Gothamchess & his GM Dream takes a Hit
IM Levy Rozman more popularly known as GothamChess on the internet has just finished a very tough tournament in New York with a victory-less 2.5/9, in the last place!
About 9 months ago, Levy started the “ROAD TO GM” series on his YouTube channel, putting yet another effort into trying to promote his title to a Grandmaster. As a part of this series, Levy took part in a 10-player round-robin tournament in New York City – Blitz Fuel Invitational 2025 (IM C) – in which Levy started as the 4th seed. The tournament didn’t offer Levy an opportunity to get a GM Norm, however, he saw it as a lucrative opportunity to play some relatively strong players and farm the required elo points. The tournament proved to be rather disastrous for Levy.
Levy had a topsy-turvy start to the tournament. He started with a draw against a CM, a game in which he had 2 extra pawns and a completely winning position. Soon enough, things started to go haywire for Levy, as he lost the next three games in a row—all of them against lower-rated players!
Levy got some respite from the suffering as he got to draw a Serbian Grandmaster in Round 4. After 6 rounds, Levy was just hanging on with 1.5 points, until, he suffered a heartbreaking loss to Ukrainian IM Mykola Bortnyk with the black pieces. If you look at the following position, you’d think, “Isn’t black just winning a full bishop?” Correct! But a nervous Levy, too afraid of white’s non-existent counter-play with Nf4 started to go wrong and eventually lost the thread of the position; eventually lost the game.
Failing to put his advantage away in the next game as well, and finally drawing the final round against an untitled Indian player, Levy ended his tournament with a disappointing 2.5/9. What started as a motivated, positive, and fearless journey has turned into suffering, as a courageous yet disappointed Levy mentioned in his YouTube recap, “For the first time ever in my life I’m experiencing pretty severe stage fright.” As someone who does social media for a living, Levy finds it unavoidable to overlook the feedback he gets after such performances.
GothamChess is the biggest content creator on YouTube, and it indeed has been a tough road towards the ambitious goal of GM title for him. Levy was running on all engines when he started this comeback journey by winning almost 50 Elo points from his first two tournaments, back in the summer of 2024. Levy has stagnated since. We still applaud Levy’s courage to take up such challenges, and even provide his audience with real-time commentary of his games, irrespective of the results he achieves.
Photo credit: GothamChess YouTube
