Endgame in an Empty Hall: 25 Years of Karsten Müller and Moves That Never Grow Old

I still keep a moldy VHS tape in the drawer of my desk in Nha Trang, its label written by hand in blue ink: "Endgame Final — VTC 2026". The tape recorded a broadcast I remember second by second, when I sat in front of the camera and explained to television viewers how a player converted a one-pawn advantage into a win. The man sitting beside me that day was already seventy, and he said one thing I have carried through 32 years as a chess commentator: "The endgame is where people are most honest with themselves."

That sentence echoed in my head when I read the news of August 14, 2026, from ChessBase news. Karsten Müller, widely regarded as the world's leading endgame expert today, had just released the first installment of an endgame course within the Endgame Academy. The headline read "25 years ago" — a nostalgic framing the ChessBase editorial team chose to mark a quarter-century of collaboration with Müller.

The stadium is empty, but the applause of 2026 still rings inside every old record. It is the same with the endgame: no grandstand claps for a properly executed Lucena technique, no camera pans to a player's face as he pushes a pawn to promotion. Yet precisely in that silence, this sport preserves its most honest part.

That is why I want to devote this piece to a chess education product — but not in the way an ordinary product announcement would.

Context: an education market that has swapped thrones

To understand why an endgame course by Karsten Müller deserves discussion, it must be placed within the broader current of chess education over the past two decades.

In 2026, when I moved from being a chess player and tournament organizer into chess media, the learning market was almost entirely contained in two channels: printed books and live classes. To learn the endgame, one bought "Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual" or found a coach who could arrange pieces on a wooden board. ChessBase existed then, but mainly as a vast game database — a research tool for analysts, not yet a school for learners.

Karsten Müller appeared in that context with a different advantage: he chose to specialize in the endgame instead of becoming an all-round grandmaster. In the chess world, this is a rare career choice. A strong player usually wants to be famous through tournaments, through sharp opening games, through the tactical swaps the media records. Müller chose to stay behind the board, where the spotlight does not shine, and turned the endgame into his territory. He wrote the "Endgame Corner" column for ChessBase for years, wrote books, taught, and gradually shaped a classification system for endgames that many young coaches now study.

By 2026, the chess education market had transformed entirely. Chessable, Lichess, YouTube, and countless online course platforms coexist. Free content is so abundant that a chess learner in Nha Trang today can access a hundred times more endgame exercises than I had in 2026. So why would there still be a need for a paid, specialist endgame course by an expert who has been with ChessBase for 25 years?

That question leads me to the core of this piece.

The core: what keeps an endgame course relevant

1. The endgame is the longest-shelf-life subject in chess

Of the three phases of a game — opening, middlegame, endgame — the opening changes fastest. Every year, top players invent new variations, and opening material published in 2026 may already be obsolete by 2026. A bestselling opening book today can become a burden for the reader after three elite seasons.

The endgame is different. Its basic principles have been stable for over a century. The Lucena technique for winning a rook-and-pawn versus rook ending, the Philidor technique for drawing, Reti's method for analyzing king and pawn endings — all are bricks that do not erode with time. This gives endgame content a longer commercial shelf life than any other type of chess content.

A high-quality endgame course can accompany a learner for life, something an opening course can never do.

This is the basic economic reason behind the ChessBase product. They are not selling something fashionable; they are selling something enduring. And their choice to invoke "25 years ago" is no accident — it is a way of saying that this value has been proven by time.

2. The shift from passive viewing to active learning

In its release note, ChessBase emphasized that interactive options "have become indispensable in video courses". This is an accurate observation of the broader e-learning trend.

The traditional way to study the endgame was to watch a VHS or read a book, then set up the board and replay it. This method works for patient people, but the dropout rate is very high. Nothing is more painful than reading a six-move endgame variation in a book without being able to visualize the final position.

Interactive courses reverse that process. The learner does not read then do; they do first, get scored, then read the explanation. The brain absorbs knowledge through feedback rather than description. For the endgame — where the precision of each move matters more than in other phases — this method fits especially well.

From the perspective of someone who once taught chess to middle-schoolers in Nha Trang in the early years of my career, I see this as a genuine step forward rather than a marketing gimmick. When I taught endgames to those children, I always made them try first, corrected them when wrong, and never let them read first. That way took longer, but they remembered far longer.

Still, we must ask what the release note does not answer: what exactly are the interactive options? A hint-enabled puzzle mode, a scored game-versus-engine mode, or a mode that compares the learner's move against a grandmaster's? These three forms have very different educational quality. A product called "interactive" that only lets learners press a button to reveal the answer is no better than an e-book.

3. "Kicks off" in the product name

The most important detail in the release note is perhaps the statement that this is the "opening" of a course series. That phrase says two things.

First, this is part of a larger architecture. ChessBase is not selling a single product; it is building a system. If this course series continues, learners will be guided through layers of endgame from basic to complex, similar to how a mathematics curriculum is structured into chapters. This is a systematic approach — the very thing the free-content market often lacks.

Second, the choice of "checkmate and pawn endings" as the opening topic is pedagogically sound. Pawn endings are the foundation of all other endgame technique — someone who is not fluent in pawn endings will struggle with every more complex endgame. Checkmate motifs are the most basic unit of knowledge in all of chess. Choosing these two topics as the starting point shows a curriculum designed by skill sequence rather than market appeal.

What is notable is that such a veteran product chose to start from foundations instead of from flashy subjects. This is a sign of professional confidence.

4. Michael Kotyk and the role of the verifier

One under-noticed detail in the release note is the appearance of Michael Kotyk, described as a young Hamburg chess trainer who reviewed the product "under a magnifying glass". Putting a young person in the role of verifier for a product by a veteran expert is a smart communications choice.

In the education market, the credibility of the endorser matters as much as the content creator. A young coach actively teaching students has real credibility in the coaching world, and that person's confirmation carries more weight than a producer's self-praise. I have been in this profession long enough to know that in sport, praise from a professional peer is worth more than any self-awarded prize.

But caution is also needed: the release note does not clarify whether Kotyk is independent from ChessBase. In any analysis of sponsored content, the question "who pays the reviewer" must always be asked first.

5. The single-successor trap

A course tied tightly to a single expert's name is both a strength and a risk. For ChessBase, having Karsten Müller on the roster creates a clear competitive advantage that rivals cannot easily copy — you cannot buy the reputation of an endgame expert built over thirty years with money alone. But it also means the value of the product portfolio depends on one person.

In the sports media industry where I work, this lesson has repeated many times. A television program tied to a single commentator loses steam when that person retires. Conversely, a program with a successor-training pipeline survives across generations.

Is ChessBase preparing for that by elevating young coaches like Kotyk to higher positions in the ecosystem? The release note does not say, but I believe that is the sensible direction.

The contrarian angle: what the chess market misunderstands about the endgame

The mispricing of endgame skill

There is a paradox in the chess world I have observed through many years of games I have commentated: players at every level know the endgame matters, yet very few devote the right amount of time to studying it. The share of training time an average club player spends on openings may be five to ten times what they spend on endings. This is true in Vietnam, and from what I have discussed with foreign players at international events I have followed, it is true in many other places too.

The reason is simple: openings have books, concrete variations, and a clear sense of progress. Learning a new variation gives players the feeling they "know" one more thing. The endgame is the opposite. Studying it is slow, feels repetitive, and the rewards rarely arrive immediately.

But the deeper paradox lies here: poor endgame ability loses points more often than poor opening ability. Analysis of club players' games I have observed points to a similar conclusion: most points lost come not from leaving the opening in a bad position, but from not knowing how to convert a good position into a win in the endgame.

A proper endgame course does not merely teach technique; it restructures the whole way a player allocates study time.

If that is true, then the real value of this product is not in the content itself — no one can monopolize the Lucena technique — but in the fact that it turns the endgame into a structured course with progression and scores. It turns something that feels dull into something whose progress can be measured.

Another view of "interactivity"

The online education industry lives in an almost religious faith in interactivity. Every course platform speaks of learners "being active", "participating", "getting feedback". ChessBase is no exception when it says interactive options have become indispensable.

But there is a flip side to interactivity that few mention: it can distract. Constantly clicking buttons, choosing answers, waiting for feedback can turn endgame study — an activity requiring silence and deep reflection — into a sequence of superficial tasks resembling a game. Learners feel they are progressing because they are busy, not because they are understanding.

In my documentary work, I have met a similar paradox. Many young reporters believe a good feature is one with lots of moving images, cuts, and effects. My experience says the opposite: the real moment usually lies in a static frame, when the subject is silent for a few seconds.

Applied to the endgame, I would argue the value of an interactive course lies not in the number of exercises but in the quality of feedback when learners err. A system that only says "wrong" is useless; a system that explains why the learner's move was wrong, and why another move was better, truly teaches.

This is the criterion I suggest readers use when judging this product at full release.

The "25 years" trap

The phrase "25 years ago" in the headline has obvious nostalgic appeal. It suggests a long road, a loyalty, a legacy. But nostalgia in marketing has its own traps. A product promoted on an anniversary spirit is easily read by buyers as a "remake" rather than a "new edition".

The question I always ask when reading such notes is: if the product is truly fresh and groundbreaking, why lean on the past as an anchor? People do not print anniversary years on a new invention. They print anniversary years on a legacy.

There is nothing wrong with legacy. But readers need to distinguish between a new product and a reprinted legacy. If the content of this course largely inherits from material Müller has previously published, then the real added value lies in the interactive format and the course system, not in the knowledge inside. That is what readers should expect and verify before deciding.

I once witnessed a sports documentary promoted as a discovery, only for it to turn out that all its material had been used in earlier films by the same director. Viewers were disappointed not because the content was bad, but because they had been given skewed expectations. In this case, I suggest ChessBase disclose clearly the ratio of new to inherited content.

The data gaps that need filling

From the perspective of someone who has followed the chess content market for decades, I see this release note as missing four pieces of information buyers need.

First, price. Every value judgment begins with price. Without that number, no one can say whether this product is worth the money.

Second, content volume. How many hours, how many exercises, what levels can study it, what levels should avoid it?

Third, system requirements. Do the interactive features need the full ChessBase software installed, or can they run in a browser and on mobile? This is a very practical question for Vietnamese learners, many of whom study chess on phones rather than personal computers.

Fourth, the roadmap. If this is the opening of a series, when are later parts expected, and what is the total cost of the full path?

A product confident in its quality is never shy about disclosing these numbers. Silence about them is information in the inverse sense.

What this article is really saying

Putting the whole release note back into its context, I see it not as an ordinary product announcement but as a piece of a long-term strategy ChessBase has pursued since Karsten Müller became the face of its endgame content line.

That strategy has three layers. The first is building an authoritative expert. The second is binding that expert to a long product system. The third is making that product part of the software ecosystem, so that buyers cannot separate it from the platform.

This is how many sports companies around the world have operated for twenty years. They do not sell products; they sell access to ecosystems. Once users are used to studying endgames inside ChessBase's environment, switching to another platform becomes more costly in time and habits.

For Vietnamese chess learners — people like the boy Nguyen Van Hai, whom I followed for two months by the Nha Trang beach in 2026, a 400m talent abandoned by the system for lack of training funds — the question of ecosystem is not just about price. It is about access.

When Hai ran 400m in 47.80 seconds at an amateur meet, what he lacked was not talent but a system capable of finding and guiding talent. It is the same in chess. Whether a good course in Germany can reach a child in a rural Vietnamese province depends on economic and technical infrastructure, not just content quality.

That is why the third layer of that strategy — locking users into the ecosystem — matters more than the first two. ChessBase may build the best content in the world, but whether that content reaches learners far from the center depends on their access policies.

I write this not to criticize. I write because in my career making sports documentaries, I have learned that a sports story is never only the story of the content producer. It is always the story of the receiver — people whose lives might change course if they are handed the right tool.

Every stadium I walk through has a secret door, and the entrance is always a person. With the endgame, that door opens through a book, a course, a patient coach. No grandstand applauds when the door opens, but inside that door, people grow in a way no cheer can replace.

A few words from someone who has sat long enough

In the era of thirty-second videos, I spent three months listening to one man tell me about the 400 meters of 2026. Those three months taught me something no news bulletin could: slowness is not the enemy of truth. Sometimes it is the keeper of the door.

The endgame is the same. There is no flashy moment in holding a Philidor draw when the opponent has a king and pawn. No audience screams when a player executes the correct move order in a complex pawn ending. But precisely in those silences, players learn patience and precision that no opening or middlegame tournament can teach.

Karsten Müller has spent twenty-five years doing one thing: keeping the quiet part of chess spoken about. In an age when everything must be loud to survive, that is a respectable career choice. Even if the specific product still has undisclosed details, the existence of an expert like him remains good news for chess.

A record never grows old; it is only waiting for someone who knows how to listen. So it is with an endgame technique. The Lucena technique dates to the nineteenth century, yet each generation must learn it for the first time, and each generation can learn it in a more interactive, more effective, more accessible way than the last.

That is the entire meaning of a project like the Endgame Academy. It does not reinvent the endgame. It translates the endgame into the language of a new age and hands it to another generation of players.

I will wait to see how much detail the next installment of this course series discloses. I will also wait to see whether chess learners in Vietnam can reach it at a fair price and through equitable access. Those questions are far harder to answer than evaluating a product, but they are the questions that will decide the face of chess in the next ten years.

In the corner of my office, the 2026 VHS still lies in the drawer. Occasionally I take it out, insert it into the old player, and listen again to the voice of that old man. He said the endgame is where people are most honest with themselves. Twenty-five years later, I believe that is still true. And I believe any course that teaches the endgame properly, in Germany or in Vietnam, is doing something honest.