GothamChess Visits University Of Florida For Lecture & Blitz Against Old Foe

IM Levy Rozman, (aka GothamChess) sent waves across the Twittersphere recently when he toppled GM Ian Nepomniachtchi in Titled Tuesday. However, to a crowd of chess enthusiasts at the University of Florida (UF), his recent presence on their campus was even more special.

Gotham Chess @ UF was a collaboration held last Saturday between Rozman, Chess.com, and the "Gator Chess Club," and attendees were treated to a one-hour lecture, a Q&A session, and a chance to take on "The Internet's Chess Coach" in an all-comers blitz challenge. Spoiler alert: the blitz was not a whitewash, as Rozman lost a game to a familiar foe for the second time (whom we will mention later in the piece).

Since shooting to online fame during the chess boom of 2020-2021, Rozman has become one of the most in-demand chess personalities and, as a natural progression, he is one of the game's pre-eminent advocates.

Four years on, Rozman has crossed five million subscribers on YouTube (with 2.9 billion views), spoken at the Google headquarters, released an Amazon best-selling book titled How To Win At Chess, and established the "Levy Rozman Scholarship Fund." And this is merely the tip of the iceberg. Therefore, his encouragement of college chess makes a huge impact.

On Saturday, Rozman was met by a raucous crowd at Florida's Gainesville campus and announced that "2025 is going to be a big year for chess again," citing a mystery project he is working on as well as the release of a Netflix documentary based on the GM Magnus Carlsen/GM Hans Niemann saga. If his recent interviews before the 2024 Chess.com Speed Chess Championship Finals are anything to go by, 2025 promises to be an eventful year.

For much of his lecture, Rozman told personal tales about his chess journey and spoke of a time when his chess-playing career looked bleak: "I was completely sure I was not going to play competitive chess again." Amongst the stories, Rozman wove in instructive moments from his games that kept the audience engrossed.

Despite speaking of his trials and tribulations, Rozman made sure to mention that he hoped attendees left the auditorium "inspired" to chase their passions, whether that be in content creation, chess, or other areas.

To cap off the event Rozman then took on five lucky players who tried to best him in 3+0 blitz games. The first four ended predictably, but his last opponent, who was given a boxing-style introduction and came in flanked by Chess.com pawns, was someone who had beaten him before:

This is a man for needs no introduction but insisted on one anyway. 5"11 on a good day but that's not what he'll say. Last year he was the internet chess coaches' defeater... Please give it up for Mr. Derek Zhang!

Amazingly, Zhang managed to win yet again so we may end up seeing another YouTube video featuring the cult hero.

Historically, there has been a participation dropoff between secondary school and college chess players and Rozman is one of the people fighting to close this gap. With the 2024 Collegiate Chess Leagues Fall season in full swing, it will be fascinating to see how the efforts are rubbing off on students in the U.S.