Seven Systems, Six Videos: IM Valeri Lilov and the Black Repertoire Problem Before Move Two

In 2026, at an open tournament in Guangzhou, I sat in the third row looking down at board seven. White played 1.d4, 2.Nf3, 3.Bf4, 4.e3, 5.Bd3, 6.O-O. Six moves. No 2.c4.

Black — a player who had trained in Europe before returning to Shenzhen to teach — carried the first fifteen moves of the Semi-Slav Meran in his head. After White's sixth move, those fifteen moves became scrap paper. The game drifted into a middlegame he had never been trained for: White's bishop planted on f4, the knight on d2, a centre with nothing left to contest. Black lost on move 47 without committing any significant tactical error.

I wrote that game into my notebook. Four years later, the notebook helped me understand why a product like Power of Initiative — Episode 21 by IM Valeri Lilov exists, and why it is packaged with the words extremely dangerous.

When the data does not lie, we are the ones lying to ourselves. That sentence is not meant to frighten anyone. It accurately describes the state of a player who burned three months preparing for an opening his opponent never entered.

The door White chooses to close

After 1.d4 d5, modern chess theory pours most of its weight into a single branch: 2.c4. The Slav, the Semi-Slav, the Queen's Gambit Accepted, the Orthodox Queen's Gambit — all of them grow from that second move. A club-level Black player can spend two years studying only 2.c4 and still feel the road has no end.

White has no obligation to walk through that door. A portion of White players — larger than the expert class usually admits — choose to close it. They do not play 2.c4. They build a position through a different move order, turning the game into a test of understanding middlegame structures rather than a test of memorising variations.

That is the space where the Colle System, the Trompowsky Attack, the Torre Attack, the London System, the Catalan, the Blackmar-Diemer Gambit and the Richter-Veresov Opening live. Seven systems, seven ways of telling Black that his theory is not being used today.

What these seven systems share lies in what they refuse, not in their first move. White players who choose them usually have one of two motives. The first group wants to save opening preparation time and invest it in the endgame; they accept a slightly inferior position in exchange for certainty. The second group wants to drag Black out of his comfort zone, turning the game into a contest of structural understanding. The second motive is far more dangerous for Black, because it offers no remembered line to cling to.

In my notebook tracking open tournaments from 2026 to 2026, the second group accounts for most of the losses my students recorded. The cause was not playing strength. The cause was that they had never been taught that an opening can be evaded rather than fought.

Seven systems seen from Black's side

The strange thing about these seven systems is that they do not belong to one family. The Colle, the Torre, the London and the Richter-Veresov are positional set-ups focused on piece control of the centre. The Trompowsky is a structural strike against 1...Nf6 from the second move. The Catalan is a closed system with the bishop on g2 and long-term pressure. The Blackmar-Diemer is a pawn sacrifice to open lines. Bundling them into a single product is a commercial choice, not a technical one.

The Colle System illustrates the paradox most clearly. Edgard Colle developed it in Belgium in the 1920s and won many fine games with it. At the highest level, the Colle is regarded as passive when Black knows how to block the e4 break. Black only needs a pawn on e6, a knight on f6, a bishop on e7, and patience. White must seek the break with e4 or c4, and both hand Black targets to attack.

The London System sits in a completely different position. It was treated as a club player's opening for nearly a century, until top players began using it as a stable weapon in long tournaments. The rise of the London at the highest level — especially in rapid and blitz — turned it from a beginner's opening into a system Black cannot dismiss. That is why demand for anti-London content has surged over the past three years.

The Torre Attack takes a quieter road. It plans bishop g5, knight f3, e3, bishop d3, knight bd2 — close to the London but with the bishop on g5 instead of f4. That small difference changes the entire tactical consequence. The g5 bishop pins the f6 knight and pressures Black's pawn structure, but it is also easily driven back by h6 and g5. A well-prepared Black can gain space on the kingside while White is still building.

The Trompowsky Attack plays on a different stage. After 1.d4 Nf6, White plays 2.Bg5. The move attacks Black's pawn structure directly rather than occupying the centre. The Trompowsky was Julian Hodgson's weapon at the top level in the 1980s and 1990s, and it retains a place in tournaments through its surprise value. Black has several responses: 2...Ne4, 2...d5, 2...e6. Each leads to a different type of middlegame, and that is the Trompowsky's weakness at the top: it is too sensitive to Black's choice.

The Catalan was born at the Barcelona tournament in 2026, when Savielly Tartakower used the g2 bishop against strong opponents. It is the only one of the seven systems capable of reaching theoretical completeness at super-grandmaster level. The Catalan is both closed and open in potential, with White often advancing b4 and maintaining pressure along the c-file.

The Richter-Veresov Opening is the least popular of all. With Nf3, Nc3, d4, Bg5, it targets hanging pawns or Black's centre. The system has never reached the top because Black can choose a structure that leaves White without a clear plan.

The Blackmar-Diemer Gambit is the final patch of ground. It is a pawn sacrifice after 1.d4 d5 2.e4 or 1.d4 Nf6 2.Nc3 d5 3.e4. White gives up a pawn to seize the centre and open attacking lines. Below 2200 it is ruthless. Above 2400 it is considered unreliable when Black knows the precise defensive path.

This distribution matters. The seven systems are not equally dangerous, and any claim that groups them under a single extremely dangerous label ignores the differences in their nature.

Six videos for seven systems

IM Valeri Lilov, a Bulgarian trainer, offers six instructional videos for the seven systems listed above. In each video, he demonstrates a relevant plan for Black against a single opening.

That division deserves a pause. Six videos for seven systems means on average less than one video per system. Subtract the introduction and the summary that most courses contain, and the actual time devoted to each system is smaller still.

That does not automatically make the product worthless. Practical opening content aimed at club players often needs only one core idea per system: where to place the pieces, how to hold the structure, where to attack. A fifteen-minute video is enough to convey that skeleton.

But it also sets a clear boundary on expectations. It took me three months to learn that a beautiful chart is no substitute for a correct process. Those three months taught me that an opening course has value only when the learner knows exactly what is being sold.

Another detail stands out right in the title. The Benko Gambit appears in the product name, but the Benko Gambit is not on the list of seven systems. The Benko Gambit is a distinct system beginning with 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 c5 3.d5 b5, a queenside pawn sacrifice. It has no logical connection to the Colle, the Trompowsky or the London.

Putting the Benko Gambit in the title is most likely a search optimisation decision. Players looking for Benko Gambit material will find this product, then discover the actual content is a broader course on anti-Slav systems. This is a common marketing tactic in the chess content market, and it says nothing about the technical quality of the product — only about how it is packaged.

The data gap behind the promise

What I could not find in the product introduction was data. No win rates, no engine evaluations, no statistics on how often the seven systems appear at different levels. No verified profile of the instructor: no official rating, no list of students, no tournament record.

This is a systematic gap across the entire opening content segment at IM level. It is not the fault of this product alone. But buyers need to know what they are buying.

The opening instruction market is saturated at the IM tier. Content on the Colle, the London and the Torre is freely available on YouTube and online analysis platforms. The differentiating value of a paid course lies in structured presentation, in sparing the learner the work of filtering hundreds of scattered videos to find one coherent plan.

At the top end, the gap in authority remains clear. Leading grandmasters and former world championship candidates have produced opening courses with full databases and detailed engine analysis. In the middle tier, IMs like Lilov compete on accessibility and price. At the bottom, free content dominates.

A course like Power of Initiative — Episode 21 sits in the middle tier. It does not promise to take a learner to 2500. It promises players around 1400 to 2026 a framework so they are not surprised when an opponent declines 2.c4.

That is a reasonable promise. The problem lies in how the promise is worded.

Extremely dangerous: sales language or technical assessment

The promotional material describes the Colle, Trompowsky, Torre and London as extremely dangerous. This is marketing framing, not objective assessment.

Every system in that group has known weaknesses. The Colle is considered passive when Black is patient. The London is solid but lacks ambition from White's side. The Torre can lead to strategic positions where White holds no clear advantage. The Trompowsky depends too heavily on Black's response. The actual danger level depends almost entirely on the quality of Black's preparation, not on the systems themselves.

Data is a mirror; but only those willing to face themselves see the truth. When a course calls seven systems of different natures equally dangerous, it is speaking to the buyer's emotions, not to the board.

At the highest level, none of these systems is ranked among the openings most uncomfortable for Black. Their discomfort lives at club level, where Black has usually not built a counter-plan for uncommon structures.

This does not reduce the product's value. It only places the product correctly. A course that helps a club player handle the London is useful. A course that presents itself as a weapon against chess's most dangerous systems is exaggerating.

Confusing those two creates expectation risk. Buyers expect grandmaster-level insight from IM-level content, then feel disappointed when what they receive are basic strategic plans. Those plans may be correct. But the gap between expectation and reality is what causes the damage.

Technical risk here is low. The systems discussed have been stable for decades. There is no danger of flawed content steering a learner wrong. The main risk is commercial and psychological.

I have seen this in my daily work. Players pay for an opening course, memorise the plans, then lose because an opponent played a move order not covered. The fault lies neither with them nor with the course. The fault lies in the assumption that a course can replace the process of building understanding.

A Chinese club taught me that data is not the destination, but a walking stick. I have told that story elsewhere. But it applies precisely here. An opening course is a walking stick. If the learner treats it as his own legs, he will fall the moment the stick is knocked away.

What is worth tracking next

This product sits inside a series. The number Episode 21 indicates a structured curriculum that has existed for a long time, with a familiar customer base. A first-time reader arriving through this introduction lacks the context to judge why this episode should be trusted more than earlier ones.

What is worth tracking is not the technical content of Episode 21. It is learner feedback on distribution platforms. Average ratings, recurring themes in comments, and the appearance of competing courses on the same subject will be measurable signals.

There is a real gap in this market that the product touches: many players adopt the London System without understanding its strategic limits. Content that helps them recognise those limits — from the opponent's side — has value. But that value appears only if the learner approaches it with the right expectations.

I will return to my notebook. The game in Guangzhou in 2026 did not end on move 47 because Black lacked talent. It ended there because Black had prepared for a door White never opened. Every opening course, however it is packaged, ultimately solves only part of that problem: the part belonging to knowledge. The rest — the ability to recognise which door is open right now — is not in any video.