A 75-Year-Old Move, a 35-Year-Old Victory, and a 60-Minute Business: The Price of Memory Being Sold in the Name of the Scotch Opening

While reading about Tegernsee, one odd thing kept nagging at me. The headline about the Bavarian Championship's opening rounds said it plainly — "no big upsets early on." That was it. No standings, no pairings, no grandmaster's name. And on the same page, something else was running below it — Garry Kasparov, Anatoly Karpov, the 2026 World Championship, and a coach's 60-minute video selling "simple practical tips" against the Scotch Opening. Two different worlds on one page, with no bridge between them.

I have sat in the chess press box for twenty-nine years. I saw the era when opening books sold as DVDs, and I have seen that same knowledge become a subscription course. This page showed me both eras at once. And honestly, what stung most wasn't Tegernsee. It was this: an opening's price is not set by its theory, it is set by its memory.

The Scotch takes its name from the 1824 Edinburgh–London correspondence match. Which means the move is two hundred years old and has been played ever since. But the page I was sitting on began the Scotch's story in 2026 — as if nothing had happened before. That is not a historical error; it is a marketing necessity. If you want to sell something, you must first turn it into a "problem." And the easiest route to making the Scotch a problem is Kasparov.

In 2026, in New York and Lyon, Kasparov played the Scotch against Karpov and won the match 12½–11½. That fact is correct. But it was being presented as though Kasparov had "invented" the Scotch. He hadn't. In the Soviet era, Scotch Four Knights and 4...Bc5 lines appeared regularly. Kasparov's contribution was that he made it mainstream — not that he created it from nothing. Popularising and inventing — the difference between these two is constantly erased in chess marketing.

Now look at the video's construction. "60 minutes" — this is no television segment, it is a fixed-runtime product from the DVD era. What is mentioned suggests this text is from around 2026 — the reference to "25 years ago" against 2026 points exactly there. And here the biggest question arises. If this advice dates from 2026, then the Scotch's theory has since gone through roughly a decade of engine-driven work. Today, for Black, the 4...Bc5 and 4...Nf6 lines are far more refined than they were. A "simple tip" from 2026 is about as current as a 2026 smartphone.

I am not saying this into empty air. Over recent years, I have seen many club-level players prepare from old videos and then stand baseless by move twelve in rapid. Under classical time controls, old advice survives somewhat, because there you can think. But in rapid and blitz you are betting on memorised lines, and in the engine era those lines have a very short lifespan. Knowledge built for thinking has been sold for memorising — that is the real deception.

But here I must step back from my own argument, because leaving the matter at "old product" would be easy and wrong.

Suppose this advice is from 2026 and some lines are now obsolete. Does the whole thing have no value? No, saying that would also be wrong. And this is where the most common mistake is made. The basic framework the author teaches against the Scotch — occupying the centre, completing development, avoiding isolated-pawn endings — none of this changes with engine updates. This is chess's permanent grammar. Lines age; principles do not. In my career I have seen many coaches whose theory books were two decades old, yet their players, produced by those principles, still stand strong today. Adrian Mikhalchishin comes from that same Soviet school tradition — his credibility is built not on rating but on coaching, and that is exactly the right credential for a repertoire video.

But credibility and accuracy are two different things. I say this because the entire source contains not a single move, not a single variation, not a single engine evaluation. What is there is a claim — "simple practical tips" — and a name. That's all. I cannot judge the video's quality, because I have nothing to judge it with. And that is the most honest conclusion this whole page offers.

Now back to the Tegernsee news, because it is a story in itself. The Bavarian Championship is a state-level event, outside the FIDE championship circuit. It has no Candidates path. Yes, by convention state champions enter the German national championship — that is the general rule of federal structures, even if the source doesn't mention it. But "no upsets in the opening rounds" — that sentence is the emptiest sentence in chess journalism. It means the higher-rated players won. Which players? Which ratings? What happened on which board? The page has nothing. A report without standings is not a report; it is atmosphere.

And this is the thing that troubles me most. For several years now I have watched how chess content is presented. Streams on Twitter, channels on YouTube, courses on subscription — the knowledge-supply world has completely changed. And in that same world, a page exists that has perhaps been running unchanged since 2026. This is no technical glitch. It is the residue of an economy — the era when a product was made once and sold for years, because alternatives were few. Today the alternatives are many, and their lifespan is measured in months.

I remember once, at a local tournament in Kolkata, watching a teenage player prepare against the Scotch from an old grandmaster's book. He said his coach had told him, "This book is very good, it has everything." I asked how old the book was. He said, "I don't know, but my coach had the same one." This is the real chain — knowledge passes from generation to generation, but its age is never visible to anyone.

Now the most common mistake — and I have made it myself many times, which is how I recognise it. Whenever content on an opening like the Scotch appears, people immediately jump to "is this theory correct?" But that is not the real question. The real question is: who is this content aimed at? This video is not for an elite 2700 player. It is for the club player who plays 1.e4 e5 and panics at the Scotch. And for that player, learning the right structure — centre, development, pawn structure — is worth more than any engine line. At elite level, theory's age is measured in months; at club level, principle's age is not measured at all.

So are coaches like Mikhalchishin losing their place? I don't think so. Their credibility decays slowly, like good old wine running low. Kasparov's 2026 stature is the kind of capital no new result can invalidate. A history once made can be sold again and again.

But here I must ask myself a sharp question. We all get so caught up in the "classic versus modern" debate that the real thing slips away. The source contains not a single player, no recent result, no standings. Astrological pronouncements are easy; evidence is zero. I can call that video neither good nor bad. And that honesty is required. When content manufactures a problem to tell its buyer, it should at least tell them when the problem dates from.

Finally, one thought from seeing the two halves of that page — we should stop reading chess like a museum of memories, and start treating the economy of its content with the same seriousness with which we measure the depth of move twelve. The early rounds are running in Tegernsee, and no "big upset" is visible there. Perhaps on that same day some club player pulled out an old DVD. He has paid money, and he still doesn't know whether his preparation is obsolete. The real question is not whether the Scotch is dangerous. The real question is why we so easily accept that old knowledge will always work.