Seven Opening Systems, Six Videos, and the Gap After 1.d4 d5

Seven Opening Systems, Six Videos, and the Gap After 1.d4 d5

A Thursday night at the club

The ceiling fan at the chess club on Nguyen Thien Thuat Street in Nha Trang turns slowly enough that you can hear the steel blades humming. Seven people are in the room. The man to my left is sixty-two, has sat at a board for thirty-eight years, and once read almost every opening book translated from Russian and printed on cheap subsidised paper. Across from him sits a nineteen-year-old student, his phone face-down on the table, silenced.

The boy plays the London System. Knight to f3, bishop to f4, pawn to e3, bishop to d3, castling short, rook to e1 — a sequence anyone who has played Vietnamese amateur events over the past five years knows by heart. On move eighteen he pushes the h-pawn. The older man's queen retreats to d5 and stays there. Twenty-nine moves later he resigns.

He did not lose because he calculated badly. He lost because he had no plan. Walking out, he told me that for almost an hour he had felt he was standing in the right place without knowing which direction the next step belonged to. That feeling exhausts you more than calculation does.

That night I reopened a product page I had been carrying around all week: "Power of Initiative", Episode 21, a video series by IM Valeri Lilov, a Bulgarian trainer. Six videos. Seven opening systems. And a line in bold at the top describing these systems as "extremely dangerous".

The sixty-two-year-old in Nha Trang will never read that line. He is the person who needs it most.

The second move, left unplayed

To understand why such a course exists, return to the root of the matter: White's second move.

After 1.d4 d5, if White plays 2.c4 the game enters the Queen's Gambit, one of the densest theoretical forests in modern chess. Four enormous branches run from it: the Slav (2...c6), the Semi-Slav (2...e6 followed by ...c6), the Queen's Gambit Accepted with 2...dxc4, and the Orthodox Queen's Gambit with 2...e6. Each branch splits into hundreds of lines, each line carries a name, a famous game, and decades of Soviet, Yugoslav and later European training-room analysis.

The player holding Black must carry an enormous backpack into that forest. Not everyone can. That is where the unplayed second move becomes a phenomenon of club chess.

Many club-level White players discovered something simple: if they skip 2.c4, the opponent never gets to display the theoretical mass they spent hundreds of hours memorising. The game leaves the motorway and drifts onto side roads — the London System, the Colle System, the Torre Attack, the Trompowsky Attack, and further out the Catalan, the Blackmar-Diemer Gambit and the Richter-Veresov.

The economics are plain. White spends half a year learning one system and can use it against almost any Black reply. Black must prepare seven different entry points, each demanding its own move order and its own type of middlegame. The asymmetry in study time eventually creates a market for content.

In Vietnam the shift is visible. Ten years ago most club players in the south opened with the Queen's Gambit or a king's pawn. Today, looking at scoresheets at semi-professional events, the London System appears often enough to be counted in charts. It is popular because it is easy to learn, easy to remember, easy to teach beginners, and above all because it feels safe.

Based on my own experience following games across many domestic seasons, the most notable thing about the London at amateur level is not the number of wins it produces but the length of the games it produces. London players rarely win quickly, and they rarely lose quickly. They push opponents into a very particular state of tension: nothing dangerous, nothing comfortable.

That is the moment the course appears, as an invitation.

Who teaches, and what the seller claims

According to the product page, IM Valeri Lilov is a Bulgarian trainer. The series is called "Power of Initiative", and this instalment is Episode 21. The description is short: six videos in which Lilov sets out a plan for Black against each system White may use to avoid Queen's Gambit theory.

The listed systems are the Colle System, the Trompowsky Attack, the Torre Attack, the London System, the Catalan, the Blackmar-Diemer Gambit and the Richter-Veresov.

Two gaps matter before anyone considers buying. First, there are no statistics, no win rates, no engine evaluations, no sample games. Second, nothing verifies the instructor's credentials beyond an International Master title and the phrase "Bulgarian trainer". For a product priced as coaching material, those gaps are not trivia.

At sixty-five I have walked through enough tournament halls to stop trusting titles. An International Master can teach badly. Someone who never crossed 2500 can teach brilliantly. What separates them is the ability to turn a heap of variations into a story with cause and effect, so the student understands why a move is right at that moment rather than merely that it is right.

Every playing hall I have walked into has a secret door, and the entrance is always a person. A video course does not let you meet that person through a cover page.

Seven systems, six videos: what Black actually does

Reading the list, one structural detail stands out. Six videos for seven systems is under one video per system. But the real question is not quantity. It is whether a single thread runs through all seven.

It does. And that thread is the contribution any course on this family must capture, whether the instructor says so or not.

Look closely and the systems differ in move order but agree on one thing: White postpones establishing a pawn centre and controls it with pieces instead. That means White's pawn structure is usually thinner and White's space usually smaller than in mainline Queen's Gambit lines.

From that observation, Black's plan compresses into three moves that apply almost uniformly across all seven systems.

The first is playing ...c5 at the right moment to strike the centre with a flank pawn and accept an open d-file. The difference lies in timing: too early and White's centre collapses in White's favour, too late and Black is squeezed into passivity.

The second is trading off White's best-placed piece. Against the London that piece is usually the bishop on f4. Against the Trompowsky it is the bishop on g5. Against the Colle and Torre it is the bishop on d3 aiming at h7. Black grows stronger when those bishops leave the board, and White loses the only weapon that gives the system a target.

The third is taking space on the queenside with ...b5, ...b6 or ...c4 to lock the structure. Queenside activity is the reward for defending correctly, and at club level it is the most frequently missed reward, because it requires pushing pawns forward while the opponent's queenside bishop is still on the board.

If six videos transmit those three moves, they earn their price. If they only list seven move orders, the student must find the thread alone, and most will not.

London: safety packaged as a weapon

The London deserves the most attention, because it is the most played and the most misunderstood.

Its structure: Nf3, Bf4, e3, Bd3 or Be2, short castling, Nbd2, Re1, c3. A setup designed never to weaken itself. The bishop on f4 sits outside the pawn chain, the knight on f3 covers e5 and d4, the bishop on d3 aims at h7. There is nothing to attack.

Because there is nothing to attack, the London generates a very specific pressure: the pressure of idleness. Black feels balanced, but the balance produces no chances. Chess below 2026 is not won with balance. It is won with mistakes, and the London is built to minimise White's mistakes.

So the phrase "extremely dangerous" should be read with both eyes open. The London is dangerous to someone who does not know what to do. It is not objectively dangerous: at elite level it almost never appears in decisive games, simply because it does not pose enough problems. At that level people play to win, and the London does not supply enough tools to win.

At club level, though, it is a highly effective machine, and I have watched that across many games in Nha Trang.

What does Black do?

The classical counter-plan starts with ...Bd6 to trade off the f4 bishop. This is the most important move, and the most often skipped. Many Black players hesitate out of fear of losing time, but exchanging on f4 is generally good for Black: once White plays Bg3, that bishop loses all influence over key dark squares such as e5 and d6.

The second move is ...Qb6, hitting b2 and d4 simultaneously. The queen creates two threats on two wings, forcing White to choose, and every choice weakens one side.

The third is ...Ne4. The e4 square is the transit station for nearly every counterattack against the London. A knight settled there renders White's f4 bishop useless and clears the way for the f- or c-pawn.

The fourth, for those who have completed the first three, is ...c4. That move locks the queenside, opens ...b5 and ...a5, and converts spatial advantage into real advantage. It is the part club players rarely play, because it demands forty patient moves before it pays.

The real value of an opening course is not the number of lines it teaches but whether it forces the student to look at pawn structure.

Colle, Torre, Trompowsky: three kinds of delay

The Colle System is a system of patience: Nf3, e3, Bd3, then either e4 or a slower build with b3 and Bb2. Both plans need time, and time is what Black can take away. Black's counter-plan is an early ...c5 to contest the centre, then ...b6 and ...Bb7 to control e4, the square White's d3 bishop wants. If Black keeps e4 covered, the Colle loses its target and White must play planless moves.

The Torre Attack puts the bishop on g5 instead of f4, and it is the most annoying of the three. Black must decide: play ...h6 to chase the bishop, or tolerate an enemy piece in the middle of the formation. Both choices cost something. Pushing h6 weakens the kingside, and everyone knows what happens to a weakened kingside against a patient opponent.

The most effective counter I have seen in Vietnamese games is accepting a bishop-for-knight trade, playing ...e6, ...Be7, ...0-0, then striking with ...c5 and ...Qb6. After losing the g5 bishop, White often carries doubled f-pawns, a static target for the next thirty moves.

The Trompowsky is different in nature. White plays Bg5 on move two, before building a centre, aiming to disrupt Black's pawn structure. It is a provocative system that demands a structural answer rather than a defensive one. The most common reply is ...Ne4 hitting the bishop. If White trades, Black recaptures with the f-pawn, opens the f-file and builds a strong centre. If White retreats, Black has gained time to establish ...d5 and ...c5.

Three systems, three kinds of delay, one common point: Black does not need to play better. Black needs to play in the right order.

Catalan, Blackmar-Diemer, Richter-Veresov: names off the trunk

Here the list runs into a structural problem, and this is the most telling part of the whole product page.

The Catalan begins 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.g3. White still plays c4 and still enters the Queen's Gambit forest, only building a long-diagonal bishop instead of a pawn centre. Black's plan differs entirely: capture on c4 with ...dxc4, then hold with ...b5 and ...a6, or return the pawn for a comfortable game.

The Blackmar-Diemer Gambit is 1.d4 d5 2.e4 dxe4 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.f3 — a pawn sacrifice to open the f-file and attack the kingside. It is a street-chess system where the game can end by move fifteen in either direction.

The Richter-Veresov is the rarest: Nf3, Nc3, d4, Bg5, pressuring Black's centre with minor pieces.

These three, plus the Catalan, do not sit on the 1.d4 d5 trunk White uses to dodge theory. They belong to other opening families. Placing them in the same list as the London, Colle, Torre and Trompowsky is a deliberate choice, and that choice says something about the product's nature.

What it says is this: it is not a course about one opening family. It is a content bundle organised around Black's feeling of being threatened.

The Benko name in the title

The title also mentions the Benko Gambit, but the Benko arises from 1.d4 Nf6, not 1.d4 d5. It belongs to a different family: Black sacrifices a queenside pawn for two open files and long-term initiative. None of the seven listed systems connects logically to it. Technically it can serve as an example of proactive thinking with Black. Commercially, the Benko Gambit is a high-volume search term that pulls in readers with different interests from those genuinely facing the London System.

I do not call that deception. I call it a signal about what is really being sold: peace of mind. And when a product sells peace of mind, the buyer should ask a simple question — where does that peace come from, and will it survive contact with a real board?

What six videos cannot carry

Six videos for seven systems raises a fair question about depth, but that is not the biggest problem. The biggest problem has nothing to do with the instructor's ability. It concerns the one thing no video can carry: a mechanism for self-correction.

When I made chess documentaries, I learned something from youth coaches. A child who learns openings from a book progresses more slowly than one who loses three games with the same mistake and is told why it happened three times. Books teach moves. Boards teach causes.

Video sits between the two. It beats a book because it has pictures, a voice, emphasis — but it does not stand behind the student to say that move twenty-three missed the chance to push c4, and that the next eighteen moves were the price.

There is more. The stadium is empty, yet the applause of 2026 still rings inside every old record. In 2026, when the pandemic closed every playing hall, Vietnamese chess moved online and players moved to learning from video. I kept returning to Nha Trang while tournaments were suspended, clearing out a storeroom, finding old tapes about athletes the system left behind. Since then I have believed every crisis pushes people toward stories that were never told.

In the age of the thirty-second video, I spent three months listening to a man talk about the 400 metres in 2026. I spent about as long understanding why a man who has played chess for thirty-eight years lost in twenty-nine moves to a nineteen-year-old student. The answer is in no course. It lies in the fact that the learner had nobody to return to after the game ended.

The chess content market works much like the transfer market I still follow in football. Free content on video platforms sits outside any verification mechanism: anyone can publish, nobody is accountable for quality, and there is no public scoreboard. Paid content has a price and a brand, but is not obliged to publish evidence of effectiveness. Buyers stand between the two zones and carry the risk themselves.

A record is never old; it is only waiting for someone who knows how to listen. The same holds for openings. Those seven systems have existed for a very long time and will keep existing. What changes is not their nature but how many people play them and how many must find a way to fight them.

Chess has openings, middlegames, endgames, legends — it only lacks a camera that knows how to tell a story. A good opening course is, in the end, a story told properly: the pieces are characters, pawn structures are the conflict, and the ending is the squares someone wins.

What remains after twenty-nine moves

The man in Nha Trang does not need another video about the London System. He has seen it hundreds of times. He needs someone to sit beside him, point at the position after move twenty, and say the chance went by there.

In Vietnam, chess clubs are opening in every city, amateur events draw more players each year, and the 1400-to-2026 rating band is thickening fast. That group needs exactly what courses like Lilov's offer, and it is also the group most exposed to over-promising.

The only protection for a player in Nha Trang, Da Nang or Can Tho is returning to what no course can sell: recording your own games, finding the wrong move, understanding why it was wrong. Do that on your own, and a course becomes something worth having. Fail to do it, and a course merely covers the gap.

Next Thursday the sixty-two-year-old will sit down again. I hope he buys no more videos, and buys a notebook instead.