The Greek Gift: Lecture by GM Ben Finegold

Рет қаралды 40,408

11 ай бұрын

Check out Ben's Chessable courses here! www.chessable.com/author/BenF... In this lecture, GM Ben Finegold explains The Greek Gift and analyzes a few games. This lecture was recorded December 17, 2017 in the U1400 Class at CCSCATL..
Games Discussed:
Avrukh, Boris vs. Ramesh, Ramachandran, Ubeda (2001)
Greco vs. NN (1620)
Rufus vs. Dufus
Finegold, Ben vs. 1500 Player
Originally posted on the CCSCATL channel, but moved here for channel consolidation.
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Пікірлер: 85

@Nn-3 11 ай бұрын

Thanks for showing the game I played vs Greco in 1620.

@manulschluggert1171 10 ай бұрын

Respect

@pabloduque579 10 ай бұрын

Respect x2

@mcronrn 11 ай бұрын

Funny thing is that position in the first game where black castled has been reached 1700+ times of Lichess. Bxh7+ was played 570 times. 🤣🤷🏻‍♂️🙏

@gibraltar5059 11 ай бұрын

My favourite GM, mr. Gift.

@bombrix5195 11 ай бұрын

True old-schoolers will get The Ken West joke

@adilbrohi2799 11 ай бұрын

Grandmaster Ken West** show some respect to the legend

@alexlaporta6393 11 ай бұрын

I didn't get it, maybe I'm too young or it's just that I ain't from the US... could you explain it to me please?

@sanjeevkhurana6628 10 ай бұрын

@@alexlaporta6393watch some Saint louis lectures of Finegold. You will get it by just watching two I guess. He would mention him in one of those.

@tetrisbit 10 ай бұрын

@@alexlaporta6393 ken west was a player that used to come to all of ben's lectures. there was a recurring joke that he is a GM, as he is a good player, and everybody pokes fun at his chess knowledge, hence the "GM" title.

@alexlaporta6393 10 ай бұрын

@@tetrisbit Oh, I see, thanks!

@stevenanderson7046 11 ай бұрын

9 times out of 10 Finegold is hilarious!

@TheToxicBishop 11 ай бұрын

That "let me hook you up" line at 21:35 cracked me the fuck up!😂 💔

@SevenTheJester 10 ай бұрын

Ben talking about en passant being complicated reminded me of a funny(ish) story that I'd like to share with y'all. I was in the county jail once (I only mention that because it's relevant to the story), and I almost got into an actual fistfight with someone over the en passant rule. I had white and had already castled short, so he started pushing his H pawn, with the intention of destroying my pawn structure and opening up a line to my king. I played a couple of general improving moves while he played h5 and h4, and then when he played h3, I responded with the obvious g3, stopping the progress of his H pawn without having to capture it with my G pawn and open the G file in front of my king. When I played g3, he tried to take my pawn en passant by putting his H pawn on g2! I tried to explain to him that that isn't how the rule works, and he insisted that it is. In his mind, you're never allowed to move a pawn past another pawn without the opponent having the opportunity to capture it. He thought en passant was possible any time you advanced a pawn past another pawn. So then I tried to make him understand by explaining why the en passant rule exists. I explained that when chess was first invented, you could only move your pawns one square, even on their first move, meaning that in order to play e4, you had to play e3 first; that would've been a two-move maneuver. After a while, they realized that this was wasting a whole bunch of time, so they changed the rule to allow a pawn to move two squares on its first move. This change, though, was only intended to speed up the opening, so they had to add the en passant rule to keep from changing other rules or aspects of the game. He wasn't interested. He insisted that I was trying to cheat him, and that I was too embarrassed to admit that I had somehow overlooked his *very* clear intention in pushing his H pawn. I tried to get other people who play chess to explain it, and he wouldn't listen to them, either. And because we were in jail (see, I told you it was relevant) we had no internet access to actually look up the rule. The argument finally ended when I told him that his attempted en passant capture wasn't a valid move, and if he kept insisting that it was, we would just have to abandon the game. His response was to knock the board and all of the pieces (which I had spent a lot of time making) off the table and into the floor, while shouting various obscenities about me cheating and being bad at chess and being too proud to admit I made a mistake. It genuinely almost ended in violence. Over a chess rule dispute. 😂 Also...make sure that you know that, according to grandmaster Finegold, "not doing stuff is important, but knowing the importance of which is more important is more important. Not getting checkmated is the most important." You got that?😂

@independentnature295 10 ай бұрын

There's a lot of "passed pawn" confusion out there in the wild. Also a lot of sensitive egos in jail...

@joelabraham6834 9 ай бұрын

That's crazy. Did you still play after that? I think I'd move lunch table if that happened to me.

@fallintoadream 7 ай бұрын

I watched a documentary about how in the Aryan Brotherhood prison gang, to get in the gang, you have to checkmate someone with En Passant

@LunnarisLP 5 ай бұрын

unsurprisingly people in jail tend to not be great at knowing the rules, which makes keeping them harder as well which might be the reason they are in jail :D

@mitshua 11 ай бұрын

This dude literally googled en passant for us. Holy Hell!

@Geelse_zot 9 ай бұрын

Hey Ben! I won a game today after playing the Greek gift. I knew it was going to work because Black's light squared bishop could not participate. Learned it from this video!

@phildo3668 11 ай бұрын

Don't ask who the whistle blows for, it blows for thee

@phildo3668 11 ай бұрын

Alternatively GRANDMASTER MAKES AN ILLEGAL MOVE 🤣😭🤣😭⁉️⁉️

@kingpin1199 11 ай бұрын

first. this is the greatest moment of my life. (ive had a tough life)

@gizmo7597 10 ай бұрын

24:34 “my knight takes your queen en passant” brilliant

@dixonbeejay Ай бұрын

Absolute legend how the hell can I learn when I'm on the ground rolling around in laughter 😂😂 I just can't stop laughing🤦‍♂️🤣🤣your an absolute legend ❤️

@Bach432hz 11 ай бұрын

Thanks for the great content!!

@michaelf8221 11 ай бұрын

Ben's older now than he's ever been

@TheRicoCallao 4 ай бұрын

Amazing video. Thanks Maestro

@user-xk8pv8cg6s 10 ай бұрын

37 years old i feel like the kid in the back of the class

@shadourow-bathory6965 11 ай бұрын

14:40 "Did anybody ever tell you to walk your king up the board in the opening ?" "Yes !!" "No."

@dixonbeejay Ай бұрын

You are the bestest GM ever Mr finegold bloody amazing

@dashyz3293 10 ай бұрын

Marvelous thumbnail, MISTER Finegold.

@not2tired 10 ай бұрын

I thought my favorite topic was the Greek Liver Attack

@codylee2818 11 ай бұрын

Why isn't the Greek gift a knight sac?

@helenvurcevic5550 11 ай бұрын

You gain a tempo by attacking immediately with the bishop, checking the king.

@codylee2818 11 ай бұрын

@@helenvurcevic5550 but the Greeks gave away a big horse that the Trojans took, not a priest?

@ArutaretiI 11 ай бұрын

I think the theme is that you sacrifice material to open the the kings "castle". It looks like you're gifting him a bishop, but it's a poisoned gift, a greek gift.

@codylee2818 11 ай бұрын

@@ArutaretiI y'all... y'all aren't getting it

@bongcloud4442 11 ай бұрын

@@codylee2818 should have been named the spanish inquisition sac, missed an opportunity there

@rorymcconnell3467 Ай бұрын

"That's not a greek gift, that's just a gift" lmao

@SeddincY 2 ай бұрын

8:01 "knight g5 and a half " 😂😂

@holctomaz2562 11 ай бұрын

Bro almost made me think he did new lectures 😭

@aureliusfeynman485 9 ай бұрын

Those kids we hear in the video are lucky, I wish I had Ben Finegold as a chess teacher when I was their age! Ben's jokes must fly over their heads for now, but they'll be able to look back on these lessons when they get older and appreciate their teacher even more. For now, I'm sure they think he's a bit weird because they don't get what he's saying 😂

@emailjwr 11 ай бұрын

Actually, Daffy duck asked the abominable snowman what are the distinguishing characteristics of a bunny rabbit, and bugs bunny used the answer to convince the snowman to take Daffy hostage. Ben tried to make an analogy, and as we all know....

@fallintoadream 7 ай бұрын

Terrible!

@WHAT-gm1xm 11 ай бұрын

How to play in stuck position make a video

@kennycampbell24 7 ай бұрын

Omg I was dying laughing this entire video 😂

@dixonbeejay Ай бұрын

Same😂😂😂

@MrCupidd 11 ай бұрын

Chevy Chase?

@ofurhieraphael7633 10 ай бұрын

Damm I've reached this position a lot of times..

@Remro88 10 ай бұрын

"When you play moves like a6, you don't live long " This is so true i believe , for if someone lived long playing that , he would have his name associated with the opening. Since it s not the case, every one that played 1... a6 must have died young ! "truth hurts " ? :)

@SauceBoss14 11 ай бұрын

There’s good and there’s not good, fifth is not good

@antisowshl 11 ай бұрын

the “24 dollars for manhattan” gambit

@danielolmo9 11 ай бұрын

The Greek gift comes from the great player of the past Gioachino Greco (Greco = Greek)

@felixskinner8334 10 ай бұрын

Is that definite? I always assumed it was named after the Trojan Horse (i.e. The saying 'beware Greeks bearing gifts')

@tetrisbit 10 ай бұрын

@@felixskinner8334 that's what i thought it was named after too

@you_dont_ha 10 ай бұрын

@@felixskinner8334 actually the phrase is beware of the Danae bearing gifts, regarding an older tribe that habitated greek region in 15th century BC. Although the phrase is bestowed to Laokontas from Virgil's Aeneis poem, written in the 1st century A.C in latin, it stays true to the fact that the word hellenic (greek) did not exist at the time of the Troy seige. So "Greek gif"t is definitely not an actual historic reference, rather than a later paraphrasing of the quote. Tl;dr, it's probably closer to Greco's use of the move than the ancient quote.

@Talos4444 9 ай бұрын

@@felixskinner8334Yeah definitive, he made a book abt chess in which he explained a lot of tattics we take for granted now (can't remember exactly, but some checkmate patterns); but it's name was given mainly to this bishop sacrifice. Ps: obv "Greco" means Greek in Italian, but it was just his surname. Much like if a Spanish called "Blanco" discovers a new move and they label it as "White Move" Not much sense but it's what is it

@panpan-vz3om 11 ай бұрын

Second is not that bad.

@TalsBadKidney 11 ай бұрын

Except for one thing

@andrewferguson6901 11 ай бұрын

Watch our for a german gift!

@stephaniewaters1777 11 ай бұрын

I'm not GM Ben Finegold 😞

@davoodoh3137 10 ай бұрын

2001 game 16 years ago 😂

@pierus01 11 ай бұрын

I wonder if people keep calling it "the greek gift" because they think it has something to do with the greeks, or if they just translate the surname of the player "Gioacchino Greco". It shouldn't be called "The Greco gift"? I mean, I do not call Ben "Beniamino OroBene" ...

@Nn-3 11 ай бұрын

It isn't clear. Some say it's because of allusions to the Trojan horse, others say it's related to Greco.

@elg7365 10 ай бұрын

Imagine thinking all that

@Talos4444 9 ай бұрын

@@Nn-3no it's clear, he was named precisely after him. Just English ppl translate it with Greek Gift, French or Spanish ppl refers it as "Greco". It has just with the tendency of English speaker to translate everything since it's the only language they know, but other languages comunities can understand to not translate surnames lol

@skakdosmer 11 ай бұрын

I could be wrong, but I know Miles had diabetes, so I suspect his early death had more to do with that, than how he played chess. Or do you mean to suggest that risky chess causes diabetes?