25 Years of ChessBase and Karsten Müller: Endgame Academy Returns with a Specialist's Legacy

Back in 2026, I sat in a press conference in Delhi and asked a question people called "unlike a woman." They sneered, I wrote my piece bluntly. Today, watching ChessBase launch the Endgame Academy with Karsten Müller, I remember that feeling: people always doubt something too deep, too thorough, until it proves its worth through results. Karsten Müller is not a name that trends on social media. He doesn't score goals, doesn't win trophies, doesn't create viral moments. But in the chess world, Müller is a name anyone serious about endgames must respect. It's been 25 years since ChessBase began working with him, and now they're back with the Endgame Academy — a product described as a "classic" in chess training circles. I'm not surprised. I just wonder: why did it take the market 25 years to recognize what serious chess players have known all along? Michael Kotyk, a young Hamburg chess trainer, was invited by ChessBase to "examine" the course under a magnifying glass. He praised it, and that matters. Kotyk isn't a big name in chess media, isn't someone with hundreds of thousands of followers. He's someone who actually teaches, who works with students daily, and knows what works on the real board. When such a person says a course is good, I listen. But here's what I want to dissect: the Endgame Academy isn't just a video course. It's a statement about methodology. In a market where anyone can record a chess video, ChessBase and Müller are betting on interactivity — interactive options, as they call it. Viewers don't just watch; they participate. They calculate, they answer, they make mistakes and correct them. That's exactly how I learned chess, how I learned football, how I've learned everything in 44 years of observation: not by listening, but by getting it wrong and doing it again. "Checkmate & Pawn Endgames" is the opening module. Logical. Checkmate and pawns are the foundation of every endgame, just like pressing and transitions are the foundation of modern football. You can't understand a high-pressing team without understanding why they trap opponents in a corner. You can't understand endgames without knowing why one extra pawn decides the entire game. Müller doesn't teach you flashy things. He teaches you fundamentals so basic that people usually skip them — and it's precisely those skipped fundamentals that separate a good player from a great one. I could be wrong. Maybe the Endgame Academy isn't the best thing on the market. Maybe there are cheaper, faster, easier-to-digest courses. But I've lived long enough to know one thing: in chess, as in football, there are no shortcuts. Those who try to find shortcuts usually end up somewhere in the middle of the standings, wondering why they never go further. 25 years. That's a long time to build a legacy. And when I look at the Endgame Academy, I see a legacy being passed on — not to a new generation of ChessBase, but to anyone willing to sit down, open a board, and accept that they still have much to learn.