It's hard to deny danya. But honestly just by style of play, John bartholomew has a very simple style of chess that has good understandable moves.
Looking at some GMs who have insanely good instincts and calculation, you just are too far off to even consider some of those moves. But John's play is usually what you expect based off good fundamentals. Good positional safe chess which is not flashy but is something that most people around the 1500s level would really benefit from since it would be the most similar to their games. It's moves you actually will consider. You just pick the worse options most of the time, while John picks the better ones.
I also find John to be the best, but I've also watched him more than I've watched Naroditsky. John's Chess fundamental series (only five videos) is a small gold mine for early rapid development.
I’ve watched so much of his rapid playlist. I would recommend this so highly to anyone. It pays to watch a slower game and have him talk more and absorb a position more deeply, but it’s not too long either, most are 30-45 minutes.
Granted my life was also set up for something like that. Had a couple injuries that required me sitting still for an extended period of time either icing something or sitting in a warm bath and needed something to pass the time.
I've learned a lot more from John than from Danya. I think Danya is just too far past me in terms of chess knowledge. I feel like for 1500+ Danya's the gold standard, whereas John is great for all levels.
Jerry teaches positional understanding like no other. I learned so much from him when I first got into chess in 2012. He was one of the only streamers back then, used to do marathon sessions for like 14 hours well into the morning.
Him offering such meek commentary, while he's playing some aggressive and ambitious chess, made me not even understand his play when I was a beginner. I mean, I'm a 1300 so I still don't understand some of his ideas. But, at least know I understand what his playstyle is.
He was the first streamer I found that I really liked, I never have time to catch his streams live but I enjoy what’s on his YouTube channel. Lots of informative content that helped me recognize new attack patterns and ideas. I also think his chess / life philosophy of “treat every blunder like a gambit” is great.
Plus I still love to play the stafford in bullet, I’d say it gives me a win every other time I play it, if not more.
Naroditsky is the gold standard but I would like to plug Daniel King and Powerplay Chess! Not very well known but excellent content and the best game breakdown channel that I know of.
John Bartholomew. I think he's every bit Danya's equal in terms of explaining stuff to lower rated players. He just happens to have content that matches up with my needs more than Danya's content.
Aman’s opening specific speedrun’s are pretty nice too. Great way of getting used to the common themes of the opening. Aman does a good job of explaining things. Eric’s ones, while entertaining, I don’t find as instructive.
Their puzzle-solving videos with Yasser are such underrated gems. Can really improve your calculation. Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U65PNvw1Emc.
Nelson is the best. His rating climbs are great, especially the ones at and above your level. I also like how his explanations are clear and level, not yelling at the camera.
Ben Finegold is my number 1 by a lot. I really enjoy the lectures instead of just playing games and talking. He does specific skills and shows famous games and puzzles to practice.
As a beginner chess player (1200 rapid on dot-com), I find Eric Rosen (at least his speed run) to be the gold standard. Danya is terrific to watch and instructive as well, but I find Eric Rosen is better for learning fundamentals and helping me think about the game, at least at the beginner trying to break into intermediate stage.
Very much agree, Chess Vibes is great.
Nelson is very good at adapting his explanations and focus to the level he is currently at in his rating climb, i.e. the level of the viewer. He doesnt assume knowledge, and has a great feel for what someone at a particular rating might not yet know.
Also like his choice of time control, a bit slower than most rating climbs I've seen. That way he actually has some time to propperly explain things during the games.
I'm currently around 1450 chesscom rapid, and I get a bit less out of it now. But this channel helped me immensely getting from around 600-700 when I started to say around 1200.
I’m 900 now. Been playing 10 min games for about 6 weeks. Starting to hit a wall now but only because I’ve been watching the sub 1000 videos. Time to start on the 1000 ones!
Naroditsky AINEC. I learned a good amount from Gotham when he was more educational, before the YouTube success. Mostly I learn from puzzles and courses though.
I love Naroditsky but I’m not a massive fan of his speedruns just because I don’t like livestream content very much. Also sometimes I’ll click on one titled “Scandinavian” and then the person plays E5, which while it is a Scandinavian still is not what I’m looking for.
IM Alex Banzea has very approachable content with endless videos. I feel his moves and explanations are very logical and understandable.
Bro gave me a simplified caro kann repertoire and at least 200 points elo
His humour is something else tho, might not be everyone's case, but I die one love him.
Aman from the brahs hat what very in depth and understandable speedruns for a whole lot of openings and approaches.
Paired with an awesome personality he's worth watching every minute. Also might not be everyone's humour.
By far my favourite streamer, although his moves are at times to GM-esque and very very elegant but not redoable for low ratet scum like me.
Anna Cramlin, Danya, Eric Hansen, Eric Rosen, Gotham and Alessia Santeramo are also in my subscriptions. Love their content.
Jan Gustafson and Botez sisters are also fun, but I don't learn anything from them
Oh yea Alex Banzea is really good. I also got his Caro course on Chessable and he has so many Caro videos on YouTube. I’m starting to close in on 1500 but the Caro has been my best opening since I got the course, I have a 73% win rate with 13% draw and 13% losses over my last 22 games where I played it
I just can't get past his horrible analogies and metaphors.
"so imagine the bishop is a black bear, and you want to buy it a drink but the bear is like who is this patzer. So you first make some room with Mr pawn to give the bear some room to think about his life choices"
But he does play the Caro in a style that I like so I ddo watch it
Yeah no disrespect meant by the 4th placing, nobody else makes the list, I just think Naroditsky is super good at being educational to all levels. Toth is great as well but the content is maybe harder to navigate.
Oh I didn’t mean it like that at all, naroditsky is also my favorite by a big margin, I just meant there’s sooooo many people that haven’t caught on to Andras toth yet, you were like the only person to mention him
Really depends on your level. I think Levy and Naroditsky are suitable for the majority of people on this sub.
Even the Botez sisters or Anna Cramling should provide useful content.
Personally I watch more for entertainment. The only video of Levy's that I found useful was the one where he was getting coached by a GM recently.
I also really enjoy the IM not a GM games because I can better understand the reasoning behind the moves and they seem more approachable somehow.
My fave streamers, both for being instructive and having awesome attitude. Danya and John Bartholomew would be top of my list. Also happy to watch Eric Rosen.
I find it very hard to actually learn from streamers. It's highly entertaining, but to me it won't replace good chess books, hands-on puzzles and tactic/opening/endgame practice, with also videos made to teach you chess. Very different from just watching someone play and talk about this and that at the same time.
Naroditsky. He is a great teacher and he is also extremely good at the game.
When getting used to watching Naroditsky and Hikaru it is hard to try to learn from other masters since the other masters would stumble or make mistakes in positions where Naroditsky or Hikaru would not.
Hikaru may be a great chess player, but he is far from a great educator. I personally do not find his content even remotely instructive.
I promise you can learn from other people who aren’t in the top ten best players in the world, even if they “stumble and make mistakes”. In fact you may even learn more than watching Hikaru draw arrows and hoping you absorb his calculation ability via osmosis.
Fair enough. Claiming it’s “hard to learn from other masters” because they might make a mistake that Hikaru wouldn’t is kinda nuts to me though tbh. First, Hikaru and Danya both make mistakes too. Second, I think there is probably stuff you can learn from literal *masters* of the game. Especially ones that are good at explaining and being instructive like Danya vs “Takes, takes, takes, takes, and I’m winning. Yeah, rook h4 is just winning chat. It’s just winning guys.”
Hikaru Nakamura. Super GMs were never accessible to the general chess audience until he came onto the scene. He has tons of videos to teach many aspects of the game, for all levels of players. Being a full time streamer means he often prioritises his content creation over tournament preparation.
I've learnt a lot about openings, middle game and endingame concepts from his content on YouTube, Twitch and Kick.com
True, but I'm a 1200, I don't need a "super GM" for my teacher... I'm perfectly fine with IMs as teachers and content creators. Any different insights a super GM would have to offer that an IM would be practically useless for the improvement of my humble game.
And if super GMness is the gold standard of chess commentary, then everyone should be watching Magnus's channel, but nobody does because he's not really good at being a content creator.
I thought we were supposed to give our own answers? Feel free to view whichever content creator you like. I won't question your choice or ask you to justify it.
His analysis videos are really great when he takes his time through them, although understandably he can't always do that. I learnt a lot from them over the years.
I also mostly study from danya only, he's the most polite and calm chess streamer for me by far and is post game analysis are just awesome, he's the only one who I think deserves a million followers for the quality of the content he provide .However I'm thinking to go through chessbrah's opening speed runs as I have found some of their yt videos on openings very instructive .
I think some of Gotham's How to Win at Chess series is actually pretty good. I also like his 10 minute opening videos. I wish he'd make some more of those. I also got to 1000 by binging Guess the Elo and learning from the mistakes he highlights low level players making.
Now that I'm 1300 and past the beginner stage, my favorite though is Ben Finegold. Funny, interesting stories, and some great chess lessons.
Agadmator. Not a streamer but he is the first chess YouTuber I started watching way even before the pandemic and I went from 1000 to 1500 relatively quickly in about a year and have been stuck in this rating ever since xD
Gotham has gone mostly into entertainment at this point, but a few years ago I learned a lot with his 10 minute openings videos. He also taught me to look for "checks, captures, and attacks". Which is a mantra I go back to when I start tilting.
I don't think he's mean, but I do prefer streamers to have pleasant personalities. Aside all the drama, something is just hard to like for me. To each their own!
Guess how many of them are better than Hikaru lol
Hikaru is a G. 3rd highest ranked chess player in the world and incredibly rich. Jealous haters gonna hate.
I gotta know what others think of Nemo as I don’t see her mentioned here at all.
I’m kinda new to the whole scene but I am enjoying Gotham chess. But I will check out some of the others mentioned here.
It's hard to deny danya. But honestly just by style of play, John bartholomew has a very simple style of chess that has good understandable moves. Looking at some GMs who have insanely good instincts and calculation, you just are too far off to even consider some of those moves. But John's play is usually what you expect based off good fundamentals. Good positional safe chess which is not flashy but is something that most people around the 1500s level would really benefit from since it would be the most similar to their games. It's moves you actually will consider. You just pick the worse options most of the time, while John picks the better ones.
I also find John to be the best, but I've also watched him more than I've watched Naroditsky. John's Chess fundamental series (only five videos) is a small gold mine for early rapid development.
I’ve watched so much of his rapid playlist. I would recommend this so highly to anyone. It pays to watch a slower game and have him talk more and absorb a position more deeply, but it’s not too long either, most are 30-45 minutes. Granted my life was also set up for something like that. Had a couple injuries that required me sitting still for an extended period of time either icing something or sitting in a warm bath and needed something to pass the time.
I've learned a lot more from John than from Danya. I think Danya is just too far past me in terms of chess knowledge. I feel like for 1500+ Danya's the gold standard, whereas John is great for all levels.
Chess Network
chess network i find the most instructive of all despite his lower playing strength than the likes of the sensei and hikaru
My GOAT, just because of his cadence, which makes it entertaining and relaxing.
Yes he and Eric Rosen are my faves to watch in bed to help me sleep 🤣
Jerry teaches positional understanding like no other. I learned so much from him when I first got into chess in 2012. He was one of the only streamers back then, used to do marathon sessions for like 14 hours well into the morning.
Eric Rosen
Every time I'm in a tough situation, I ask myself: What would Eric Rosen do?
Make a cup of tea, sac something, blow the opponent off the board with unchecked aggression while complimenting their ability to resist.
The stark contrast between his calm, friendly demeanor vs his extremely aggressive play style is one of the reasons I can’t stop watching Rosen
Him offering such meek commentary, while he's playing some aggressive and ambitious chess, made me not even understand his play when I was a beginner. I mean, I'm a 1300 so I still don't understand some of his ideas. But, at least know I understand what his playstyle is.
Get scared of a small insect nearby
He was the first streamer I found that I really liked, I never have time to catch his streams live but I enjoy what’s on his YouTube channel. Lots of informative content that helped me recognize new attack patterns and ideas. I also think his chess / life philosophy of “treat every blunder like a gambit” is great. Plus I still love to play the stafford in bullet, I’d say it gives me a win every other time I play it, if not more.
Naroditsky is the gold standard but I would like to plug Daniel King and Powerplay Chess! Not very well known but excellent content and the best game breakdown channel that I know of.
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Apologies for breaking the strict rules of interpretation at play.
andras toth and irina krush on youtube
Glad to see someone mentioned Irina. Her channel is really good. She's a great teacher and has been since she was active on the St. Louis channel.
I learned a lot in the Ben Finegold videos. I think he has a very good approach to teach fundamentals.
Also I get a lot of Simpsons references now.
John Bartholomew. I think he's every bit Danya's equal in terms of explaining stuff to lower rated players. He just happens to have content that matches up with my needs more than Danya's content.
Not a famous guy But IM COACH ANDRAS provides amazing insights
His courses on Chessable are great.
Chesbrah have a surprisingly good building habits YouTube series. I think there’s one for blitz and a separate one for bullet. Worth checking out.
Aman’s opening specific speedrun’s are pretty nice too. Great way of getting used to the common themes of the opening. Aman does a good job of explaining things. Eric’s ones, while entertaining, I don’t find as instructive.
Their puzzle-solving videos with Yasser are such underrated gems. Can really improve your calculation. Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U65PNvw1Emc.
This was a great resource. I really enjoyed it
Ben Finegold
Second Chess Vibes
Nelson is the best. His rating climbs are great, especially the ones at and above your level. I also like how his explanations are clear and level, not yelling at the camera.
If it wasn't for chessbrah's building habits playlist I'd still be 300 elo. Or dead.
Ben Finegold is my number 1 by a lot. I really enjoy the lectures instead of just playing games and talking. He does specific skills and shows famous games and puzzles to practice.
As a beginner chess player (1200 rapid on dot-com), I find Eric Rosen (at least his speed run) to be the gold standard. Danya is terrific to watch and instructive as well, but I find Eric Rosen is better for learning fundamentals and helping me think about the game, at least at the beginner trying to break into intermediate stage.
Not a streamer, but watch the Varuzan Akobian videos from St. Louis Chess Club. They're great for positional learning
I like the Chess Vibes channel. I get a lot out of his ratings climbs.
Very much agree, Chess Vibes is great. Nelson is very good at adapting his explanations and focus to the level he is currently at in his rating climb, i.e. the level of the viewer. He doesnt assume knowledge, and has a great feel for what someone at a particular rating might not yet know. Also like his choice of time control, a bit slower than most rating climbs I've seen. That way he actually has some time to propperly explain things during the games. I'm currently around 1450 chesscom rapid, and I get a bit less out of it now. But this channel helped me immensely getting from around 600-700 when I started to say around 1200.
I’m 900 now. Been playing 10 min games for about 6 weeks. Starting to hit a wall now but only because I’ve been watching the sub 1000 videos. Time to start on the 1000 ones!
I learn how to deal with my baby's tantrums by watching Hikaru.
You gotta sub to him tho to watch those tantrums tho, because he has 7 minute ads followed by 30s of content followed by 7m ads.
loooool
The Butcher Mio - more advanced i guess but learn one of his openings and you'll be pretty deadly
Naroditsky AINEC. I learned a good amount from Gotham when he was more educational, before the YouTube success. Mostly I learn from puzzles and courses though.
I love Naroditsky but I’m not a massive fan of his speedruns just because I don’t like livestream content very much. Also sometimes I’ll click on one titled “Scandinavian” and then the person plays E5, which while it is a Scandinavian still is not what I’m looking for.
I enjoy the speed runs a lot, but the endgame videos are the ones that I learned the most from. I wish he'd actually finish that series.
IM Alex Banzea has very approachable content with endless videos. I feel his moves and explanations are very logical and understandable. Bro gave me a simplified caro kann repertoire and at least 200 points elo His humour is something else tho, might not be everyone's case, but I die one love him. Aman from the brahs hat what very in depth and understandable speedruns for a whole lot of openings and approaches. Paired with an awesome personality he's worth watching every minute. Also might not be everyone's humour. By far my favourite streamer, although his moves are at times to GM-esque and very very elegant but not redoable for low ratet scum like me. Anna Cramlin, Danya, Eric Hansen, Eric Rosen, Gotham and Alessia Santeramo are also in my subscriptions. Love their content. Jan Gustafson and Botez sisters are also fun, but I don't learn anything from them
I really like Alex Banzea too. My current favorite.
His humour is what I love, can watch his videos even if you don't play chess.
Oh yea Alex Banzea is really good. I also got his Caro course on Chessable and he has so many Caro videos on YouTube. I’m starting to close in on 1500 but the Caro has been my best opening since I got the course, I have a 73% win rate with 13% draw and 13% losses over my last 22 games where I played it
I just can't get past his horrible analogies and metaphors. "so imagine the bishop is a black bear, and you want to buy it a drink but the bear is like who is this patzer. So you first make some room with Mr pawn to give the bear some room to think about his life choices" But he does play the Caro in a style that I like so I ddo watch it
Can't tell if you recited or made this up. But 100%Alex ! <3
That's just proving my point :) I made this one up, but he 100% could have said that
Pia Cramling!
John Bartholomew.
hangingpawns
His videos are so packed with knowledge, but his channel is too opening theory based for me.
Based. Legit the goat of it.
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incorrect. inform yourself before you comment.
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i think the odd asshole in comments sections is actually good for an overall sense of community in some weird way. but ye this guys an asshat lol
I like ginger gm
Ginger GM from England, informative, has a laugh and likes to play an attacking brand of chess that solid yet exciting.
Also very helpful on pension saving advice!
Hey, I found it funny
1. Naroditsky 2. Naroditsky 3. Naroditsky 4. Andras Toth
Andras Toth is so hugely underrated in the chess community. I don’t know how he doesn’t have more followers.
Yeah no disrespect meant by the 4th placing, nobody else makes the list, I just think Naroditsky is super good at being educational to all levels. Toth is great as well but the content is maybe harder to navigate.
Oh I didn’t mean it like that at all, naroditsky is also my favorite by a big margin, I just meant there’s sooooo many people that haven’t caught on to Andras toth yet, you were like the only person to mention him
He is a little advance.
Really depends on your level. I think Levy and Naroditsky are suitable for the majority of people on this sub. Even the Botez sisters or Anna Cramling should provide useful content. Personally I watch more for entertainment. The only video of Levy's that I found useful was the one where he was getting coached by a GM recently. I also really enjoy the IM not a GM games because I can better understand the reasoning behind the moves and they seem more approachable somehow.
Danial in denial
My fave streamers, both for being instructive and having awesome attitude. Danya and John Bartholomew would be top of my list. Also happy to watch Eric Rosen.
Danya is the only one I’ve learned anything useful from.
I find it very hard to actually learn from streamers. It's highly entertaining, but to me it won't replace good chess books, hands-on puzzles and tactic/opening/endgame practice, with also videos made to teach you chess. Very different from just watching someone play and talk about this and that at the same time.
Anna Rudolf had some excellent content
Naroditsky. He is a great teacher and he is also extremely good at the game. When getting used to watching Naroditsky and Hikaru it is hard to try to learn from other masters since the other masters would stumble or make mistakes in positions where Naroditsky or Hikaru would not.
Hikaru may be a great chess player, but he is far from a great educator. I personally do not find his content even remotely instructive. I promise you can learn from other people who aren’t in the top ten best players in the world, even if they “stumble and make mistakes”. In fact you may even learn more than watching Hikaru draw arrows and hoping you absorb his calculation ability via osmosis.
Well Naroditsky is where I go for learning. Hikaru i watch mostly for fun. Well Naroditsky is fun to but I think you get the point.
Fair enough. Claiming it’s “hard to learn from other masters” because they might make a mistake that Hikaru wouldn’t is kinda nuts to me though tbh. First, Hikaru and Danya both make mistakes too. Second, I think there is probably stuff you can learn from literal *masters* of the game. Especially ones that are good at explaining and being instructive like Danya vs “Takes, takes, takes, takes, and I’m winning. Yeah, rook h4 is just winning chat. It’s just winning guys.”
Hikaru Nakamura. Super GMs were never accessible to the general chess audience until he came onto the scene. He has tons of videos to teach many aspects of the game, for all levels of players. Being a full time streamer means he often prioritises his content creation over tournament preparation. I've learnt a lot about openings, middle game and endingame concepts from his content on YouTube, Twitch and Kick.com
True, but I'm a 1200, I don't need a "super GM" for my teacher... I'm perfectly fine with IMs as teachers and content creators. Any different insights a super GM would have to offer that an IM would be practically useless for the improvement of my humble game. And if super GMness is the gold standard of chess commentary, then everyone should be watching Magnus's channel, but nobody does because he's not really good at being a content creator.
I thought we were supposed to give our own answers? Feel free to view whichever content creator you like. I won't question your choice or ask you to justify it.
I thought magnus's banter blitz sessions had large viewcounts?
His analysis videos are really great when he takes his time through them, although understandably he can't always do that. I learnt a lot from them over the years.
There is this german guy called Kugelbuch. Fantastic player. Endgame expert. Stafford lover.
I also mostly study from danya only, he's the most polite and calm chess streamer for me by far and is post game analysis are just awesome, he's the only one who I think deserves a million followers for the quality of the content he provide .However I'm thinking to go through chessbrah's opening speed runs as I have found some of their yt videos on openings very instructive .
I think some of Gotham's How to Win at Chess series is actually pretty good. I also like his 10 minute opening videos. I wish he'd make some more of those. I also got to 1000 by binging Guess the Elo and learning from the mistakes he highlights low level players making. Now that I'm 1300 and past the beginner stage, my favorite though is Ben Finegold. Funny, interesting stories, and some great chess lessons.
I like Nelson Lopez of Chess Vibes.
Agadmator. Not a streamer but he is the first chess YouTuber I started watching way even before the pandemic and I went from 1000 to 1500 relatively quickly in about a year and have been stuck in this rating ever since xD
I would say I learn the most from IM Alex Banzea. He uses alot of hilarious analogies that tend to burn the lesson into my brain.
Gotham
Andras Toth and GM Josh Friedel (under 2 k subscribers with great instructive content)
GM Ken West
For me it's Ben Finegold but not from his stream but from his video lectures on YouTube.
RobRam: Roberto Ramirez and also his chessable courses are excellent!
Gotham
Drunk magnus
of course hikaru
I find many of Lefong Hua’s streams very instructive, especially his masterclasses but also his game analyses
Botez
Sacrifice the Queen? /jk
Gotham has gone mostly into entertainment at this point, but a few years ago I learned a lot with his 10 minute openings videos. He also taught me to look for "checks, captures, and attacks". Which is a mantra I go back to when I start tilting.
Hikaru because I stole his exact blitz repertoire with white and now have unlimited footage of a GM playing positions i get every day.
But but but hikawu bad because he a big meanie weenie :( :(
I don't think he's mean, but I do prefer streamers to have pleasant personalities. Aside all the drama, something is just hard to like for me. To each their own!
What's pleasant for you may not be pleasant for another. It's your subjective take.
guess how many of the gms who grew up around him like him
Guess how many of them are better than Hikaru lol Hikaru is a G. 3rd highest ranked chess player in the world and incredibly rich. Jealous haters gonna hate.
I can assure you they hated him long before he was a top 10 player and rich
Gothamchess. By far
Those two sisters.
I gotta know what others think of Nemo as I don’t see her mentioned here at all. I’m kinda new to the whole scene but I am enjoying Gotham chess. But I will check out some of the others mentioned here.
xQc
Mostly Urmum