is simon Williams (gingergm) a good teacher?

You're probably referring to the comment I made in another thread. He's a GM, and therefore a very strong player. He also recommends a lot of very suspicious openings, unsound gambits, and other stuff in his vids.

Watching his videos actually is a good thing if you don't take them 100% seriously and go into them with the mentality that afterwards you're going to investigate whether you agree with him or not. Use your tools (i.e. a good database, Stockfish, GM games, etc) and see if what he says makes sense.

There are a lot of others like him. Roman Dzindzichashvili is the best example. However Simon is a lot more entertaining than Roman and is a better presenter. 

I agree with dpnorman. Simon is entertaining and I love to watch his blitz videos, but sometimes I just feel like he is trying to us his videos with suspicious gambits and stuff.

maybe something like this? 

 That Kasparov's calculation one is a classic, one of the first videos I saw from Kasparov. I still watch it to this day lol.

Kummer....the guy who says if you castle in the ruy lopez exchange variation then you might as well resign!

I enjoy the Ginger GM's videos on openings.  I've watches quite a few and watched some again a few times. so he's good in that way.

On the other hand, I'm  not getting any better so...

You can always bring Simon along to the pub afterwards, which is a merit of its own.

Okay Simon and Roman are the main two guys you need to take with a slight grain of salt. Both like to recommend ridiculous openings. Simon's are usually insane gambits, and Roman's are usually offbeat lines where he omits the critical response by the other side.

Roman has posted some member analysis videos in the past and these are perfectly fine. Even funny, since due to his interesting grasp of the English language and his own personality, he says some really hilariously harsh things

I don't think he ever suggests things that are unsound. He talks about things that maybe equal with best play maybe. I remember one video he did on the hillbilly attack (1.e4 c6 2.Bc4) which is probably not the end of the Caro-Kann but it's playable anyway. 

Yes. Bought his Killer French DVD and improved massively straight away, but I was coming from a low rating. Still, huge amount of informative, and mostly entertaining - which is in itself crucial because it helps me remember more - information. Twitch channel stream is the best out there. 

I enjoy watching him and have bought some of his stuff. I found it helpful.

He is a very aggressive player, and he likes stuff in that vein.

I think one of the most valuable things about watching him is that even though he IS extremely aggressive, he takes a lot of time to talk about positional ideas such as best placement of the pieces. And he preaches understanding what they opponent is trying to do in a position. He is big on the fact that successful attacks flow out of correct positions.

He sure likes 'sacking' pieces!   

"When a Grand Master loses a pawn it is always a sack. When an amateur loses a pawn, it's a blunder!"

But what I like about it is that he is showing me lots of ideas. And when I watch a video on an opening done by him, I actually have the feeling I have learned that opening. Or at least the basics of it. For example I tried playing the London system after watching his video on it and during those games a lot of stuff he mentioned came back and I understood *why* I am making certain moves. Trying the Caro Kann at the moment but did not yet find a good video and I keep forgetting lots of moves. 

He is definitely a good teacher!

I also like most videos from Kevin from The Chess Network and Saint Louis Chess Club, I think if you want to play the most 'sound' lines, Saint Louis Chess Club is probably best. But honestly, even many grandmasters have trouble keeping up with all the theory on openings. Good thing about Simon is he teaches you some basics and gives you some plans to pursue in your games. Plus those blunders, ehr, 'sacks' often actually do open up chances at mate etc. For example I really like the 'Greek gift', which looks insane at first but I tried it and it actually works!

Does that proficiency ever manifest itself in actual chess strength or are there a lot of other advanced 1100 and 1300 players out there?

I see, I just didn’t understand how his material could be “Captain Obvious” when your play was so bad. If the theory and tactics he teaches seem fairly simple to you then maybe you play incorrect moves on purpose?

However, I do think I know what you mean about your blitz rating having zero correlation with your actual chess ability.  I see titled players with 1100 ratings all the time.

I think you might be having some problems communicating logically because your feelings are hurt. I will help you just this once although I don’t want to have to write too many long posts on my iPhone. You said your ratings had nothing to do with the quality of the content on chess.com and Simon’s contributions were too simple (content wise) for you.
1.I suggested you were a weak player
2.If you were a weak player then Simon’s content could not be too advanced for you since there are titled players discussing the information provided in the videos in the comments section on chess.com
You seemed to disagree with point number one, but I am fairly certain you are weak because every chess activity you have participated in recently on this site showed a level of play much lower than that of a titled (or 1500) player. Even though you may think you’re more advanced than everyone watching his videos, I am sorry to say it is unlikely that the national master who commented on his Hillbilly Attack video would be losing blitz games to people rated 1100 on this site. I should know since I believe I have played him on here. Do you feel you are more advanced than a titled player? As far as his YouTube videos are concerned, he has videos solving tactics trainer puzzles which would be most likely too complicated for you and many of the classical games he goes over were played between him and other grandmasters who, I am afraid to say, played games that likely were a bit more advanced than yours. Sadly, I feel you have been having a hard time understanding all this even though it is fairly simple because I might have hurt your ego. You felt the compelling urge to instead let everyone know how I play fake chess (which is logically unrelated). I don’t really feel the need to defend myself, but your behavior is odd. I don’t remember exactly but I feel like you posted previously that you were a man in your thirties and your username suggests you have a predilection for marijuana. Shouldn’t these things calm you down a bit?

Ok

I always like to read some YouTube comments, but those chess forum posts are REAL intense.

Thread Hijacking DELUXE!!