Six Videos for Seven Systems: IM Valeri Lilov and the Overpromise Problem in Chess Instruction

Last month, at an open tournament in Delhi, I sat behind a fifteen-year-old player handling the Black pieces. His opponent opened with 1.d4, and on move two declined to play 2.c4. The boy put down his pen and looked at the ceiling. His clock burned seventeen minutes on a move that should have cost three seconds.

He knew the Slav by heart. The Semi-Slav by heart. The Orthodox Queen's Gambit by heart. He had paid for three opening courses, downloaded four PGN files, and at the exact moment he needed them, his opponent stepped outside the book. That game contained no combination. No sacrifice. Just a child abandoned on move two.

That is the market IM Valeri Lilov is aiming at. It is also why I opened the promotional material for Episode 21 of the video series "The Power of Initiative," read it once, and then read it again with a red pen in hand.

Context: when move two becomes a business decision

After 1.d4 d5, if White plays 2.c4, everything enters a well-worn path. Slav, Semi-Slav, Queen's Gambit Accepted, Orthodox Queen's Gambit. This is the densest theoretical forest in modern chess, a place where an amateur can burn two years of his life and still not reach the third layer of a sub-variation. Many players with the White pieces look at that forest and decide to walk around it.

They do not play 2.c4. They play the Colle System, the London System, the Trompowsky Attack, the Torre Attack, the Catalan Opening, the Blackmar-Diemer Gambit, the Richter-Veresov Opening. Seven systems, seven ways of saying the same sentence: I do not want you sitting in a room you have already memorized.

For Black, this is an administrative nightmare. You spent six months preparing the Semi-Slav, and your opponent replies with a system you once skimmed on YouTube at two in the morning. Lilov's material promises to solve precisely that pain: six videos, one practical plan for Black in each.

I have watched open tournaments across India and Southeast Asia for many years, and I can say plainly that the pain is real. It is simply not the pain a course can cure.

The core: reading an advertisement the way you read a scoresheet

The first problem is arithmetic. Six videos for seven systems. Subtract the introduction, the author's biography, and the conclusion, and each system receives on average under twenty minutes. Twenty minutes for the London System is enough to introduce it. Twenty minutes for the Colle plus the Catalan plus the Blackmar-Diemer Gambit is a summary, not a curriculum.

The second problem is language. The material calls these systems "extremely dangerous." I have to be blunt: that is sales language, not assessment language. The London System is solid, not sinister. The Colle has long been considered somewhat passive. The Torre usually serves as a doorway into strategic positions. Their danger level depends almost entirely on the quality of Black's preparation, not on the systems themselves.

The third problem is the name on the title. The Benko Gambit does not arise from 1.d4 d5. It arises from 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 c5 3.d5 b5. That is an entirely different system, one in which White has already played 2.c4 — precisely the move this course claims to counter when White avoids it. Attaching "Benko" to the title is a search decision, not a technical one.

The fourth problem, and this is where I stopped longest. The list of covered systems includes the Catalan Opening. But the Catalan begins with d4, c4, g3 and Bg2. It does not exist without 2.c4. In other words, the material contradicts its own premise: it claims to solve the problem of "White avoiding 2.c4," then includes an opening that requires 2.c4. A small detail, but it tells you the copywriter is selling a catalogue, not teaching a system.

The fifth problem sits with the person. The material identifies Valeri Lilov as a "Bulgarian trainer." No rating. No notable students. No cited tournament results. For an educational product, that gap is larger than any technical gap, because a buyer has no basis whatsoever to judge authority beyond the advertisement's own word.

And here the story becomes interesting. Strip away the promotional varnish, and the content the course can plausibly deliver still has value of its own. I have watched enough club-level games to know that Black's problem in these systems is not a shortage of variations. The problem is a shortage of middlegame plans tied to pawn structure.

Modestly speaking, if I had to teach Black against these seven systems in six videos, I would teach exactly seven principles.

Against the London System, the goal is not to trap White in the opening. The goal is to trade off the bishop on f4. That bishop is the entire meaning of the London. Black plays ...e6 and ...Bd6, threatening the exchange, or ...Nh5, or simply ...Nf6 followed by ...Bg4 and ...Bxf3 with ...Qd7 clearing the way for ...Bf4. Black also needs ...c5 and a queen on b6 to hit b2 before White finishes building. If White keeps the f4 bishop and keeps the position closed, the numbers are not on Black's side.

Against the Colle System, Black must understand that White is playing e3, Bd3, Nf3, c3 and only then considering e4. The standard plan is ...c5, ...Nc6, ...Bd6, and if needed ...b5 to expand on the queenside, or ...dxc4 followed by ...b5 to hold the pawn. Black must not sit still waiting for White to play e4.

Against the Trompowsky Attack, the only question is where the g5 bishop will go. Black plays ...e6, ...h6, or sometimes ...c5 and ...Qb6 to force White to choose between trading the bishop and losing tempo.

Against the Torre Attack, remember that most Torre games transpose into the Colle or the London within a few moves. Preparing for the Torre means preparing for both of those, plus a small variation handling the g5 bishop before White plays e3.

Against the Blackmar-Diemer Gambit, discipline is everything. Black accepts the pawn, gives it back at the right moment, and never gets greedy. Amateurs lose to this gambit not because they lack theory, but because they try to keep the second pawn.

Against the Richter-Veresov Opening, stay calm. The system is rare not because it is strong, but because it does not offer White much. Black plays ...c5, ...e6, ...Bd6 and does not fear the g5 bishop.

The Catalan is a different story entirely, and it deserves its own course. There White is not avoiding theory. White is choosing a long, slow strategic battle in which Black must decide which structure to accept within the first ten moves.

The notable thing is that Lilov may well have taught exactly these principles. I do not know, and that is part of the problem. The material provides no sample game, no engine evaluation, no win rate. A buyer has no way to check before paying.

Ten years standing in the middle of arguments, the fire lit by a question in 2026 still burns. That year I asked a question that did not sound like a woman in a press room in Delhi, and the room laughed. The question I asked did not sound like a woman, but the answers they dodged did not sound like men. I keep that habit when I read any promotional material: ask the question the seller did not prepare to answer.

The counterintuitive angle: the buyer is the seller

I may be wrong, and I should state clearly where I may be wrong.

First, I have not watched a single video in the series. I only read the advertisement. Judging a course by its flyer is like judging a player by a transfer rumour.

Second, the "extremely dangerous" tone may come from the platform's marketing department rather than from Lilov's mouth. Many good coaches are turned into clowns by their own sales team.

Third, and most importantly. The problem of that fifteen-year-old in Delhi was not a shortage of courses. It was a decision-making problem. He had enough variations in his head. He lacked a procedure for choosing a move once the variations ran out. No set of six videos cures that, because it is a problem of seventeen minutes, not a problem of seven systems.

I once mispronounced a player's name, then read the game correctly once the slow-motion replay appeared before my eyes. Mistakes are not frightening; crouching down at two in the morning to pick the tape back up is what makes a forecaster. But I also learned that reviewing footage does not replace deciding in real time. The boy in Delhi could rewatch his game twenty times and still freeze on move two in the next one.

Put another way, the greatest guilt here does not belong to a Bulgarian IM. It belongs to a market that rewards fear of missing out. Players buy plans because they fear being left behind, and sellers sell plans because that fear sells. In football, player agents generate noise that distorts the transfer market; in chess, marketers generate noise that distorts the course market. The mechanism is identical. The hidden cost always sits in the middle, never at either end.

And in transfer season, whether the transfer is of players or of knowledge, the principle does not change: noise comes first, contracts come second, and the real structure is never advertised.

That year the stadium was empty, and I found the tactical diagram lying quietly under the seat instead of the roar of the crowd. The summer without spectators taught me that silent applause can kill emotion, but it cannot kill tactics. Chess courses work the same way. Emotion sells. Tactics do not.

Takeaway: a test that can be verified

If Lilov's series really has a system behind it, here is a verifiable signal. Over the next ninety days, watch whether anyone publishes an independent review with three sample games checked by an engine, spelling out Black's plan in each system. If that happens, I am wrong, and I will say so gladly. If it does not, Episode 22 will arrive with another name attached to the title.

And if you are a Vietnamese player weighing whether to pay for the next course, do one simple thing first. Open your most recent game, find the move that took you more than ten minutes, and ask yourself whether you lacked variations or lacked a procedure. The answer will save you more than any review.