Who is Your Favorite St. Louis Chess Club Lecturer and Why?

I like Akobian the most.  

He is:  

-friendly
-not arrogant or a jerk (some instructors seem that way)
-analyzes games in a structured and easy-to-follow way
-offers fantastic positional analysis (like Carlsen, Karpov, and Petrosian) - which is rare, since more instructors tend to focus on tactics and general themes
-has just enough humor, wit, and energy to keep things flowing during dull moments
-teaches the full spectrum of concepts from beginning principles to advanced, so everyone can gain something from him
-very nurturing personality toward students 

Akobian is the best teacher IMO.

People say Finegold because he's funny... and yes, I agree, he is the #1 comedian

I don't like Finegold's style, b/c I find that he overdoes the humor part, which distracts me from thinking about the chess in front of me.  I can see how it might be helpful to others, but to me it's a bit on the annoying side.  

He seems like a good guy, though.

Ronen Har-Zvi actually seemed kind of rude (and arrogant?) when I watched his lectures.

I like Har-Zvi, he seems really chill, never got an arrogant vibe from him myself.

I've seen a few of Tatev's lectures and liked her insights and useful prodding questions (both strengths of Akobian, as well, although I find Akobian's insights and analysis to be deeper), but I found her attitude a bit smug and prideful.  

It's wasn't a boastful pride, but rather what seemed like an "I'm above it all" type of pride or smugness.  

Yasser Seirawan; calm, clear, and likeable presentation.

Oh, you asked "and why"

Well, I like Akobian because he asks the viewer to participate. He asks them to find the next move... and if you talk too quickly he tells you to wait and think about it more "I am a grandmaster and it took me 20 minutes to find this move, so think a little more" haha

He also ends lessons with endgame studies... he's like an actual teacher instead of just a lecturer. That's my opinion.

In contrast to Tatev, Akobian is appropriately nurturing (saying things like:  "excellent!!"..."absolutely!!!!"), whereas Tatev has an almost anti-nurturing/anti-climatic response to correct answers to tough questions.  

She almost sounds dismissive or like "duh, that's no big deal, b/c I get these right all the time and see things so easily."

Or, maybe on another level, she feels threatened by students' good answers and doesn't want to praise them and instead just pretends it was really easy and no big deal.  ...like so they WON'T get super good (but that would make her evil ).

Or, I could be pscyho-analyzing too much!!!!    

I think someone else mentioned this earlier, but he goes off on tangents a lot, which detracts from analysis and concentration on the game for me.  

His voice and style of speaking, though, is VERY CALMING.  

He can put you to sleep with that calm voice!  lol 

Seirawan by a mile. Akobian is way boring, Finegold is hilarious but dont watch him to learn anything. The Friedman lectures are pretty good, he can be a little abrupt though.  Ramirez does my head in.  Of the ladies I think Jennifer is pretty good and Anna Sharevich is awesome, Tatev is a great player but a poor teacher.  The greatest lady teacher is Camilla, watch her videos here on chess dot com, she is brilliant.

I don't get as much from Seirawan as I do with Akobian.  

Seirawan goes over variations and deep lines, but Akobian, who is known as a positional master, gives both tactical insight AND awesome positional analysis.  

I don't think he's boring (he throws in passion, exurberance, humor, etc. at the right moments), but he's not constantly exciting, nor entertaining either.  He's juuuuuust the right fit for me.  lol

Seirawan talks a bit too slow for my tastes and that combined with his tangents and tone of voice can get me falling asleep or wanting to fast forward or do something else.  

One other thought:

I feel like some instructors also might have a "show-off" or "domination" mentality.  Like they wanna impose their sense of self-greatness over others and make sure everyone knows it.  Or, they want to show-off in a kind of conceited way.  

That might be at the root of some instructors, who are anti-climatic when students find the correct moves to tough questions/scenarios.  And it might explain some instructors' tone of voice and way of speaking in other situations.  

Alejandro Ramirez always seemed like the domination type of persona, who was arrogant.  A lot of pscyhoanalysis on my part, of course, so I coulds be wrong.  But the point was that those traits are annoying to me (it's possible that I'm just as proud and arrogant and show-offy too in other areas of my own life.....) and can even be detrimental to student development.

Finegold. Not because of his jokes, I just like how he speaks, I keep listening till the lesson is over and I don't even notice how the time passes!

To be fair, I guess I did learn something I remember often from Finegold... "always play exf" (pawns on e4 and e5 and black plays f5).

Of course he doesn't mean always, but he was saying it's usually a good idea when the position was similar to the one he was showing, and I'd never given it much thought.

That would be the virtual 'brain-tingly'/*'asmr'.. 'chess' speaker, extroadinaire - "Yasser Seirawan."..{and Normally.. I don't like that quality, in 'male' speakers!?} .. o:

https://www.theguardian.com/science/head-quarters/2016/jan/08/asmr-and-head-orgasms-whats-the-science-behind-it

 When I was a kid I could trigger this voluntarily by... like... hard to explain. Tensing the muscles behind the ears and in back of the neck? Not really tensing, more like tickling... as if you could tickle yourself without visibly moving. Had to describe.

I can do the same tickling thing as an adult, but it doesn't cause all the tingles anymore.