Do you like gottham chess?

Gotham.

He’s entertaining. Sometimes he offers good advice. He’s very smart. Much brighter than most GMs. But, he’s working a gig. He favors the entertainment value of what he says more than the educational value. Don’t believe everything he says. A lot of it is junk. That’s what makes him popular.

Think about it. More opening monographs are sold than books on tactics and endgames, which are what players can benefit from the most.

More McDonald’s, Chick-a-fils, and Papa John’s exist than restaurants that serve food worth eating.

It is the nature of capitalism that the pond’s surface is covered in scum.

Yeah... I agree, It's how it works

Dopamine & Money is valued higher than skill, knowledge & wellbeing

Where can you recommend I learn to become better at chess, any particular books?

Every once in a while he offers some good advice. For example, his recent video on "The one skill you're missing", which is, considering your moves based on your opponent's plan so you don't foolishly blunder, which is great advice. Here's an example.

White completely blanked and forgot about what black wants. Black played a6 specifically to play b5! Playing Bc4 is arguably a mistake, because it directly loses a tempo on b5, which was part of black's plan anyway. White played Bc4 because he wanted to do so. Then, after b5, white was persistent on keeping the bishop on its diagonal and got it trapped- because he completely forgot black wanted to play c4 to trap it.

Here's another example.

This is a pretty common trap in the Tal Variation of the Caro-Kann. Black was supposed to play h5 to stop g4- but he wanted to autopilot his opening and just do what he wanted to do. After e6, he got his bishop trapped, because he forgot that white played h4 to gain kingside space and trap the bishop if e6 was ever to be played.

Advice like this is very good for a beginner and his chess teacher side really showed itself on that one. But then there's the garbage. "You guys are pea-brained and you can't understand basic opening lines! The Sicilian is bad because theory is bad! Play the Caro-Kann because I played it when I was 15! Crush everyone with this refuted gambit!"

This is the reason I stopped watching GothamChess opening videos. He acts like the Caro-Kann is the only good response to e4. I get that he has a bit of rightful bias because he played it when he was 15 and had good responses, but he went as far as to say the Caro-Kann was better than the Sicilian because the Sicilian has too much theory. What? Firstly, all the sidelines he mentions that make up that "insane amount of theory" are terrible for white, and secondly, I learned the Najdorf Sicilian in 2-3 days. 9 entire mainlines. Bg5, Be3, Be2, Bc4, f3, f4, g3, h3, and Rg1. I daresay it was easy. I'm 900, by the way- part of the group GothamChess calls pea-brained. GothamChess says there's too much theory but he barely knows anything about the Sicilian. There's a lot of lines with a low amount of theory- it's equal to the Caro-Kann! There's a few lines with a lot of theory in the Caro. In the Sicilian, you have to know your Open Sicilian- Which doesn't have to be the Najdorf or the Dragon, by the way, it can be something simple, like the Classical or the Kan- the Closed Sicilian (Excruciatingly easy to learn btw), the Smith-Morra, the Grand Prix, and maybe the Wing Gambit. That's it. The funny part is, you're probably not gonna get a dangerous line like the Smith-Morra because nobody actually knows how to play against the Sicilian until quite a bit past 1000. The Sicilian is a great counterattacking weapon that everyone should explore once in a while. You can't say it's bad because it has a bit of theory!

Second problem with him. He recommends terrible gambits claiming "you'll win fast with them." In one of his recent shorts, he just randomly started explaining the Englund Gambit- a refuted opening that can get black into very poor positions. This also links to the third problem- he's only there for the money. He started making shorts clipping his interview with WIRED from a year ago. He's out of content! He has nothing to give anymore! He just makes shorts explaining random openings and clipping year-old interviews because he's run out of fuel. Sooner or later his channel's going to die and he knows it, desperately trying to keep it running as long as he can. Back to the second problem- remember the tier list video he made with Hikaru? He put the Danish Gambit in legendary above the Ruy Lopez. Why? He thinks his fans are such terrible players that he thinks he can get them free ELO by giving them little tricks (and the Ruy Lopez also goes with the "Theory is bad!" thing). Then his fans get surprised why their skills don't match anyone their ELO- because they farm ELO by playing tricks and not actual chess. Meanwhile, their opponents fairly got to where they are now, and built experience. I still see people my level playing the Scholar's Mate and I easily crush them. Or, maybe, a little bit of a conspiracy theory, he knows his fans will win a lot of games with those traps until they double their ELO, so his fans will think he's a genius and will immediately subscribe, going along with the third problem with greed. In that case, it would be genius to rank the Danish Gambit above the Ruy Lopez to give his fans a false sense of superiority because they "play the better opening," making them like him more. I could feel Hikaru's pain when Levy forced Hikaru to rank the Najdorf in legit under the Hillbilly Attack.

Overall- I don't really like him as an opening teacher, but I like him as an actual chess teacher. He has some pretty unsound opening advice for the most part (of course, he's good with opening principles like "get your pieces out and castle early" etc.), but his middlegame and endgame advice is strong and worth listening to.

Every once in a while he offers some good advice. For example, his recent video on "The one skill you're missing", which is, considering your moves based on your opponent's plan so you don't foolishly blunder, which is great advice. Here's an example.

White completely blanked and forgot about what black wants. Black played a6 specifically to play b5! Playing Bc4 is arguably a mistake, because it directly loses a tempo on b5, which was part of black's plan anyway. White played Bc4 because he wanted to do so. Then, after b5, white was persistent on keeping the bishop on its diagonal and got it trapped- because he completely forgot black wanted to play c4 to trap it.

Here's another example.

This is a pretty common trap in the Tal Variation of the Caro-Kann. Black was supposed to play h5 to stop g4- but he wanted to autopilot his opening and just do what he wanted to do. After e6, he got his bishop trapped, because he forgot that white played h4 to gain kingside space and trap the bishop if e6 was ever to be played.

Advice like this is very good for a beginner and his chess teacher side really showed itself on that one. But then there's the garbage. "You guys are pea-brained and you can't understand basic opening lines! The Sicilian is bad because theory is bad! Play the Caro-Kann because I played it when I was 15! Crush everyone with this refuted gambit!"

This is the reason I stopped watching GothamChess opening videos. He acts like the Caro-Kann is the only good response to e4. I get that he has a bit of rightful bias because he played it when he was 15 and had good responses, but he went as far as to say the Caro-Kann was better than the Sicilian because the Sicilian has too much theory. What? Firstly, all the sidelines he mentions that make up that "insane amount of theory" are terrible for white, and secondly, I learned the Najdorf Sicilian in 2-3 days. 9 entire mainlines. Bg5, Be3, Be2, Bc4, f3, f4, g3, h3, and Rg1. I daresay it was easy. I'm 900, by the way- part of the group GothamChess calls pea-brained. GothamChess says there's too much theory but he barely knows anything about the Sicilian. There's a lot of lines with a low amount of theory- it's equal to the Caro-Kann! There's a few lines with a lot of theory in the Caro. In the Sicilian, you have to know your Open Sicilian- Which doesn't have to be the Najdorf or the Dragon, by the way, it can be something simple, like the Classical or the Kan- the Closed Sicilian (Excruciatingly easy to learn btw), the Smith-Morra, the Grand Prix, and maybe the Wing Gambit. That's it. The funny part is, you're probably not gonna get a dangerous line like the Smith-Morra because nobody actually knows how to play against the Sicilian until quite a bit past 1000. The Sicilian is a great counterattacking weapon that everyone should explore once in a while. You can't say it's bad because it has a bit of theory!

Second problem with him. He recommends terrible gambits claiming "you'll win fast with them." In one of his recent shorts, he just randomly started explaining the Englund Gambit- a refuted opening that can get black into very poor positions. This also links to the third problem- he's only there for the money. He started making shorts clipping his interview with WIRED from a year ago. He's out of content! He has nothing to give anymore! He just makes shorts explaining random openings and clipping year-old interviews because he's run out of fuel. Sooner or later his channel's going to die and he knows it, desperately trying to keep it running as long as he can. Back to the second problem- remember the tier list video he made with Hikaru? He put the Danish Gambit in legendary above the Ruy Lopez. Why? He thinks his fans are such terrible players that he thinks he can get them free ELO by giving them little tricks (and the Ruy Lopez also goes with the "Theory is bad!" thing). Then his fans get surprised why their skills don't match anyone their ELO- because they farm ELO by playing tricks and not actual chess. Meanwhile, their opponents fairly got to where they are now, and built experience. I still see people my level playing the Scholar's Mate and I easily crush them. Or, maybe, a little bit of a conspiracy theory, he knows his fans will win a lot of games with those traps until they double their ELO, so his fans will think he's a genius and will immediately subscribe, going along with the third problem with greed. In that case, it would be genius to rank the Danish Gambit above the Ruy Lopez to give his fans a false sense of superiority because they "play the better opening," making them like him more. I could feel Hikaru's pain when Levy forced Hikaru to rank the Najdorf in legit under the Hillbilly Attack.

Overall- I don't really like him as an opening teacher, but I like him as an actual chess teacher. He has some pretty unsound opening advice for the most part (of course, he's good with opening principles like "get your pieces out and castle early" etc.), but his middlegame and endgame advice is strong and worth listening to.