Ben Finegold's Road To GM Video Series
Explore the rise to GM by Ben Finegold in this fun series.
Learn how a strong master earns the coveted grandmaster title, experiencing the highs and lows along with GM Finegold himself.
You might be surprised by the kind of preparation it takes to achieve this chess plateau.
The Road To GM -- Part 1: vs GM Kreiman Ben relives an intriguing match with IM Boris Kreiman. Immediately, this game goes into one of his favorite openings. GM Finegold highlights reasons behind this game's importance to his success.
The Road To GM -- Part 2: vs GM Georgiev GM Finegold observes how he managed to effectively counter the a6 Slav. By strong-arming e5 with solid bishop play, Ben accidentally hangs the b2 pawn. Or does he? His opponent, GM Vladimir Georgiev, happily accepts. Watch now and see what happens.
The Road To GM -- Part 3: vs GM Kuljasevic Once again, Ben is faced with an a6 Slav. He shows a tremendous ability to dominate a position with subtle moves.
The Road To GM -- Part 4: vs IM Antal In another stroke of Finegold brilliance, Ben decides he is bored of winning too early on. He trades off pieces going right to a queenless middlegame. GM Finegold shares some creative preparation strategies in this critical road block to his final norm. Finegold had finally earned his final GM norm, which he forcefully accepted!
Grandmaster Preparation: Part 1 vs IM Darwin Yang These last two videos serve as fantastic education. Observe how the best of the best prepare and get a small taste of Ben's mindset before going to battle.
Grandmaster Preparation: Part 2 vs IM Marc Esserman No one puts baby in a corner! Like all great feuds, it was time to settle things over a game of chess. Ben tries to protect his home turf against his Smith-Morra nemesis! This ending is too good to pass up.
US Chess League: A Crushing Debut! Grandmaster Ben Finegold continues his series on "GM Level Preparation" with a video that reviews a case of accidental preparation. His victory over GM Huschenbeth during last year's US Chess Leage season earned him Game of the Week, but how did Ben reach such a fantastic position out of the Nimzo Indian opening? The story may surprise you...
World Champ Prep Equals World Class Victory! To bring his short series on high level chess preparation to a close (for now), GM Finegold reviews a game from the highest of levels! He displays the critical moments of the game Aronian-Anand from Wijk aan Zee, 2013. Ben highlights the world champ's amazing preparation, how Anand applied what he knew about the line into his game against Armenia's #1, and why it's important to prepare and memorize "ideas" as opposed to "variations" when you start analyzing very complex positions.
