I started playing chess at the start of lockdown in the UK. My lowest recorded rating was 500 and my current peak rating is 1643. I've only learned chess so far through YouTube videos teaching opening theory and tactics as well as just watching high level play
vor 1 Jahr | 234
Hii levy I started playing chess around month of July 2022,my starting rating was 700 and my highest was around 1400 - 1430 but now I am struggling to get further
vor 1 Jahr | 104
Hey Levy, I started chess after everyone started playing it in my high school during July 2021, as people began to lose interest, I gained more interest in it, it didn’t matter that my rating was 336 when I first began, I gradually improved and finally peaked at a rating of 806 just today. I studied your YouTube videos, learning all the different variations and lines for openings such as the Queen’s Gambit for White and Caro-Kann for Black. You helped me become a better player and I couldn’t have done it without you. I was intrigued with your coverage on the Magnus vs Nepo game and you are a really talented commentator and chess IM that really drew me in further with all the deeper meaning behind the moves they played. My original chess account name was Okaakun, but current account name is Akaakun (different account) please consider me to be apart of this. Chess started out as a hobby and with you it has turned into a passion. Thank you so much
vor 2 Jahre (editiert) | 52
I just passed my one year anniversary of playing chess. Hi Levy, I started playing chess after watching the Queen's Gambit in mid December. I started off at around 800 rating and peaked at 1350 in June/July before going in and out of chess. I still play casually and hover around 1300-1350. I got the gold membership and built up my opening through your videos. I play the London and the Caro Kann mostly. I learned a lot about how I should play the game and what I should focus on. I played a lot of puzzles so that I could spot moves. I also analyze many of my games to figure out my mistakes and fix them. You were a great teacher for me when I played chess and are still one of the few Chess youtubers I watch. Thank you and I hope you'll keep teaching more people about chess. https://www.chess.com/member/epicdaniel3747
vor 2 Jahre | 85
I started last year, played for a few months, stopped, and have been playing again since Thanksgiving. I’m currently rated 950 and have primarily been watching Daniel Naroditskis speed runs and some of your videos.
vor 2 Jahre | 70
Hey Levy, I started playing chess back in March of 2021, right around the second PogChamps. I mainly play rapid and right when I started I was right around 600 rated. Since then I’ve played close to 1000 rapid games and climbed up to a peak rating of around 1150. I bought your Vienna course during one of your tournaments, but most of the studying I’ve done has been through chess.com’s explorer. More recently I’ve really tried to dive into d4 lines as white, and have been playing a lot of Scandinavian gambits as black. My chess.com account is MantisTobaganPhD, I love your videos and honestly just watching the way you calculate has helped me learn a lot about the game. Hopefully one day soon I’ll get to start playing classical over the board. Thank you for all that you’ve taught me
vor 2 Jahre | 284
Hello Levy, I started playing chess last year during the pandemic at the end of December. My one year anniversary is coming up. I started out as a 730 and now I am an 1800. I mainly used your videos and played a lot of rapid games to get better. I also used a lot of your opening videos to learn openings and gambits, which I further backed with engine prep. Lastly, I did a lot of tactics and reached 2550 in puzzles. I studied a lot of e4 e5 lines and sicilian lines for white and learned how to play against defenses like the pirc defense and the french defense. I play the king's gambit occasionally. For black, I stick to the giuoco piano in e4 e5, and against d4 I play the QGD, benoni, slav. Against the king's gambit, I play the falkbeer countergambit. I am trying to learn lines for the english and fianchetto openings for white and black because I see that a lot and want to learn how to get a good position from it. My chess.com username is “fireytoast” and the link to my profile is https://www.chess.com/member/fireytoast. Your videos helped me a lot when learning chess!
vor 2 Jahre (editiert) | 72
I started last December after watching the Queen's Gambit show on Netflix, I was 800 at the beginning. I found out this amazing channel and watched an incredible amount of video since then (basically every single one). I reached 1300 in April/March, got stuck for a little there. I had to improve my openings so I focused on the queen's gambit and the Caro-kann (two openings for both color) and I fill the opening repertoire with few basics on every opening (very basic). I reached 1700 in August. Now I'm stuck at this level and I'm struggling to reach 1800, I bought "How to reassess your chess" by Jeremy Silman but I didn't feel that much improvement, so I can say I just improved beacuse of the chess content on YouTube, basically I reached 1700 beacuse of this channel, thank you very much for all the free content, I really appreciate the effort you put into this.
vor 2 Jahre | 3
I started with very little knowledge last December. Climbed the rating later to 1290 through studying YouTube videos and with your openings and middle game courses. Chess is now one of my favorite and least favorite things to do in my free time lol
vor 2 Jahre | 40
I started in May 2020. YouTube recommendations is what got me, I started getting John Bartholomew's videos in my feed and even though I didn't understand much of what was happening in the games the calming nature of the videos was just perfect in those early pandemic months. My journey so far didn't involve a lot of studying. I learned the Caro-Kann because I was tired of getting destroyed with the black pieces and I thought the name of the opening was awesome. With white I learned the QGD and was bored out of my mind, so I moved on to the Scotch and then the Scotch Gambit, but I haven't found a way of making studying openings fun at all. I'd much rather learn from games and analyzing but I've stagnated hard in the last six months or so. At this point I'm rated around 1300. I play on both Chess.com and lichess so the ratings vary wildly. I played a lot of blitz and bullet but now I'm focusing on rapid games, so I can try to calculate more and think deeper on the positions. It's definitely been an adjustment though - feels like the right investment of time but the progress has been very slow. My profiles: https://www.chess.com/member/mitorandiro https://lichess.org/@/mitorandiro
vor 2 Jahre | 40
Hi Levy, I started chess around early 2021 (February or March) and I usually play rapid because I need time to think. Before I started watching your videos, I was playing the queen's gambit and Sicilian defense for black, but now I am studying your Vienna course and practicing to get better at the Sicilian Defense. I started watching your videos at 800-900 and it has helped me grow a lot! I bought your Intermediate Bootcamp around September after I finished the Intermediate Bootcamp course, I bought the E4 New York Style for one of my tournaments. After that, I started practicing every day to improve and I am now 1310 and have a peak of 1334. My chess.com account is AliYunuslu26, I really love your videos and it has made me the player I am today. Thank you for all you have taught me.
vor 2 Jahre | 21
Rating: 1350 Rapid/1150 Blitz Profile: https://www.chess.com/member/iamnotnsa Started: March 2021 (at ~800-900 rapid strength) I've learned almost exclusively through videos/streams, and my focus has been primarily on openings and middle games, which I'll detail below, with only a little bit of endgame learning. I started by watching streamer lessons for Smasher's Gambit (an event similar to Pogchamps). I started experimenting with openings and finding ones I liked through your 10 minute opening videos. My goal was to find one opening to play as white and two openings to play as black versus e4 and d4. My initial training would be to watch the video, then play rapid for an hour or two trying to follow the move orders and structures and game plans from memory, then review the video again. Reviewing the video multiple times was important, since I initially would mix up gameplans (ex: remembering a rook lift but forgetting it was from the Stonewall video). At 900-1000 rapid, I started watching the various Rating Climb series, Gotham Chess Guide, and the How to Win at Chess series, learning more about middle game ideas like pawn breaks, color complexes, and certain tactical sequences. I'd then search through your channel to find the videos dedicated to those topics (such as the pawn play or pawn structure videos). I'd rewatch videos with games that featured an opening I played multiple times to learn the mistakes and plans, including GTE videos. At 1000-1100 rapid, I started thinking more about move order and transpositions, to figure out the most forcing ways to ensure I got an opening I knew without having to broaden my repertoire too much; wanting a complete/forcing repertoire against d4 as black led me to the Dutch. This is when I began to play a lot of blitz, to get a lot of games in quickly so I could review my opening mistakes with the computer afterward. I started doing puzzles on chess.com, and I also began watching your recap videos, again paying close attention to games with an opening I played. At 1200+ rapid, I did a re-review of your opening videos for ideas I might've missed or didn't fully understand when I was lower rated; same with some of the How to Win at Chess or Gotham Chess Guide series. I continued using blitz as a means to look at my openings with a computer. In addition to your channel, I began watching Naroditsky for attacking ideas in the opening and middlegame (he also has more QGA and Sicilian content), and the Chessbrah Habits series for some basic endgame principles. For any opening knowledge that wasn't covered by your channel or Naroditsky's, I tried to fill in the gaps through Hanging Pawns. At 1300+, my emphasis has been how to attack a castled king and get initiative from the opening. I'm also trying to improve my conversions when up material, by looking for attacks rather than always looking to trade, which has gotten me into trouble before. Usually, every 100 or so Elo gained in rapid, I'd take a lengthy break from playing chess but not from watching. My openings at each rating: 800: Catalan setup with 1.d4 2.Nf3 move order as white; KID setup as black (big struggle with KID) 900: White unchanged; Sicilian Dragon against e4 and Stonewall against d4 as black 1000: White unchanged; Sicilian Dragon against e4 and Dutch against d4 as black 1100-1300: Queen's Gambit as white with Catalan if they don't accept or play 1...Nf6; black unchanged 1300: Added Trompowsky + Tartakower Staunton Gambit to QG and Catalan; Sicilian Dragon against e4 and QGD+Semi-Slav against d4 Another note is that I declined the Smith-Morra by pushing the pawn forward until 1200, at which point I started declining by transposing to the Alapin with Nf36 which I learned from Naroditsky videos.
vor 2 Jahre | 16
Hey Levy, Started playing November 2020 and quickly fell to ~400 Elo on chesscom. Studied your opening videos, Rosen's streams, and Naroditsky's speedruns, in addition to some Lichess studies and tactics puzzles. Worked up to ~1250 on Chesscom and ~1750 on Lichess (mostly play Lichess). Profile is Tylemaker on both
vor 2 Jahre | 11
I started playing in 2020 on Lichess and currently I am 1840 rapid rating. Been following you from almost the beginning, and I have to say you’ve helped me a lot. I’ve studied in depth 3/4 openings per color and I think this more than anything else has been giving me great advantage. Profile: FabioZen on Lichess
vor 2 Jahre (editiert) | 5
I started playing chess a while back but that was only occasionally with my dad. Now I play consistently on chess.com and am rated 600-700 in rapid and 1600 in puzzles. I started playing on chess.com after a school program and that was in August 2021. I learnt intuitively and watching some videos from gotham chess to get an understanding of opening and midgame strategies. I am 13 years old and from Australia.
vor 2 Jahre (editiert) | 5
I started playing around January 2021. I was around 800-900 at the time. I just kept watching your videos and was able to grow to about 1,000. I then moved into an apartment with a few friends of mine and one of them used to play chess in tournaments. He’s about 1,700 blitz. Playing with him consistently, I was then able to almost hit 1,300. I’m now back down to 1,130 but either way I’m much higher that 900 now. We watch your videos and they’re both funny and informative.
vor 2 Jahre | 4
Hello Levy, I started chess after watching Queen's Gambit at the end of 2020/start of 2021 and my current rating is around 800. I learnt some openings through your videos and watching some pro games.
vor 2 Jahre | 22
Hi Levy, I started playing chess back on March 21st, 2021. I mainly play rapid games and In the beginning, I was something around 350 Elo. I didn't have any chess knowledge, the only thing I knew, was how to move my pieces (although I didn't know about castling). Now, after 9 months of playing chess, with 1350 games played, I'm rated something around 1050 and I'm at my peak. I didn't really study chess. However, I watched some of your tutorial videos (like this one with Fried Liver Attack) and some of FM Dawid Czerw's videos. I've learned how to play Italian Games (mostly Giuoco Pianissimo and Fried Liver Attack) English games (which I play occasionally) on whites and Caro-Kann, French (mostly), and semi-slav (which I'm still learning) on blacks. I really enjoy watching your content, "Guess the Elo" series is absolutely the best. Yours and Hikaru's games taught me a lot about chess, and I'm looking forward to being taught. Don't change Mr. Rozman. You are the best. My account is linked here: https://www.chess.com/member/jacobson05
vor 2 Jahre (editiert) | 3
Started from absolutely nothing. Literally learned the rules of chess last year around December this time. Am now an 1100ish rated in Rapid. I mainly watched YouTube videos. I think my general interest and having fun watching high level chess games also helped. Dubov's game against Karjakin was probably the first game where I realized chess is amazing. Hope this helped!
vor 2 Jahre | 69
Hey Levy, I started playing chess around April 2021 just as a way to apply my mind during the pandemic. I started at a rating of around 1000 on Chess.com and mainly played 10 minute games as I was unaware of any other time formats. This quickly led to me dropping down to the rating of around 850 as I was new to the game. As a 17 year old in England there isn't much opportunity to play or learn about chess so I went on youtube to find out more. I came across Hikaru Nakamura's channel and found his speed run series' to be entertaining so continued to watch his videos. I then started watching his sub battle videos in which you appeared so I began watching your videos as I enjoyed the energy you brought to the game. This brought me to watch guess the elo episodes that I found funny but also instructional, improving my understanding of different tactics and positions. My current rapid rating is around 1500 on Chess.com however I only really play 30 minute games as I'm still trying to focus on the quality of my moves and not just how quickly I can play them. Watching the world championship and scc recently has also helped me to improve and I find videos made by Nelson (youtube.com/c/ChessVibesOfficial) and Aman (youtube.com/c/chessbrah) to be very helpful too https://www.chess.com/member/09anc07
vor 2 Jahre | 17
GothamChess
Looking for VOLUNTEERS who started chess in 2020 or 2021 (pandemic). Please tell me your rating NOW + PROFILE LINK and tell me how you studied/courses/videos - I will make a video on all ratings and help you all grow. Vote people to the top!
vor 2 Jahre | [YT] | 17,549