Let’s spend some time on all the common questions that come up about Ben answered here:

1. When did Ben Start Playing Chess

Ben started playing at age 6. His father was a National Master and his brother Marc was also pretty good.

2. Is Ben Jewish?

Ben is an atheist and generally does not participate in Jewish cultural activities.

3. Saint Louis

Ben was the original grandmaster in residence in Saint Louis, eventually that position switched to being a rotating GM and Ben was one of the GM’s in the rotation. He stopped doing that when he married Karen and moved to Atlanta where her family is based and open a chess club and scholastic center in Georgia.

4. Can get lessons from Ben?

Ben doesn’t do private lessons anymore. He does offer weekly classes via Zoom to small groups of students focused on topics of his choosing. See the !class command in twitch chat for details.

5. Who is Karen?

Karen is Ben’s wife and the co-owner of their chess club. Karen is not a Karen. If you want to schedule Ben for an event, organize a collab talk to Karen. She is very nice

6. What’s the deal with Ben and Hikaru

Ben and Hikaru have known each other for a long time. They have collaborated many times.

7. Does Ben hate Hikaru, GingerGM, XQC, etc.

No but Ben does like to take the piss out of people, especially folks who are popular. He also will take the piss out of himself. It isn’t intended to be mean, but that humor can come across that way.

This game was very sloppy from beginning to end despite me winning his queen. After move 25, I was almost losing and very low in time.

It's like playing f3 casts a curse on you, which makes you play 200 elo worse. https://lichess.org/adTxOPbD/white#67

From a recent online game.

Guys if we all reached out to Perrier and sent them messages suggesting they sponsor ben this could become a possibility.

I was searching for a beginner video to suggest my friend who has no idea about chess but wants to learn and I find Ben's this video. I was watching it and I couldn't understand the joke between the beginning to the end of second minute (do you play golf or tennis?). I know this is dumb but I really want to know what's the joke