Is Ben Finegold as big a jerk as he seems in his videos?

one of the most annoying things about Ben is the coffee slurping, like man don't drink like a creature

after two nights ago's steam, Ben is da BOSS

you should inhale coffee, so the caffeine gets to the brain more quickly.

...."As you can see my rook is very well placed, if I resign I am already set up for the next game!"

I almost spat coffee onto my keyboard.

It's easy to dislike Ben. He is fat, loud and proud. I found his humour quite amusing (personal choice) and I found his playful jesting with his students to be quite endearing - rather than outright offensive (personal choice).  Yasser, I found, is very soporific (personal choice). The other's mince their words with loads of "erm...", "uh...." and even lacking the command of English necessary to convey some complex ideas. I like Ben's lessons and avoid the others'. Others may disagree.

I once followed Ben into his new chess site only to watch his fat, ugly, face waffle on for ages. Since then I stopped following him and his silly website and just watch his lessons on youtube. I like his lessons...

And by that you mean???

The funniest I ever saw.

I have watched videos by Seirawan, Shahade and many others, but the ONLY ONE who grabbed my attention was Finegold.

Really, a fine piece of gold watching.

I whole-hertedly support him about retreating to h8 with the knight too: really, it is good sometimes.

 I watched a lot of his videos both on Chess.com and also on YouTube. Personally I think he’s funny and I don’t at all think when he teases people he’s being malicious.  

 I remember watching a live game where he was playing against Magnus Carlson.  Magnus Carlson absolutely destroyed him. He typed into the chat room “He [Magnus] plays okay.” 

 People need to lighten up. 

He played his knight on h8, right?

If you don’t like his videos don’t watch them, I find them interesting.

at first after watching videos from the other GM that was more engaging and soft spoken took a while to get used to Ben’s videos, today I prefer Ben’s way of making fun of us and himself and the poor jokes he comes, and best of all everyone has a chance to play him on line.

In my opinion Ben is quite funny, sometimes really funny actually. but I don't believe that he is a particularly good person. And yeah, his eating and drinking like an animal is very annoying lol

 But it is up to you to decide?  I never spoke to whether or not other people feel insulted by him.  I offered my opinion that I don’t think he’s being malicious. 

It is up to the individual whether they feel insulted by anything at all.  Some things are more obviously intended to be insulting, some things are not.  Some things may seem to be insulting but are intended to harmless fun, but people can choose to be insulted by them if they wish.  Etc. etc.

I’ve never even seen him directly insult someone except Simon Williams, and even that I took as a publicity stunt for their “grudge match.” And during the match he was playful and made a lot of self-deprecating jokes. He did say of Magnus Carlsen “He play okay” - arguably the greatest player ever, and after he just got clobbered by him. 

He’s just funny and I guarantee he’s genuinely a nice guy. From what I can tell his classes are always full of students, who I suppose some would argue have masochistic tendencies?

I prefer it when my chess teacher is also a stand up comedian.   

Long live Ben Finegold!

Great thread.  Very informative, er uh, something....

mainly something

I believe he has insulted Mike Kummer about 100 times in a class that is watched by 10 000s of people

plus tax