Levy Rosman (GothamChess): Levy Rosman is an International Master and the most popular chess educator on YouTube and Twitch, known as GothamChess. He grew his channel from zero to over 1.6 million subscribers in roughly two years.
What this episode covers
Lex Fridman talks with Levy Rosman (GothamChess) about the 2022 Hans Niemann-Magnus Carlsen cheating scandal, including the now-famous 'anal beads' meme that went viral after Elon Musk amplified it. They dig into how cheating in over-the-board chess could theoretically work, why chess engines like Stockfish and AlphaZero have surpassed humans, and what separates a 'human' move from an 'engine' move. Levy explains the differences between chess.com and Lichess, how he guesses players' ELO ratings, and what makes Magnus Carlsen arguably the greatest of all time. The conversation also turns deeply personal, covering Levy's difficult childhood across three households, his battles with anxiety and depression, the viral Indonesia harassment incident, and the psychology of being a creator on the internet.
Also referenced (named, not recommended)
The Caro-Kann
Lars Schandorff
“There was an opening that got me back into chess when I was 15. I went to my friend's house and he had a book by Lars Schandorff a Danish Grandmaster called the Caro-Kann defense”— Levy Rosman
Game Changer
Matthew Sadler
“Matthew Sadler who wrote the book Game Changer about Alpha zero, that that he explains it significantly better”— Levy Rosman
Shure SM7B
Shure
“for people listening we're using this as I'm sure SM7B that a lot of podcasters use”— Lex Fridman
Overwatch
Blizzard Entertainment
“I've played Overwatch on stream it's the it's the only video game I actually played a lot and got decent at”— Levy Rosman
Minecraft
Mojang
“Minecraft I think is relatively civil from what I've seen interesting a good community”— Lex Fridman
Big reveals from this episode
- Levy recounts the Indonesia incident: he reported a cheater on chess.com, the cheater's son posted on Facebook, and tens of thousands of Indonesians harassed him every minute for a month.
- Levy says day by day the evidence increasingly suggests Hans Niemann cheated, while admitting Magnus played one of his worst games ever in that match.
- Magnus Carlsen's full official statement is read aloud, stating he believes Niemann has cheated more recently than admitted and is an existential threat to chess.
- Levy reads his own retirement tweet from competitive chess, citing anxiety 'beyond repair.'
- Levy reveals he met Hans Niemann as an 11-12 year old trash-talking kid at the Marshall Chess Club.
- Levy admits he was kicked out of a chess camp at age nine because Grandmaster Arthur Yusupov said 'it's either me or this kid.'
- Levy opens up about the darkest periods of his life, including a mental health crisis where he tore up a happy life over noise from neighbors.
- Levy reveals he was offered a chessboxing main event against friend Eric Rosen but declined over head trauma concerns.
Worth remembering
- Lichess started from the Anarchy Chess subreddit and runs entirely on donations with no ads, unlike for-profit chess.com.
- A FIDE rating-change quirk let an under-18 US teenager hit ~2640 (top 50 in the world) in a single month before bleeding 90 points back.
- The suspicious Indonesia account won 27 games in a row at 95% accuracy, a feat even Magnus can't replicate.
- Stockfish making moves in 0.1 milliseconds still plays better than a human.
- The anal beads cheating theory originated from a joke in Eric Hansen's (ChessBrah) Twitch chat, then went global after Elon Musk amplified it.
- Two identical Stockfish engines will always draw from the starting position, so they must be given fixed openings to produce interesting games.
- AlphaZero learned to beat the best engines purely through self-play with no human game data, then DeepMind stopped developing it.
- The term 'parasocial' was coined by Donald Horton and Richard Wohl in 1956.
- In the Caro-Kann's main line, Black already has a plus score by move three, which is unusual in chess openings.
- The Shure SM7B mic Lex uses was famously used by Michael Jackson on the Thriller album.