Ben Finegold
Benjamin Philip Finegold is an American chess grandmaster.
Finegold was born in Detroit, Michigan into a chess family, the son of chess master Ron Finegold and his wife Rita. Stuart Rachels says when he was twelve he saw Ben Finegold and his father Ron hustling in a chess club at Manhattan, offering 8-1 money bets on one-minute-per-player bullet games. Finegold became a USCF master at the age of 14, life master at 15, senior master at 16, international master at 20, and grandmaster at 40.
Finegold tied for first place in the 1994 and 2007 U.S. Open Chess Championships. He tied for first in the 2002 World Open, and also tied for first in the 2005 and 2008 National Open Chess Championships. He was ranked as one of the top 40 players in the United States on the August 2013 USCF rating list. Finegold has played in nine U.S. Chess Championships: 1994, 1999, 2002, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2011, and 2013.
In September 2009, he earned the grandmaster title. He was the grandmaster-in-residence of the Saint Louis Chess Club until August 14, 2012, where he filmed a number of chess YouTube videos.
He has been a live commentator at the US Chess Championship, U.S. Junior Chess Championship and Sinquefield Cup, and he frequently gave lively and often humorous instructional lectures at the Saint Louis Chess Club. Finegold's lectures are available on the YouTube channels of the Saint Louis Chess Club as well as the channel of the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Atlanta and on Twitch.
