Here’s the honest version of Levy Rozman’s chess career — the numbers behind GothamChess. Levy is a genuinely strong player: an International Master, stronger than the vast majority of people who will ever touch a chessboard. But he is not a world-championship-level competitor, and his own content never pretends otherwise. His rating history is the story of a talented junior who became a solid titled player — and then found a much bigger stage than any tournament.
The short version
- National Master (US Chess): 2011, age 16
- FIDE Master: 2016
- International Master (IM): 2018
- Peak FIDE rating: 2421 (2018)
- Peak US Chess rating: roughly 2520 (2018)
- Not a Grandmaster — the IM title is his current top title as of July 2026
The climb: NM FM IM
Levy learned chess as a young child in Brooklyn and competed seriously from early on. His progression through the titles was steady and earned, not meteoric:
- 2011 (age 16): he reached National Master through the US Chess Federation — a milestone that already puts a player in rare company.
- 2016: he was awarded the FIDE Master title, the first of the international titles.
- 2018: he earned the International Master title — and in the same era hit his rating peaks.
That final step is the key one. An International Master sits one rung below Grandmaster, and worldwide there are only a few thousand of them. It represents years of tournament work against tough opposition. When people say “Levy is just an IM,” it’s worth remembering that “just an IM” still means one of the strongest few thousand players on the planet.
The peak: a 2421 FIDE rating
Levy’s peak FIDE rating was 2421, reached around 2018, with a peak US Chess rating in the neighborhood of 2520 the same year. Those are the numbers to anchor on, because they’re stable, verified milestones rather than a live figure that drifts week to week.
For context: the world’s top grandmasters live around 2750–2850. So Levy at his best was roughly 300–400 points below the absolute elite — a chasm in chess terms, but also a level almost no club player ever reaches. He’s the kind of player who would comfortably beat a strong amateur nearly every time.
What an IM rating actually means
It’s worth pausing on what “International Master” and a 2421 rating represent, because the numbers are easy to wave away when you’re comparing them to Magnus Carlsen. Chess ratings are a measuring stick where each ~200-point gap roughly corresponds to a large, consistent skill difference. A brand-new player sits around 400–800. A solid club player who studies might reach 1500–1800. A National Master (Levy in 2011) is around 2200. Cross into the 2300s and 2400s, and you’re an international-title-holding player who has beaten strong opponents in rated, over-the-board tournaments for years.
In other words, the distance from a typical improving player up to Levy’s peak is enormous — far larger than the gap from Levy up to the world elite feels in headlines. He is emphatically not “just some YouTuber who’s okay at chess.” He’s a titled player who happens to also be the best chess communicator on the planet.
The pivot: from the board to the camera
The most important thing that happened to Levy’s chess career around 2018–2020 wasn’t a rating change — it was YouTube and Twitch. As the 2020 chess boom hit, his teaching content exploded, and content creation became his profession. Competitive play understandably took a back seat.
In July 2022, Levy publicly announced a competitive retirement, citing the physical and mental strain of tournament chess alongside a full-time content career. For a while, “GothamChess the creator” fully eclipsed “Levy Rozman the competitor.”
The comeback: chasing the GM dream
Then, in April 2024, Levy returned to over-the-board play, stating that he wanted to pursue the Grandmaster title. It’s a compelling storyline: one of the most famous chess figures in the world going back into the trenches to try to earn the game’s top playing title the hard way — in real tournaments, against real grandmasters, while millions follow along. As of July 2026, he holds the IM title; the GM chase is an ongoing chapter, not a finished one.
Why we don’t publish a year-by-year rating chart
You won’t find a fabricated table of exact monthly ratings on this page. Live and historical rating numbers are easy to get subtly wrong, and a wrong number is worse than no number. Instead we anchor to verified milestones — the titles and their years, and the peak rating of 2421 in 2018. For his current official rating, always check his FIDE profile directly; that’s the authoritative, always-up-to-date source.
Putting it in perspective
The temptation is to judge Levy against Magnus Carlsen or Hikaru Nakamura and conclude he “isn’t that good.” That’s the wrong frame entirely. Compared to the general chess population, Levy is exceptional — a titled player who spent years earning every rung. And compared to every chess player in history on the metric that arguably matters most for the game’s future — how many people you brought to chess — Levy Rozman is in a league of his own.
Keep exploring
See how that IM skill shows up in his playing style and his best games and moments, or dig into the openings he plays and fun facts about GothamChess. Back to the main profile · browse all chess players.
Written and fact-checked by the Chess Lab Academy Editorial Team · Facts verified against Wikipedia, his FIDE profile, and Chess.com, as of July 2026 · Last verified 2026-07-10 · How we verify content.