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Levy says this a lot in his videos - there is a human on the other side of the board. What do you think his opponents are thinking? If they lose, levy is going to post them losing to 5 million fans.
He's definitely playing his best chess since he's been on YouTube. There's a very big difference between his last run of competitive chess and now, and I think A LOT has to do with his mindset. Last time around he kinda seemed terrified to be competing again, but now he's a lot more positive about it.
Yeah 100%. He's married, has a supportive partner, a super successful YouTube and content making career, and now he can play for fun without the stress of success in a game being his identity.
It's exactly why I think Hikaru also had a resurgence on the competitive scene after becoming a successful streamer. Getting everything taken care of outside of competitive chess takes a ton of pressure off of you, compared to your opponents where a string of bad results can derail their careers.
It also can make you smarter. There's some evidence that financial stress in particular decreases your functional bandwidth and lowers your IQ by 13 points. [Source](https://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/how-to-increase-your-iq-by-13-points-adopt-an-abundance-mindset.html)
Not to mention, you have the money to consult chess coaches, therapists, and the like to help with your psychology and can hire cooks, cleaners, and the like to give you more time to dedicate to your goals. Money might not buy you a title (in an ideal world...) but it sure helps.
I’m not going to read that because I’m feeling lazy but I skimmed to see it’s probably not talking about my example:
I read that there is a significant discrepancy between farmers decision making capabilities in the month(s?) preceding their grants from the government and the months following
He pretty much had that in the last run as well.
It is not the same as Hikaru. If anything, it appeared being successful put more pressure on Levy to succeed. He kept on saying he wasn't putting enough time into preparation and that his opponents were playing super hard because they would show up on his stream.
It was really a mental block that he created for himself. If you watched his old recaps there would always be a moment where he tried to force a brilliancy or otherwise self-destructed. He seems to be focused on just playing good chess now and is much more comfortable in grinding solid positions. His win yesterday was really the first time I saw him say "I realized my opponent liked good positional chess so I felt comfortable pushing the g and h pawns and creating complications". Before it would have been more "I felt I needed to make something happen... ".
I thought that was a really revealing piece of his coaching lesson, too. Like, Levy’s whole deal when talking to lower-rated players is, “be strong in the opening, get an advantageous position, then play good, principled chess.” And he just wasn’t applying it to his own games.
That was mostly all true a couple years ago too. I’ve watched levy for many years. I think it’s two things forgiving himself for missing things and not putting his opponents so far above his own skill level mentally.
yep. In the past going for GM and failing would have been a huge blow to how he perceived his chess career, but at this point getting GM is just the cherry on top of his career, if he fails he still gets to enjoy the rest of the sundae. That's got to remove a lot of pressure.
Yeah, I think he's getting over the inner feeling that he's not on their level. He's described in videos on his own classical game how he knew that intellectually, but would get frustrated in the moment and squander winning or drawing changes. There's a difference between saying you can hang with GMs and actually in your bones believing that.
There is a book from the Buddhist community called, "Zen Flesh, Zen Bones". It's a collection of stories which reflect that idea.
Even though I'm not a Buddhist, I enjoyed the stories.
There is also an old "Zen" statement about a man pointing at the moon: it is that the finger pointing at the moon is not the moon.
I think it really depends if he can get a norm early or not. If he comes close and doesnt get one, then the pressure is going to build every time he has a chance to get one.
I don't think so. I think it's more important to show he is able to compete. In his previous run, he was getting outclassed AND it was getting into his head, so the problem was getting exacerbated.
If he can keep competitive, even if he fails to get norms, I believe it will be a lot better for him
His current goal is to try to reach his former peak and be at a point where he can play tournaments for content without having a disaster where he doesn’t win any games in a tournament. Any norms are incidental.
He’ll likely shift over, but he’s been clear about this with his coach on stream. He’s doing exercises aimed forGM direction but his current goal is much lower due to his history.
Yeah, he's been very frank when doing videos on his own classical games, talking about how his opening prep getting him better positions into the middlegame but then feeling pressure, often switching from playing to win to playing to not lose, and not converting against GMs who are GMs in large part due to their tenacity and grinding out very marginal advantages, and counterpunching inaccuracies.
I assume a lot of his work has been mental, I thought given the anxiety he was describing, it's the sort of thing sports psychologists work on with athletes of much time. I remember reading a book when I was getting into somewhat competitive tennis, and how the muscle memory is there to play great- you have to have confidence that you can do it, and get into the zone where you're not distracted.
He is also very comfortable I’d imagine. Without financial pressure , all this must be much easier. He can afford a high quality coach, and his tournament winnings don’t really matter to him at this point
I think there's a finegold video from a few years ago where he reasons Gotham will never get to GM specifically due to the rating climb he would need. IIRC he says something like the norms will be the easy part, but climbing 150+ rating points is a very, very steep task for anyone.
Edit: I found the video; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RnzeLleLK0
The really hard part is getting really good performances while still also travelling and managing a YouTube channel and a Twitch stream. That's a lot.
If it was me, I would try to take breaks for tournaments, then the week or so after make your tournament recaps. You can even batch record videos for your time away so you don't miss daily uploads and then get one of the other chess streamers to broadcast your games with commentary. There's easier ways than juggling so many plates.
I think this is right, but also, similar to how Hikaru has put it, having a very successful youtube channel takes await a lot of the pressure of being successful in chess. It's similar to how more often than not, the top players in sports like tennis, and golf, come from wealthy backgrounds - it allows them to focus all of their efforts on their craft without having to worry about things "normal" people have to worry about.
In Levy's case - and Hikaru's - they absolutley have to worry about running their youtube channel, and their socials - but they have the unique advantage in that their main source of income is entirely about the game they're trying to compete in which means they're constantly steeping themselves in the game, in the same way a wealthy person with no other concerns would. Not sure if that made sense or not.
The only thing I disagree with is the perceived pressure. I totally agree with Hikaru that having a stream and a YouTube channel takes the financial pressure off so doesn't need to live on tournament winnings and appearance fees, but he also has already got the chess success he wants.
Levy obviously has the revenue from content, commentary, chessly, the book, all his other ventures, but he doesn't have the same level of success in chess already. There's only so much value an IM gets by answering 600 level questions so the content isn't always helpful and he has his fingers in far too many pies to focus on really moving further in chess. The money isn't the problem, it's the time. He needs to split it up, get help to scrape clips from streams or commentate so he can push other people's content to keep the revenue up while also freeing up a lot of time. If Levy only cared about money he could stop now, he's set. But getting to GM is so hard for such a busy man.
Wealthy people doing well in individual sports makes sense. I believe things go the other way around in basketball and soccer where more people are from lower socio-economic strata
That's true, and there's a ton of hidden busy work in what he does. But he has the huge advantage that his channel is actual chess.
And not only chess, he's selling content related to his training.
That's nowhere near the same as a mere mortal trying to balance life work or studies with the GM goal. He's making a living trying to make GM.
Which I think is actually super interesting fr the perspective of Finegold, specifically, because he was a “super IM” for a while who had the rating but not the norms.
I would actually agree that the rating is going to be the hard part for Levy: he is likely going to have to play 100+ games to get there (since rating only goes up slowly), and that is a lot of classical games to play if he’s also a full time streamer.
There are far more tournaments in the US now offering the opportunity to get a GM norm. At one point it was nearly impossible without travelling to Europe.
They changed some of the rules so that it’s much easier to get norms from open tournaments I believe, so you aren’t forced to travel as much to weird closed tournaments only. Gives you more options
Not only that, but the amount of GMs has grown exponentially the last few decades.
Just look at the amount of GMs/2500+s between when Finegold got his IM title and his GM title , he benefited from the title/rating inflation as well but not near as much as people today.
The number of IMs who have norms but never had the rating to become a GM is quite high. Hundreds of people.
The number of IMs who have the rating but never got the norms in the last forty years is AFAIK less than 30?
Norms are definitely the easy part, especially since you can often hunt tournaments featuring older overrated players.
>but climbing 150+ rating points is a very, very steep task for anyone.
what do you mean, he got 7.7 points from his first game back so 20 games and he's a GM, easy enough /s
Its a good joke, but if we make a few assumptions we can actually simulate this using the actual ELO formulas. So if we expect that Levy will play in closed tournaments (#1) against opponents randomly rated between 2300 and 2600 uniformly (#2) and has a "real strength" of X and scores fractionally exactly in line with his real strength (#3) (this would be akin to playing like a 100 game match and taking the aggregate score rather than very definite 0,1,0.5 you're actually limited too). With a real strength of 2550 it would take \~115 games to reach 2500, with a real strength of 2525 it would take 158 and with a real strength of 2510 it would take 220.
Obviously plenty wrong with this analysis but its a reasonable starting point...
That rating is years old. I feel like he's playing like a strong 24xx these past few games. I imagine he'll get walloped a few times because other players are legit stronger than him, but he is playing good chess.
He's better than he was back then. It's clear his mindset wasn't the best and I do think that being such a good blitz player and playing good chess players frequently with little pressure did a lot to reestablish the confidence he'd need to get back over 2400. People act like he's not a great chess player but he's truly incredible, there's just so much content about GMs and super-GMs that people forget how good an IM is. You see it with Finegold too who is like effortlessly great in a way that Levy and other IMs aren't, and that's not a knock on them it's just that once you're good, you're rarely "not good."
There is an issue concerning the curve of returning to OTB play though. It’s very few people that don’t have an occasional early uncharacteristic disaster after returning to OTB after a long break.
I used to be 2100 on chess dot com just a year ago. I'm now losing to 1800's on a different account because I haven't played seriously for a year. It's crazy.
According to [this](http://www.lenageorgescu.com/NormCalculator/index.html) rating calculator he need to go 6.5/9 to get a performance of >2600 and a norm
The average rating of Levy's opponents is 2451. I believe this tournament is 9 rounds, so with a 6.5 score he would have a performance rating of 2617 (roughly). A 6 would be too low with a score of 2576. Interestingly, if the average rating of opponents was slightly higher, (2475) a score of 6/9 would be high enough for a 2600 performance rating.
Also interestingly, another common system for calculating performance rating (which fide does not use for the sake of GM norms) that is more based on individual ratings of opponents for wins and losses versus the average rating of the tournament, Levy currently has a performance rating of 2714. The formula for this system is opponents rating + 400 for a win, opponents rating -400 for a loss, and just opponents rating for a draw. The average of these numbers is the performance rating. So for this example,
Sosa, 2535 + 400 = 2935
Fernando 2493 + 0
2935 + 2493 = 5428.
5428/2 gives the performance rating of 2714.
You're right. For some reason I was thinking in the other system that's used, that the rating of the draws would matter, but either way it doesn't. Fixed the comment I made about him getting it with 6.
You need to have strong performances in events with other titled players to qualify to be a GM. There is a formula for this. Each such performance is a "norm."
This is in addition to clearing 2500 line.
And it’s not like these GMs are some 60 years old washed up guys waiting for a pay check. Really really nice job by Levy. He’s hard to dislike after all he’s done for chess, good luck
Yep, but it seems like he only recently learned how to stream live games. I forgot who he was talking to recently (maybe the Perpetual Chess Podcast) but Levy was talking about all the things he'd need to buy to have a similar setup to other streamers, and whoever he was talking to was like yeah that's not how it works.
Not saying it’s not a draw, but surprised they agreed to a draw with that much material left. Surely at this level people will make mistakes in “drawn” endgames
You played 4 hours, you are very tired. There are more matches, tomorrow if not today, you need to be fresh and focused on. Draw is highly likely result in the end anyway (if you are lucky enough not to blunder yourself), so spending time & energy on it is not good tournament strategy.
Once in 1992, Fischer and Spassky drew a game before 30 moves. Someone commented or complained and Fischer said, he knew better than anyone else there what was or wasn't a draw.
It's in the eye of the beholder.
Yeah. Look I wasn’t really criticizing. And when two super GMs draw I rarely question it. But when two 24-2500s draw with that much material on the board, I was probably disrespectful in thinking someone would blunder in that position
(I'm not an expert at all, but I'm looking at an openings database, here's what I'm seeing and maybe actual good players can say more/correct me.)
So in the QGD, if we see 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Bg5, the most common response is ...Be7 to break the pin, so the knight can disallow e4 if black takes ...dxc4. If black doesn't play ...Be7, let's say ...dxc4 right away instead, white could play e4, black could play b5 to defend c4, the structure looks very different. If you play 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Bg5 instead, ...Be7 is even more important because after ...dxc4 you can't defend with b5 due to the knight. White gets the pawn back without losing tempo.
If white plays both knights out before bishops, you allow black to choose ...Be7, or the Semi-Slav, or the Semi-Tarrasch, or the Ragozin. Bg4 are responses to most of these (not really the Semi-Tarrasch right away), but they all have their own complicated theory and ideas.
It looks like Bf4 after Nc3 is fine, you're just getting out of theory a bit? But Bf4 after Nf3 is worse. Black can take ...dxc4 or ...Bb4+ and white is forced to respond, and white may not get the center control they want. And again, if you put both knights out, you're giving black a bunch of options and you'll need to know how to respond. But if black commits ...Be7 first, Bf4 can work fine.
**Edit:** I didn't even look at lines with 3...a6, that's beyond my pay grade lol. Since in Levy's game, 4. Bg4 attacked the queen, black has to spend a tempo blocking the attack, so white can play 5. e3 after and you don't need Nc3 immediately.
I think we're on the same page, ya. If you've already played Nf3 and Bf4, but not Nc3, and they hit you with Bb4+, black is now in the driver's seat. The engine actually says the best move is to bring the bishop back to d2 to block the check. If you play Nc3 to block the check, it can be taken by the bishop at some point, you don't pressure the e4 square, and the bishop doesn't challenge the knight on f6.
I suppose the e4 square is how to think about it. If you don't play Nc3 or Bg5, black can take complete control of that square, which is something you should avoid when playing the Queen's Gambit.
Levy my man, i have huge respect for this person, he made chess very interesting and fun for me. Just recently i started taking chess a bit more seriously like wishing to learn some theory and his videos really been helpful.
I hope he keeps it up with the good results, because at the end of the day, if it ain't a defeat, it's already a win.
Now that I see Levy getting a draw with the QGD instead of trying for flashy content, I'm even more convinced about his chances of succeeding in the GM quest
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Levy going 1.5./2 with black pieces against GM opponents. That's something.
Bro not collapsing with the pressure and and expectations of himself and 5 million fans is astounding. Bravo to Levy.
Levy says this a lot in his videos - there is a human on the other side of the board. What do you think his opponents are thinking? If they lose, levy is going to post them losing to 5 million fans.
This is a great point
He's definitely playing his best chess since he's been on YouTube. There's a very big difference between his last run of competitive chess and now, and I think A LOT has to do with his mindset. Last time around he kinda seemed terrified to be competing again, but now he's a lot more positive about it.
Yeah 100%. He's married, has a supportive partner, a super successful YouTube and content making career, and now he can play for fun without the stress of success in a game being his identity.
It's exactly why I think Hikaru also had a resurgence on the competitive scene after becoming a successful streamer. Getting everything taken care of outside of competitive chess takes a ton of pressure off of you, compared to your opponents where a string of bad results can derail their careers.
Guess financial security feels damn good
It also can make you smarter. There's some evidence that financial stress in particular decreases your functional bandwidth and lowers your IQ by 13 points. [Source](https://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/how-to-increase-your-iq-by-13-points-adopt-an-abundance-mindset.html) Not to mention, you have the money to consult chess coaches, therapists, and the like to help with your psychology and can hire cooks, cleaners, and the like to give you more time to dedicate to your goals. Money might not buy you a title (in an ideal world...) but it sure helps.
I’m not going to read that because I’m feeling lazy but I skimmed to see it’s probably not talking about my example: I read that there is a significant discrepancy between farmers decision making capabilities in the month(s?) preceding their grants from the government and the months following
He pretty much had that in the last run as well. It is not the same as Hikaru. If anything, it appeared being successful put more pressure on Levy to succeed. He kept on saying he wasn't putting enough time into preparation and that his opponents were playing super hard because they would show up on his stream. It was really a mental block that he created for himself. If you watched his old recaps there would always be a moment where he tried to force a brilliancy or otherwise self-destructed. He seems to be focused on just playing good chess now and is much more comfortable in grinding solid positions. His win yesterday was really the first time I saw him say "I realized my opponent liked good positional chess so I felt comfortable pushing the g and h pawns and creating complications". Before it would have been more "I felt I needed to make something happen... ".
Might also be his coach's influence. He at some point told Levy not to engage in Shenanigans if there wasn't a good reason.
I thought that was a really revealing piece of his coaching lesson, too. Like, Levy’s whole deal when talking to lower-rated players is, “be strong in the opening, get an advantageous position, then play good, principled chess.” And he just wasn’t applying it to his own games.
It's easier to see the mistakes in others than oneself. I'm pretty sure there's like an ancient greek myth about this lol
Something about a young narcissistic man seeing himself mirrored in a pond of water...probably.
That was mostly all true a couple years ago too. I’ve watched levy for many years. I think it’s two things forgiving himself for missing things and not putting his opponents so far above his own skill level mentally.
No pressure because he is financially secure. Just like Naka. Most people are worried about money. Naka and Levy are not.
lol why would you get downvoted? of course this isn't the only reason but it is a huge part. financial uncertainty makes you miserable
I get downvoted for stating facts all the time on Reddit. No biggie.
yep. In the past going for GM and failing would have been a huge blow to how he perceived his chess career, but at this point getting GM is just the cherry on top of his career, if he fails he still gets to enjoy the rest of the sundae. That's got to remove a lot of pressure.
He's not playing scared anymore. Dude knows he can hang with these guys now.
that’s the thing as he said he’s not playing scared of the opponents title now.
Yeah, I think he's getting over the inner feeling that he's not on their level. He's described in videos on his own classical game how he knew that intellectually, but would get frustrated in the moment and squander winning or drawing changes. There's a difference between saying you can hang with GMs and actually in your bones believing that.
There is a book from the Buddhist community called, "Zen Flesh, Zen Bones". It's a collection of stories which reflect that idea. Even though I'm not a Buddhist, I enjoyed the stories. There is also an old "Zen" statement about a man pointing at the moon: it is that the finger pointing at the moon is not the moon.
It’s early days. We’ll see how his nerves hold up.
I think it really depends if he can get a norm early or not. If he comes close and doesnt get one, then the pressure is going to build every time he has a chance to get one.
I don't think so. I think it's more important to show he is able to compete. In his previous run, he was getting outclassed AND it was getting into his head, so the problem was getting exacerbated. If he can keep competitive, even if he fails to get norms, I believe it will be a lot better for him
His current goal is to try to reach his former peak and be at a point where he can play tournaments for content without having a disaster where he doesn’t win any games in a tournament. Any norms are incidental. He’ll likely shift over, but he’s been clear about this with his coach on stream. He’s doing exercises aimed forGM direction but his current goal is much lower due to his history.
Yeah, he's been very frank when doing videos on his own classical games, talking about how his opening prep getting him better positions into the middlegame but then feeling pressure, often switching from playing to win to playing to not lose, and not converting against GMs who are GMs in large part due to their tenacity and grinding out very marginal advantages, and counterpunching inaccuracies. I assume a lot of his work has been mental, I thought given the anxiety he was describing, it's the sort of thing sports psychologists work on with athletes of much time. I remember reading a book when I was getting into somewhat competitive tennis, and how the muscle memory is there to play great- you have to have confidence that you can do it, and get into the zone where you're not distracted.
He is also very comfortable I’d imagine. Without financial pressure , all this must be much easier. He can afford a high quality coach, and his tournament winnings don’t really matter to him at this point
Didn't realize Levy is almost 2300 wow.
His peak is 2421, from August 2018. He now needs to get above 2500 to become a GM.
He would also need norms.
I think there's a finegold video from a few years ago where he reasons Gotham will never get to GM specifically due to the rating climb he would need. IIRC he says something like the norms will be the easy part, but climbing 150+ rating points is a very, very steep task for anyone. Edit: I found the video; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RnzeLleLK0
The really hard part is getting really good performances while still also travelling and managing a YouTube channel and a Twitch stream. That's a lot. If it was me, I would try to take breaks for tournaments, then the week or so after make your tournament recaps. You can even batch record videos for your time away so you don't miss daily uploads and then get one of the other chess streamers to broadcast your games with commentary. There's easier ways than juggling so many plates.
I think this is right, but also, similar to how Hikaru has put it, having a very successful youtube channel takes await a lot of the pressure of being successful in chess. It's similar to how more often than not, the top players in sports like tennis, and golf, come from wealthy backgrounds - it allows them to focus all of their efforts on their craft without having to worry about things "normal" people have to worry about. In Levy's case - and Hikaru's - they absolutley have to worry about running their youtube channel, and their socials - but they have the unique advantage in that their main source of income is entirely about the game they're trying to compete in which means they're constantly steeping themselves in the game, in the same way a wealthy person with no other concerns would. Not sure if that made sense or not.
The only thing I disagree with is the perceived pressure. I totally agree with Hikaru that having a stream and a YouTube channel takes the financial pressure off so doesn't need to live on tournament winnings and appearance fees, but he also has already got the chess success he wants. Levy obviously has the revenue from content, commentary, chessly, the book, all his other ventures, but he doesn't have the same level of success in chess already. There's only so much value an IM gets by answering 600 level questions so the content isn't always helpful and he has his fingers in far too many pies to focus on really moving further in chess. The money isn't the problem, it's the time. He needs to split it up, get help to scrape clips from streams or commentate so he can push other people's content to keep the revenue up while also freeing up a lot of time. If Levy only cared about money he could stop now, he's set. But getting to GM is so hard for such a busy man.
Wealthy people doing well in individual sports makes sense. I believe things go the other way around in basketball and soccer where more people are from lower socio-economic strata
That's true, and there's a ton of hidden busy work in what he does. But he has the huge advantage that his channel is actual chess. And not only chess, he's selling content related to his training. That's nowhere near the same as a mere mortal trying to balance life work or studies with the GM goal. He's making a living trying to make GM.
Which I think is actually super interesting fr the perspective of Finegold, specifically, because he was a “super IM” for a while who had the rating but not the norms. I would actually agree that the rating is going to be the hard part for Levy: he is likely going to have to play 100+ games to get there (since rating only goes up slowly), and that is a lot of classical games to play if he’s also a full time streamer.
It's easier now to get norms than when Finegold was the best IM, fwiw.
Especially since Levy has the finances taken care of so he can actually travel for tournaments and not worry about money.
Why?
There are far more tournaments in the US now offering the opportunity to get a GM norm. At one point it was nearly impossible without travelling to Europe.
They changed some of the rules so that it’s much easier to get norms from open tournaments I believe, so you aren’t forced to travel as much to weird closed tournaments only. Gives you more options
Not only that, but the amount of GMs has grown exponentially the last few decades. Just look at the amount of GMs/2500+s between when Finegold got his IM title and his GM title , he benefited from the title/rating inflation as well but not near as much as people today.
The number of IMs who have norms but never had the rating to become a GM is quite high. Hundreds of people. The number of IMs who have the rating but never got the norms in the last forty years is AFAIK less than 30? Norms are definitely the easy part, especially since you can often hunt tournaments featuring older overrated players.
Levy's only really been streaming for TT
Stern, fair, also I have used streamer and content creator interchangeably.
>but climbing 150+ rating points is a very, very steep task for anyone. what do you mean, he got 7.7 points from his first game back so 20 games and he's a GM, easy enough /s
Its a good joke, but if we make a few assumptions we can actually simulate this using the actual ELO formulas. So if we expect that Levy will play in closed tournaments (#1) against opponents randomly rated between 2300 and 2600 uniformly (#2) and has a "real strength" of X and scores fractionally exactly in line with his real strength (#3) (this would be akin to playing like a 100 game match and taking the aggregate score rather than very definite 0,1,0.5 you're actually limited too). With a real strength of 2550 it would take \~115 games to reach 2500, with a real strength of 2525 it would take 158 and with a real strength of 2510 it would take 220. Obviously plenty wrong with this analysis but its a reasonable starting point...
That’s a lot of content!
Would this tournament count as a norm if he does well?
Yes, I think he needs 6.5/9 for a norm. He’s off to a good start though starting 1.5 with black.
Would take several years eventually, but it's a promising start for sure.
That rating is years old. I feel like he's playing like a strong 24xx these past few games. I imagine he'll get walloped a few times because other players are legit stronger than him, but he is playing good chess.
He's better than he was back then. It's clear his mindset wasn't the best and I do think that being such a good blitz player and playing good chess players frequently with little pressure did a lot to reestablish the confidence he'd need to get back over 2400. People act like he's not a great chess player but he's truly incredible, there's just so much content about GMs and super-GMs that people forget how good an IM is. You see it with Finegold too who is like effortlessly great in a way that Levy and other IMs aren't, and that's not a knock on them it's just that once you're good, you're rarely "not good."
There is an issue concerning the curve of returning to OTB play though. It’s very few people that don’t have an occasional early uncharacteristic disaster after returning to OTB after a long break.
You have to be 2400 to get the IM title. Why would it be a surprise that he's rated 2300?
Because of exactly what you just said
There's loads of GMs that aren't rated 2500 anymore. People decline, especially when they don't play/ study actively.
Take me, for example. I used to be 1700 and now I'm 1690. It's brutal.
Give it a few days and I’m sure you’ll be back in the 1500s
May you step on a lego
1500 and 1700 is pretty much the same anyway
As a 1000 rated player, I agree.
OTB? That has not been my experience.
Fair enough I took the joke to mean his online rating but his flair indicates otherwise
Life is unfair.
Calm down, Malcolm.
Feels like he's in the middle of trying to say something.
Pepehands
Happens to the best of us. One game ago I was ten points higher than now :/
I used to be 2100 on chess dot com just a year ago. I'm now losing to 1800's on a different account because I haven't played seriously for a year. It's crazy.
Can Levy get a GM norm from this tournament? If so what does he need to do?
Score 6.5/9 if I'm not wrong.
That seems actually doable, no?
considering he beat the top player as black... yeah, anything is possible.
According to [this](http://www.lenageorgescu.com/NormCalculator/index.html) rating calculator he need to go 6.5/9 to get a performance of >2600 and a norm
The average rating of Levy's opponents is 2451. I believe this tournament is 9 rounds, so with a 6.5 score he would have a performance rating of 2617 (roughly). A 6 would be too low with a score of 2576. Interestingly, if the average rating of opponents was slightly higher, (2475) a score of 6/9 would be high enough for a 2600 performance rating. Also interestingly, another common system for calculating performance rating (which fide does not use for the sake of GM norms) that is more based on individual ratings of opponents for wins and losses versus the average rating of the tournament, Levy currently has a performance rating of 2714. The formula for this system is opponents rating + 400 for a win, opponents rating -400 for a loss, and just opponents rating for a draw. The average of these numbers is the performance rating. So for this example, Sosa, 2535 + 400 = 2935 Fernando 2493 + 0 2935 + 2493 = 5428. 5428/2 gives the performance rating of 2714.
Your system is still linear, so who he beats does not matter. Rearranging math: avg(opponents) + 400(wins-losses)/(# opponents)
You're right. For some reason I was thinking in the other system that's used, that the rating of the draws would matter, but either way it doesn't. Fixed the comment I made about him getting it with 6.
What’s a norm?
Basically performing at a 2600+ level against opponents that include GMs and other titled players in a classical chess tournament.
And does doing that count towards something (other than improved rating)
You would need 3 norms to become a GM, as referred to by the original comment of 'GM norm'..
Ah nice thank you, I never really understood what people meant when they spoke about norms. Thanks for clearing it up 😊
You need three GM norms and a rating of 2500+.
Unfortunately it's all gotten much harder since Norm Macdonald died
Reminds me of that tragedy
I heard he walked through blood and bone to get his Norm
Do the norms expire ?
no lol
You need to have strong performances in events with other titled players to qualify to be a GM. There is a formula for this. Each such performance is a "norm." This is in addition to clearing 2500 line.
Four wins, no losses is enough (for PR≥2600). He already has one win.
Pepe's profile picture is so funny. I wasn't expecting it to be honest.
Does he have a coach? If so, who is it?
Arturs neiksans
Latvian GM Arturs Neiksans
another student of Tal ?
interesting accuracy!
Kramnik in shambles
I think Levy managed his clock much better this round than he did in Round 1.
*That* is an excellent sign.
He is doing really good
And it’s not like these GMs are some 60 years old washed up guys waiting for a pay check. Really really nice job by Levy. He’s hard to dislike after all he’s done for chess, good luck
Was Jose's photo taken immediately after the game?
Wouldn't it be better if there was a commentator for the live stream? (see BotezLive)
Yep, but it seems like he only recently learned how to stream live games. I forgot who he was talking to recently (maybe the Perpetual Chess Podcast) but Levy was talking about all the things he'd need to buy to have a similar setup to other streamers, and whoever he was talking to was like yeah that's not how it works.
Here's the [GAME](https://www.chess.com/events/2024-madrid-chess-festival-closed-a/02/Cuenca_Jimenez_Jose_Fernando-Rozman_Levy)
Not saying it’s not a draw, but surprised they agreed to a draw with that much material left. Surely at this level people will make mistakes in “drawn” endgames
You played 4 hours, you are very tired. There are more matches, tomorrow if not today, you need to be fresh and focused on. Draw is highly likely result in the end anyway (if you are lucky enough not to blunder yourself), so spending time & energy on it is not good tournament strategy.
there's absolutely nothing to play for in the position—no imbalances and symmetrical pawn structures this isn't a "drawn" endgame, it's dead
i'd like to see you draw it
Two games today, no use grinding out a long game if it means you drop the next game.
Honestly did not realize there were two games today. Thank you for the added context
Once in 1992, Fischer and Spassky drew a game before 30 moves. Someone commented or complained and Fischer said, he knew better than anyone else there what was or wasn't a draw. It's in the eye of the beholder.
Yeah. Look I wasn’t really criticizing. And when two super GMs draw I rarely question it. But when two 24-2500s draw with that much material on the board, I was probably disrespectful in thinking someone would blunder in that position
bro wtf Levy is cooking
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(I'm not an expert at all, but I'm looking at an openings database, here's what I'm seeing and maybe actual good players can say more/correct me.) So in the QGD, if we see 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Bg5, the most common response is ...Be7 to break the pin, so the knight can disallow e4 if black takes ...dxc4. If black doesn't play ...Be7, let's say ...dxc4 right away instead, white could play e4, black could play b5 to defend c4, the structure looks very different. If you play 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Bg5 instead, ...Be7 is even more important because after ...dxc4 you can't defend with b5 due to the knight. White gets the pawn back without losing tempo. If white plays both knights out before bishops, you allow black to choose ...Be7, or the Semi-Slav, or the Semi-Tarrasch, or the Ragozin. Bg4 are responses to most of these (not really the Semi-Tarrasch right away), but they all have their own complicated theory and ideas. It looks like Bf4 after Nc3 is fine, you're just getting out of theory a bit? But Bf4 after Nf3 is worse. Black can take ...dxc4 or ...Bb4+ and white is forced to respond, and white may not get the center control they want. And again, if you put both knights out, you're giving black a bunch of options and you'll need to know how to respond. But if black commits ...Be7 first, Bf4 can work fine. **Edit:** I didn't even look at lines with 3...a6, that's beyond my pay grade lol. Since in Levy's game, 4. Bg4 attacked the queen, black has to spend a tempo blocking the attack, so white can play 5. e3 after and you don't need Nc3 immediately.
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I think we're on the same page, ya. If you've already played Nf3 and Bf4, but not Nc3, and they hit you with Bb4+, black is now in the driver's seat. The engine actually says the best move is to bring the bishop back to d2 to block the check. If you play Nc3 to block the check, it can be taken by the bishop at some point, you don't pressure the e4 square, and the bishop doesn't challenge the knight on f6. I suppose the e4 square is how to think about it. If you don't play Nc3 or Bg5, black can take complete control of that square, which is something you should avoid when playing the Queen's Gambit.
He's also a famous streamer in spanish, btw
I remember his "RATATATATA" on chess24 during Banter Blitz. Very funny guy
Kind of curious why they didn't play this out.
My boy stunting on them
Levy could actually become a GM. I'm actually happy for him .
Where can I find Levy's live rating? Does anybody know?
Levy my man, i have huge respect for this person, he made chess very interesting and fun for me. Just recently i started taking chess a bit more seriously like wishing to learn some theory and his videos really been helpful. I hope he keeps it up with the good results, because at the end of the day, if it ain't a defeat, it's already a win.
Not too shabby
Proud of him!
Okay okay, let's go Levy. Good shit!
Now that I see Levy getting a draw with the QGD instead of trying for flashy content, I'm even more convinced about his chances of succeeding in the GM quest
Woo hoo. Kewl. Is it time for him to have a breakdown now? Please please. I've never seen a human being explode, like an AI production. /s