Below about 1500 a course is optional in common coaching advice (not a seller claim), because the London is a low-theory system and free material covers the basic setup. If you do want a course, the best-documented ones on public pages are Simon Williams's ChessBase course (7h 16m by its description, with Black's replies listed chapter by chapter) and Elisabeth Pähtz's newer ChessBase course, whose listed hours conflict. Williams works out at about €4 per listed hour (using the 7h 16m description; the page also says "approx. 4-8 hrs" in its delivery list), against about €20 for Modern Chess's Classical London Part 1. Prices are as of 8 November 2026.
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Test depth: Public information only. Nobody at ChessCourseFinder has taken these courses. This page is based on published documentation, pricing and reports read on 8 November 2026. How we review explains the limits.
How we picked
We kept courses where a public page gives at least three of four things: a known running time, a dated price, a list of Black replies or chapters, and a publication date. Catalogue research found 15 distinct paid London courses across Chessable, ChessBase, TheChessWorld and Udemy; Modern Chess's London courses, which we read for this update, sit on top of that count. Counts are lower bounds, because Chessable and TheChessWorld could not be fully read. Courses for Black against the London are a different job and are left out. For the sharper Nc3 version see Jobava London courses.
Do you need a course at your level?
Below about 1500, a course is optional in common coaching advice: the London asks you to learn one piece setup and a short list of Black replies, and playing the system first shows which Black replies you actually meet. That is received coaching wisdom, not something these sellers claim. A course starts to earn its cost when you keep getting the same bad position against one reply, for example a ...Qb6 attack on b2 or an early ...Bf5, and want an organised answer. Free options that cover the same ground are listed further down.
Theory load
The London has one of the lighter memorisation loads among 1.d4 systems at club level, by coaching convention. You play roughly the same set-up against most replies, so the work is knowing a handful of Black plans and the typical middlegame ideas, not long forcing lines. The cost is that the same pieces go to the same squares, and opponents who prepare ...c5 and ...Qb6 or a ...Nh5 bishop challenge can make that predictability uncomfortable. Treat "low theory" as relative: a 650-line course is still a lot to learn. Modern Chess's own Low-Theory page says the opening "does not promise White an advantage", which is a useful thing for a seller to admit.
The move-order choice sellers treat as a footnote
The first decision is whether you play 2.Bf4 or 2.Nf3, and the courses split on it:
| Course | Move order on the page |
|---|---|
| Williams, Pähtz | 2.Bf4 straight away |
| Papaioannou (Modern Chess) | 2.Bf4, with 2.Nf3 "discussed, with its trade-offs explained" |
| Dreev and Basso (Modern Chess) | 1.d4 d5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Bf4 |
The orders often meet: 1.d4 d5 2.Bf4 Nf6 3.Nf3 and 1.d4 d5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Bf4 reach the same position. They differ when Black gets in an early ...c5. Wikipedia reports Kiril Georgiev's point that delaying Nf3 avoids the line 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Bf4 c5 4.e3 Nc6 5.c3 Qb6 6.Qb3 c4 7.Qc2 Bf5, where White must retreat the queen to c1, and quotes Johnsen and Kovačević that after 2.Nf3 c5 3.Bf4?! cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nd7 Black "may already be better". Those are named authors' opinions as summarised on Wikipedia. Dreev and Basso answer the same issue differently, recommending 5.Nbd2 instead of 5.c3, as our Modern Chess review explains, and they leave the ...Qb6 lines to Part 2.
The second point is that "the London" is not one repertoire against every first move. On the replies our TheChessWorld review collects from Lichess, the shares run 2...Nf6 ahead of 2...Nc6, 2...e6 and 2...Bf5, but those all start from 1...d5. Against 1...Nf6 with ...g6 or ...d6, Wikipedia lists a King's Indian-type defence as a standard reply and notes that White may prefer the king's bishop on e2 rather than d3, so your usual set-up changes. Against 1...f5 a London set-up is a different question again.
Pähtz's course also asks for c4 in about eight contents entries (our count from the ChessBase contents list on 8 November 2026; see also our review of her course), which matters if you bought a London to avoid queen's gambit structures.
Coverage matrix
"Listed" means the seller's page names that reply. "Not named" means it is not in the chapter titles or description we read, and we have not inferred coverage from a title.
| Black plan | Williams (ChessBase) | Pähtz (ChessBase) | Dreev and Basso, Parts 1 and 2 (Modern Chess) | Papaioannou (Modern Chess) | Liem, Astaneh, Hambleton (Chessable) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ...Bf5 early | Listed (1...d5 2.Bf4 Bf5) | Listed (...Bf5 systems) | Listed (chapter titles, by move) | Listed (...Bf5 and ...Bg4 set-ups) | Not named |
| ...c5 and ...Qb6 pressure | Listed (...c5, ...Qb6 ideas) | Listed (...Qb6 and Qxb2 tactics) | Listed, Part 2, chapters 1 to 8 | Listed ("Critical line with Qb6") | Not named |
| ...e6 or QGD-style set-ups | Listed | Listed (QGD set-ups) | Listed (Part 2, 3...e6) | Listed (...d5, ...e6, ...Nf6, ...Bd6) | Not named |
| ...Nh5 against the bishop | Listed | Listed (...Nh5 systems) | Listed, Part 1 | Listed | Not named |
| ...g6 with ...d5 | Listed (2...g6 3.Nc3 d5) | Listed, under Neo-London references | Not named | Listed (...g6 set-ups) | Not named |
| ...g6 and ...d6, King's Indian style | Listed (2...d6 3.Nc3/Nf3) | Not named | Not named | Listed ("King's Indian-style") | Not named |
| 1...f5 Dutch | Listed | Not named | Not named | Not named | Not named |
Modern Chess publishes chapter titles labelled by move rather than by plan, so the Part 1 entries (for example 8...b6, 8...Qe7, 8...Re8, 8...g6, 5...cxd4 6.exd4 Bf5, and 6...cxd4 7.exd4 Nh5) were mapped to these rows from their move notation. Hambleton's announcement says only that the course is a full repertoire against 1.d4 with a "London killers" chapter.
Best-documented courses
All figures are as shown on 8 November 2026. Confirm prices on the seller's page before paying. The Modern Chess rows and quotations were read earlier that day; a later re-check returned HTTP 429, we did not retry, and they were not re-confirmed. "Cost per hour" is our calculation from the listed price and listed running time, not a quality measure, and listed hours are not study time.
| Course | Author, seller | Price | Listed length | Evidence | Limits |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The London System with 2.Bf4 Reloaded | Simon Williams, ChessBase, Oct 2019 | €29.90 | 7h 16m (about €4.11 per hour) | Page read | Page also says "approx. 4-8 hrs" in its delivery list; the per-hour figure uses the 7h 16m description. Page says "Advanced, Tournament player, Professional"; 2019 material. |
| Mastering the London System | Elisabeth Pähtz, ChessBase, March 2026 | €59.90 incl. EU VAT | Conflicting: 13 hours in the description, "approx. 4-8 hrs" in the delivery list | Page read | Hours cannot be priced per hour. ChessBase's own review (a vendor-owned site) gives 4/5 and notes one missing line. |
| The London System, A Low-Theory Repertoire for White | GM Ioannis Papaioannou, Modern Chess, 21 Jun 2026 | €99 | 4h, two lectures plus model games (about €24.75 per hour) | Page read | Model-game format, so less line-by-line detail by design; all sales final. |
| The Classical London System, Part 1 and Part 2 | GMs Dreev and Basso, Modern Chess, Jun and Jul 2026 | €99 each, €198 together | 4h 52m and 4h 21m, 9h 13m in all (about €21.48 per hour) | Page read | Part 1 alone leaves out ...Qb6, so plan on both; all sales final. |
| Lifetime Repertoires: Liem's London System | GM Liem Quang Le, Chessable | $49.99 (includes 1h 23m of video); $179.98 with all video | 13h 55m video, 208 variations (about $12.93 per video hour at the $179.98 price) | Page read | Base price includes only 1h 23m of the 13h 55m. |
| 100 Repertoires: London System | IM Alex Astaneh, Chessable | $29.99 (includes 2h 30m of video); $199.98 with all video | 18h 20m video, 106 variations (about $10.91 per video hour at the $199.98 price) | Page read | Base price includes only 2h 30m of the 18h 20m. |
| Aman Hambleton's London System | GM Aman Hambleton, Chessable | Not stated | "More than 650 trainable lines", "almost 50 hours" of video (announcement) | Chess.com announcement read; seller page not opened | Exact title unconfirmed; no price or level. |
| London System: Raise Your Elo Rating | TheChessWorld | $49 | Not seen | As shown in search listings on 8 November 2026; we could not open the product page directly | Pairs the London with endgame and positional chapters, per the listing. |
ChessBase also sells a "60 Minutes" micro-course on the London (Henrik Danielsen, €9.90). It is short by design. The ChessBase pages we opened give no sale prices. Modern Chess's terms, updated 29 December 2025, say all sales are final once access is given. See reviews of Pähtz's course, Modern Chess's Part 1, Hambleton's course and TheChessWorld's, or compare cost per hour with the price-per-hour calculator.
Who should skip a course for the London
Skip it if you are new to the system, if you play fewer than a few games a week with it, or if your losses come from tactics rather than the opening. A low-theory system choice is also covered on our low-theory repertoire page.
Free and cheaper routes
Free study covers similar ground: the opening explorer and public studies on Lichess (see Lichess studies and practice) show what players at your level reply, and our list of free Chessable courses shows what free repertoire material exists, including a general 1.d4 repertoire course. For a book instead of a video, Forward Chess's July 2026 guide puts Oscar de Prado's The London System in 12 Practical Lessons and Cyrus Lakdawala's Chess Opening Repertoire: The London System first for club players. Forward Chess sells those ebooks, so read that as a shop's list.
What the seller's pages do not tell you
- Levels do not help. The Williams page says "Advanced, Tournament player, Professional", the same label we saw on ChessBase courses for far sharper openings, so it tells a 1000 player nothing.
- Only the two ChessBase pages describe Black's replies mainly by plan. Modern Chess labels chapters by move or by set-up, and Chessable's pages give variation counts and hours, not which replies are covered.
- Chessable's base price includes only a little video (1h 23m and 2h 30m on the two pages we read). The full-video price is about $130 to $170 higher.
- The Pähtz hours conflict, and the ChessBase review we found is from the vendor's own site.
If you are unsure how to weigh these, see how to choose a chess course and the openings hub.
Original test pending
We have not run an original test of any London course. A real test would record whether the chapters match the replies players actually face at your rating, how much of the listed time is lecture and how much is exercises, and how each course handles the ...Qb6 and ...Bf5 lines.
Sources
- ChessBase: The London System with 2.Bf4 Reloaded (Simon Williams)
- ChessBase: Mastering the London System (Elisabeth Pahtz)
- ChessBase news review of Mastering the London System (vendor-owned site)
- Modern Chess: The Classical London System for White, Part 1
- Modern Chess: The Classical London System for White, Part 2
- Modern Chess: The London System, A Low-Theory Repertoire for White (Papaioannou)
- Modern Chess: Terms (updated 29 December 2025)
- Chessable: Lifetime Repertoires: Liem's London System
- Chessable: 100 Repertoires: London System
- Chess.com news: Aman Hambleton's London System course (announcement)
- ChessBase shop: London System listing page
- Wikipedia: London System
- Forward Chess: Best London System chess books (July 2026)