OK, your "argument " was based on other people's suffering. Either way your "argument" is invalid.
Is Ben Finegold as big a jerk as he seems in his videos?
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More proof there must be something wrong with me. 
He's one of my favorite video authors. 
okayyyy...
I don't think he's a jerk.
Jerking is good for losing weight.
You gotta have a laugh man!
Chess rage is unheard of.
lolurspammed wrote:
Mike Kummer needs to be fired. He damages kids' understanding more than he helps it. I'm surprised he's even 1770 rated, considering he thinks the QGD is a blunder and the two knights defence is refuted by Ng5.
Oh God, just watched one of his videos. Direct quote "A GM once told me never trade pieces." That was the end of his sentence. He insisted that every single queen's gambit player's idea with 2.c4 was that after 2...dxc4 3.e4 like it was the main main mainline. He says both e3 and e6 were bad in the QGD where they were both good and outwardly critized 2...e6 but makes no comment about 2.Nf6.
How did they let him back in that place?
Wow. Mike Kummer is really friggin' bad. Backyard Prof bad.
Aug 12, 2015
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#69
I like Ben Finegold's videos and watch both his St.Louis Club videos and also his youtube channel.
FInegold makes fun of himself too if you notice. His teaching style is humbling, and he always reminds me that chess isn't about ego, it's about the journey of improvement and having fun. I enjoy his humor and often laigh out loud at what he says, and I'm not someone who does that very often.
I also like Mike Kummer, he's not master level but I still learn from his videos and find him amusing.
Damn loosen up you guys, Finegold is awesome and his humour will grow on you if you don't get it, he is also sincere, self-deprecating & obviously tongue in cheek. Look up the definition of humour, oh wait if you have to explain a joke it kills it... Yasser to me is boring as hell, but that's just my preference, he is popular and knowledgeable so good luck to him, man live and let live, not everyone likes watching the same things.
Dec 9, 2015
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#71
xoxo_Smudge_xoxo wrote:
I'm not familiar with the word 'jerk'
It's when you take the derivative of acceleration in arithmetic.
Dec 9, 2015
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#73
In defense of entertaining teachers, some of the best, most loved teachers I know are entertainers. In some ways, it's a matter of style.
Finegold does entertain, but he doesn't always keep the students' needs in mind. There's a line that good teachers don't cross. They don't put entertainment ahead of learning. There's an art to keeping students engaged in learning. That's the real problem. Entertainment is a fine tool if it has a deeper purpose.
Dec 9, 2015
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#74
Lack's confidence? Not sure. He's a GM lecturing amateurs on the lower rated side. With no prep he could probably take a blitz game I played and still make it instructional.
Dec 9, 2015
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#75
Oh, lack self confidence as a person maybe. Lacks confidence in the material I'm not so sure. I mean sometimes he's going over classic games and making the usual remarks. Not sure how he could lack confidence on that front.
Dec 9, 2015
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#76
I mean, I think he just looks down on his audience most of the time. Sometimes he'll ask for a move and the audience gives TERRIBLE suggestions... I think he's just really bored.
They could easily have people rated 2000 doing those lectures. GMs is huge overkill but the club has the money to do it... this is my opinion on it anyway.
If you're worried about a joker's confidence level, laugh at his jokes. That's how that works. IMO Finegold is an excellent teacher and funny. I like Seirawan too and many of the others but not all, some are too dry and don't explain well. That club does feature one bad teacher at the risk of going off topic.
Dec 9, 2015
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#78
GMKimJong-Un wrote:
If his chess teaching business fails one day, he could consider taking up a career as back up rapper doing the doubling live:
LOL! THAT WAS FUNNY!
I wonder how much they drunk that night to do that. :) Anyway, thanks for sharing, much appreciated! :)
I like Ben Finegold. He actually reminds me quite a lot of a science teacher I had in elementary school. His interactions with the class were usually peppered with sarcasm and jokes in the same way Fingold's lectures are. And I can assure you that none of us students ever felt talked down to, or insulted by him. By contrast to many of the more "plesant" and coddling teachers I had, he had a way of cutting through the bullsh*t, driving home the idea's he was teaching, and of making us want to learn it.
It must have been tough without a dad or mom. However, this is not a contest about whose childhood was worse. * I still believe that insulting kids is wrong,even if some have a sophisticated sense of humor.
* "Normal people" are those you do not know very well. In other words, no one had a childhood without abuse. Perhaps not as bad as your childhood. But still you should not just assume that no one has suffered as much as you. I can tell stories about my childhood,but I choose not too and also not use those stories to win a silly chess.com debate.