The Backyard Professor

Your argument amounts to "who cares as long as it's not the worst thing ever."

Even if you could prove Islam is "the worst thing ever" it's a pathetic argument, never mind that it injects religion into the topic for no reason.

Off the top of my head there are at least 3 other fundamentally dumb things about your post, plus I can tell you that your first guess about what even one of those 3 is, is wrong, lol

Over 1200 articles on my blog. Most are of good quality. 

Four self-published chess books on Amazon.

Yes, been teaching college 26 years since getting the terminal degree (and taught most of the way through grad school before that).

I don’t dislike Kerry Shirts. He seems to be a genuinely nice guy. I know folks personally who know him personally, and they have not indicated otherwise.

I do disagree with people who are really bad at something putting themselves forward as teachers. I consider it worth my time to expose frauds. BYP is a fraud.

As Mark Twain never said, “it ain’t what you don’t know that gets you in trouble; it’s what you know that ain’t so.” The more you take in the drivel of fraudulent teachers like Shirts, the more your chess “knowledge” will hinder your improvement.

I agree. His positional play IS decent, its just the way he explains the concepts I find "fundamentally incorrect" (in his words)

When life hands you a llamo, make llamonade?

Kerry Shirts. Sub-800 rated USCF player (only two tournaments). Guy with some video production skills and a high school education* who likes to call himself a professor.

*Idaho has one of the worst public school systems in the US.

It appears your guess was I like Islam, or at least I'd like to name one good thing about it.

So, unsurprisingly, as I predicted your one guess was wrong.

I still have 3 fundamentally stupid things about your earlier post. I'm also not interested in sharing those, because people like you don't care about logic, you care about emotions. You want to talk about how you feel and then you want me to talk about how I feel.

It's the same with BYP. Objectively he's horrible, but people feel things about him, so they concoct ludicrous reasons to justify it e.g. "he's actually good at teaching."

lol at that footnote, so harsh, I like it

BYP (obviously) has charisma.

So what's wrong with just being honest? Say something like "By any chess related criteria his videos are no good, but I really like his personality. I even like the character he plays (the archetypal old wise man). He's the kind of guy I'd like to hang out with and chat about anything and everything."

See, that would be honest.

It's not my opinion that "as long as it's not the worst thing ever who cares" is dumb. It's a fact. Additionally my explanation of that was not vague.

And to top it all off, my guess of how you'd react was not wrong.

You think this kind of interaction is fun for me? It's depressing.

In fact it's one of the reasons I've so frequently deleted my chess.com accounts heh.

Islamic scholars kept Greek science alive through the European Dark Ages. After the Christians retook Toledo, Spain, Greek classics were translated from Arabic into Latin, laying the foundation for the Renaissance.

A Muslim former slave from Baghdad introduced chess to Europe when he arrived in Cordoba in 822. His nickname was Ziryab.

European civilization is built on a foundation constructed by Islam.

It might be interesting to share a pitcher of beer with him. But, he’s a member of a religious cult that shuns alcohol. That particular cult practically rules Idaho.

I hear their potato vodka is highly praised!

I thought he had a falling out with that church and that's part of the reason he started making chess videos. Honestly it's been so long I don't remember how much of that is fact and how much is my imagination.

I like how you brought if full circle though. A long time ago out of curiosity I watched one of his religious videos. I'm a pretty strident atheist but I'm often interested in what and why people believe.

I like that guy's channel. Definitely now not the strongest player, but I like that his style of presentation is a lot much less dry than different Youtube chess channels. It's additionally fantastic to see a channel targetting beginners that prefer to improve.

Evidence for crediting Silman with "some nonsense that's found nowhere in his books" or retract your statement and issue a full public apology and forever hold your tongue!

https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/the-backyard-professor?page=23

Why spongey you treacherous dog! Vain appeals to semantics will not shield you from the BYP awesomeness!  He is a disciple of your hero Silman, you should be glad!