How to Win at Chess: The Ultimate Guide for Beginners and Beyond

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Full of Levy Rozman’s signature charm and humor that have made him beloved by millions of fans, the first half of this unique guide introduces rising players (0-800 Elo rating) to the four key areas to consider when playing chess—openings, endings, tactics, and strategy—and the second half builds upon these core skills for more experienced players (800-1300 Elo rating).Brimming with practical and easy-to-follow tips for improving your game, How to Win at Chess includes over 500 instructional gameplay illustrations to help you better visualize the board, as well as chapter-specific QR codes for exclusive bonus content on Chessly, Rozman’s teaching platform. However, the trade-off from the breadth of the book is that many of the topics discussed are quite brief and not in much depth. Unfortunately, this results in a lot of the text to be descriptive at a more surface level. In essence, in the book Rozman tends to describe and show, rather than explain and explore. From an adult lear ning perspective, this might not be the best approach for someone hoping to use the text to learn principles and approaches, and to gain insights for their development.

Rozman is a chess personality and a strong tournament player and has won multiple city and state tournament championships. Now I have kids come up to me that tell me how much they love chess and they love my ideas, and I look at them and I go, ‘You look like you would have bullied me in school,’” he said. He admits he tries to frame chess in a positive light but says the game is in a good position anyway. “All in all, it’s never been in a better place,” says Rozman, speaking from a room in his New York apartment where he makes most of his videos. Doggers, Peter (March 23, 2021). "Cheating Controversy Results In Most-Watched Chess Stream In History". Chess.com . Retrieved July 15, 2021.First of all is his approachability: he looks like Daniel Radcliffe and chats to his audience about chess with a nice brand of dry, self-deprecating humour. He is as likely to talk about what soda he’s drinking as he is to pull out arcane chess terms. And he had experience in introducing people to chess, even before he started his channel. To be an elite chess player, Rozman says, you need a “ridiculous” ego. He realised when he ran his chess program that he enjoys controlling five or six elements of a project at the same time. His videos are entirely his own creation, with no help from a camera crew, editors, or graphics team. “I don’t know if it’s talent, I don’t know if it’s instinct,” Rozman says. “I just feel passionate about the game and I think I’m able to get ahead of what people are going to want or think, which I suppose is kind of a microcosm of chess in and of itself.”

In an interview with The Guardian last month, Rozman said that he did his best to hide the fact that he was playing chess due to the negative stereotype that came with the game.On YouTube, Rozman posts highlights of his Twitch stream. In September 2021, Rozman surpassed Agadmator to become the largest chess creator on YouTube. His educational content and analysis of games are big hits for his more than 1,200,000 fans (as of November 2021). Here is a video from his famous "10-Minute Chess Openings" series, where Rozman teaches the Queen's Gambit opening. I’ve spent nearly my entire adult life teaching chess to others. Whether it was in kindergarten classes or corporate offices, I always searched for the most effective means of demystifying the 64 squares to my students. When the world shut down in the early days of the pandemic in 2020, I began teaching my students on Zoom, but forcing six-year-old kids to sit through private chess lessons online was both fruitless and mildly depressing, so I turned my focus to YouTube. In the years since then, I have made a video about chess nearly every day of my life. While the chess YouTubing world thrives on conflict – in August he released a video called ‘Why I hate Chess.com’ – Rozman downplays any rivalry between the top YouTubers. He has no problem with other people making their videos and minding their own business. “If I had somebody to punch up toward, maybe I would,” he says. How to Win at Chess teaches you everything you need to know about the game, including all the important moves and strategies to start off strong and keep you thinking several steps ahead.