How to Win at Chess, Next Level: The Ultimate Guide for Intermediate Play

How to Win at Chess #2

by Levy Rozman

Take your chess game to the next level with this exciting and approachable guide for intermediate players from YouTube’s top chess teacher Levy Rozman (aka GothamChess).

Unlock the secrets to mastering chess and moving beyond the basics to dominate your matches with How to Win at Chess, Next Level. This comprehensive guide for midlevel players (1000–1600 Elo rating) teaches you everything you need to know to transform your approach to chess and elevate your gameplay as you face more challenging opponents.

How to Win at Chess, Next Level takes a deep dive into the crucial aspects of evolving into an advanced pawn play, piece play, tactics, attacking, defending, converting winning positions, endgames, and—most important—how to make a winning plan. Including over 500 instructional gameplay illustrations and exclusive bonus content on Chessly, Rozman’s online teaching platform, this book is packed with practical advice and strategies. Rozman also shares best practices for how to leverage powerful tools like chess engines, game analysis, chess bots, and training puzzles, to help broaden your knowledge and secure more victories.

Whether you’re aiming to defeat your friends or become a Grandmaster, How to Win at Chess, Next Level is guaranteed to enrich your understanding of the game and elevate your skills!

Genres: Chess

240 pages, Hardcover

Published October 6, 2026

About the author

I was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1995 to immigrant parents who came from a background in Physics, Mathematics, and Computer Science. When I was 5, my parents argued about which afterschool classes they should sign me up for. They were confident about art but skeptical about chess – I was too hyper to focus on some stupid wooden pieces.

As it turned out, I hated art. But not chess. I loved chess. I practiced every day, forcing my relatives to play against me. In January 2003, at the age of 7, I played my first chess tournament. Throughout my childhood, I was ranked in the Top 5 for my age category in the United States. But I never told anyone about my hobby—the one time I did, I was bullied mercilessly for being a nerd.

In 2010, as a sophomore in high school, I started teaching a classmate chess and his mother paid me $10/hour. I thought I was Bill Gates. A silly little board game could earn me money? Who would have thought…

In 2013, as a freshman in college, I started teaching chess 20 hours a week in New York City. By 2015, I was running my own K-12 chess program. Our team won multiple city and state championships—even though I was just a 19-year-old head coach at the time.

This was my job for 5 years. In 2020, the world changed forever. So I took things online.

Fast forward to now: I have scaled my 10-person after school chess classes to the entire planet. Millions of people around the world come to my channel every day to watch videos about chess openings, strategies, common beginner mistakes, and recaps of top level competitions. Tens of thousands of people have tried my chess courses and my chess book.

Chess has changed my life forever, and I hope it can change yours too. I will keep bringing a high level of instruction and excitement to my channel for many years to come.

~Levy Rozman aka GothamChess

Reviews

[Lacy]

♟️ ARC Review ♟️

This is a phenomenal instructional book. I recently went over the first book to familiarize myself with the cutoff of the Level 1 book vs. this book. I can see the step up in educational content in this book, the same style of communication, and how the content is being built upon from the first book.

You don't have to read the first book; however, to appreciate this book, especially if you aren't a beginning in chess. If you are a beginner, I'd recommend starting with the first book and reading this one to look ahead into what you may encounter with your opponents as you move forward.

I absolutely loved the illustrations used in this book. I'm most familiar with tactics illustrations and I loved how Levy went deeper with his illustrations. Sometimes, he'd show a variety of scenarios, not just the winning scenario, enabling you to see how to analyze your own decisions instead of him just shouting out the correct move to us.

And the fact that there is a chessly course with even more course content and interactive scenarios is Amazing! All of the books I've read previously are just that, a book, but this is literally so much more. You're buying more than just this book.

I can see myself using this as a reference for years to come. I am no chess master and it's a lifelong game, but I have seen myself making smarter decisions, slowing down, and especially using some of the tips and tricks that came from this book.

I love that I don't have to memorize an opening to 10 steps with this book, rather I've received actionable, show workflows I can run through my head during games or just knowing best practices.

If you're looking to learn Tactics, Strategies, Principles that you can apply to Conepts like endgames, defending, , or converting winning positions (even identifying them!) and you're not the absolute newest chess player, you may like this book.

Thank you to Netgalley for this ARC! The thoughts are my own given voluntarily.

[Meredith Redding]

This is a great chess book, if you want something approachable for a more casual player. Other chess instruction books I’ve read have been full of chess annotation, which makes reading them feel very tedious. This book was easily readable, engaging, and even humorous, at times. I appreciated that it taught me how to think about chess logically, rather than just giving me certain moves or openings to memorize. I would definitely recommend giving it a read if you’re looking to up your gameplay!

Thank you to NetGalley and Clarkson Potter/Ten Speed Press for the ARC of this book!

[* Elle * the * Babbling * Dabbler *]

I really enjoyed the information in this book, I am not good at chess AT ALL..But my daughter loves playing and is really good so I needed to up my game. The information and graphics within this book really help to make it make sense to me. Thank you to Netgalley for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

[Vlad Tanasa]

Levy picks up exactly where he left, dropping the perfect follow-up. This is a book that doesn't require a chess board to learn, the concepts are explained concisely and the examples and extra practice drills are amazing. Can't wait for the master level book 😁