens the issue for Larsen, will not find him. That is a measurable gap between market expectation and actual content.

The second point I want to state plainly: every compliment about this product is the publisher's self-praise. First-class training material is a marketing claim, not an independent assessment. I have watched enough events to know that a product reviewed by a media outlet owned by the same publisher has a structurally inflated rating. That does not mean the product is bad. It means the buyer should seek a second source before spending.

One small technical detail is worth noting: the phrase download key implies DRM-style gated access, meaning resale or transfer is likely restricted. The ChessBase Book app format shows the publisher integrating the magazine into its own reading and software ecosystem. That is a mild lock-in strategy, not an open-standard release. For a single purchase the risk is low, but users accustomed to free and open options like Lichess will feel the barrier.

As for rivals, this issue does not enter any throne race. It does not discuss the post-Carlsen gap, does not debate the depth of the 2700 group, does not touch national rivalries. It merely borrows an elite event as a time marker. Its value as a time marker will fade quickly once the next event takes place. But the opening and endgame sections endure. A wise buyer will weigh the issue by its durable content, not by the event printed on the cover.

Throughout my filmmaking career, I always asked myself the same question after each project: whose story is this? With issue 225, the answer is fairly clear. The story belongs to the publisher, to its brand, to the author network it built over two decades. The invited annotators play storytellers, not characters. And Bent Larsen, printed on the cover, plays a door — opened and then closed behind the reader.

There is one thing I learned after 49 years watching this industry move: the real strength of a chess publication lies not in the name it borrows, but in what it leaves in the reader's mind after it is closed. A short game can teach a combination, but it cannot teach you to think like Larsen. To learn strategy from a legend, you must read the man himself, replay his games, let your eye grow used to calculated recklessness. No download key can replace that work.

So if you ask me whether this issue is worth buying, I will answer with another question: do you need a collection of lessons to practice, or do you need to meet Bent Larsen again? If it is the first, this content bundle may serve you, provided you ignore the advertising and judge the quality yourself. If it is the second, go straight to his games. That Dane is still there, in the old databases, waiting for someone who knows how to listen. A record is never old; it is only waiting for someone who knows how to listen. And so is a legend — he is not on the cover of a magazine, he is in every move that later generations must sit with for a long time to fully understand.