Levy Rozman of Gothamchess: The Internet’s Chess Teacher
How he became famous and why he is important to the chess community
Levy Rozman is a chess International Master born in Brooklyn, New York in 1995. As a child of Russian immigrants, Levy learned and spoke Russian as a first language and only started learning to speak English when he was in pre-school.
He started his chess journey at the age of 6 and played his first tournament when he was 7. He attained the National Master (NM) title in 2011 through the United States Chess Federation (USCF), the title of FIDE Master (FM) in 2016, and International Master (IM) in 2018. He became a chess coach for amateur and intermediate players in 2014.
The year is 2023 and, as of April 2023, Gothamchess has garnered over 3.69 million subscribers on YouTube and is the most-subscribed chess channel on the platform. Additionally, he has the highest view count total of any chess channel with over a billion views and is the first chess channel to accomplish this feat.
To put this in perspective, Levy gained 1 million to 2 million subscriptions in 18 months and moved from 2 to 3 million subscriptions in 50 days.
Levy has worked closely with Chess.com and has been a part of their streaming partnership since the year 2017. He is also a treasured commentator for the platform, featuring in major tournaments like PogChamps and the 2022 Candidates Tournament and commentating alongside strong grandmasters like Robert Hess and Daniel Naroditsky.
In 2022, Levy revealed to his followers during a Twitch stream that he was in the middle of writing a book for amateur and intermediate players on ‘How To Win At Chess’. This is also one of the playlists that exist on his YouTube channel, teaching young players how to avoid mistakes and capitalize on winning positions to secure an advantage.
Other playlists that are loved by his followership include ‘How To Lose At Chess’. This playlist features him analyzing games he found on the Internet or games sent to him by subscribers, showing their blunders and mistakes as he makes the content around them fun and informative at the same time.
He also has the ‘Guess The Elo’ playlist which features games sent to him by subscribers. He looks at them without knowing the ratings of either player and tries to guess their rating after the analysis is finished.
It is evident that other streamers like Daniel Naroditsky, Agadmator, and even Hikaru Nakamura have impacted the chess world and are responsible for the chess boom that has been observed over the years. That said, it is without a doubt that Levy has done the most to move chess forward to the world at large.
Levy Rozman, in the space of roughly two years, went from being barely known in the chess community to an absolute chess magnet, pulling people who had never even heard the game to develop an interest in it. Since the start of the pandemic and the premiere of The Queen’s Gambit series on Netflix, Levy has grown in confidence and notoriety as one of the most important personalities in the chess community today.
He won the Best Chess Streamer Award in 2022 and it’s safe to say that he is on his way to winning more awards like that in the coming future. For someone who is already almost at 4 million subscribers on YouTube, the journey for Gothamchess seems like it’s only just begun.
And, before I forget, Dog.
