Meet The Grandmaster Content Creator (And GothamChess's Coach!) Who Never Rests

GM Arturs Neiksans has done it all during his amazing career: player, coach, author, commentator, content creator, and more. The four-time Latvian chess champion (1999, 2011, 2015, and 2019) is currently working closely with IM Levy "GothamChess" Rozman, but that hasn't stopped him from continuing to produce on YouTube, Chessable, and other platforms.

About three years ago, Arturs was the Chess.com Coach of the Month, and now he is our Creator of the Month! Read below about his journey into creating, his favorite content, his time with GothamChess, and more.

How long have you been creating chess content, and what made you decide to start?

It’s probably a good idea to go back a little to better understand the context. Being a rather talented chess player, I got the international master title back in 2001 at age 18, but at that point I pretty much decided that I would never be a chess professional. There was just no appeal. The elite players were having a good life, but other chess professionals were just traveling from tournament to tournament just to earn a living. There was little interest in private coaching and Zoom or Skype did not exist yet. I had no illusions that I would become an elite grandmaster but the chess scholarships in American universities back then weren’t a thing yet—this is what I would do today if I was 20 years younger. So I quit professional chess and pursued career while graduating university here in Latvia for an MBA degree. 

Things took quite a bit of turn in 2008/2009 when the world was hit by economic crisis. I lost my job and with it, my desire to pursue a career in journalism and public relations. After taking some side jobs, my private life started to suffer, so I desperately needed a fresh start and to escape from the current environment. In the summer of 2010, several friends and I decided to make a trip across Europe. Over almost two months, we played in many tournaments in Europe, traveled with a car about 8,000 kilometers from Riga to Portugal and back, and I blogged it during the travels.

When I came back, life took an unexpected turn: I got a job offer from the Riga Chess School. The head coach and Latvian chess legend GM Janis Klovans had just passed away and they were looking for a substitute. My life changed dramatically, and I was back into chess once again. Now I faced the question: Am I grandmaster material or not? In just two years, I got all the required GM norms and got the prestigious title in 2012 at age 29. As you’ll see later, the late GM title acquisition might have played a role in the most unexpected way later.

It's safe to say that at that point I became a chess professional because I was also playing in many tournaments while coaching some of the most talented youngest Latvian players. While coaching and playing, I peaked at 2631 Elo back in 2016, but soon I realized that I couldn’t climb any higher. Two of my best students got their GM titles a year later. I think that deep inside I’m afraid to find myself in a routine, so I always need a change, new challenges to keep moving forward. I never portrayed myself as a chess theoretician, but it was still very interesting to accept an offer to write a theoretical database for Modern Chess back in 2018. My collaboration with them ended in four theoretical databases and then… then came the covid pandemic.

I always need a change, new challenges to keep moving forward.

While locked in our homes, suddenly streaming on Twitch became quite a thing. I watched GothamChess jump from 10,000 to 80,000 followers in mere months. The chess popularity surge was insane. More and more professional chess players started to stream so I thought, why not me? And so I did some of my very first streams that, from a technological viewpoint, were probably pretty terrible. Eventually I upgraded my gear and very quickly I realized that I loved it! Engaging with viewers, sharing with my games and practicing my rusty English language—I was immediately hooked. I believe eventually I also changed as a person, that thanks to streaming, I became more open. And from there, things just developed, one after another: I joined the Chess.com Partnership program around May of 2020, I decided to write my very first course for Chessable in the end of year 2020, and I did several commentaries for Chess.com.

This was my newfound passion—to create chess content. I realized that I wanted to focus on it and do nothing else. In 2021 I left Riga Chess School so that I could work on my new projects full-time.

What’s your favorite thing about creating? What makes it fun?

It’s mainly about sharing my knowledge with chess fans and find a way to explain things that it’s crystal clear for all levels and at the same time entertaining. Those who know me best will probably agree that I'm 100% a perfectionist and everything I attempt to do, I want to succeed at. I would never publish something that I don’t like myself; my greatest critic is myself. For example, for my very first course on Chessable, I was worked six months, sometimes up to eight hours a day, just to make sure I was proud of the result.

I treat tournament commentaries in a very similar way. I prepare for them just like for a tournament game and I feel that this is one of my greatest professional passions. I constantly re-watch past performances, follow some of the best commentators, and write down the best ideas and expressions: "Anchor the knight", "install the rook", "without further ado"—all noted!

Apart from Chessable and tournament commentaries, I also have a YouTube channel. I like to use it as a platform to teach advanced chess in simple-to-understand language for chess fans all over the world. Once I tried to fool myself that I would publish four videos per week. Of course, soon I realized that working on YouTube essentially is a full-time job. During my recent commentary for GothamChess, it started to grow very rapidly! I’m excited for the numbers but also reminding myself that this is just the beginning.

Who are some of your favorite chess content creators, and why?

In my humble opinion, GM Daniel Naroditsky is the greatest commentator in chess, and I'm always learning from the best. Those couple of times that we did commentaries together were eye-openers for me and I would write things down for further improvement. Sometimes I wonder if I could ever come close to the command of the English language that Daniel has. I suppose that’s one of my lifetime challenges. I’m a native Latvian and the second language I learned was Russian; only then I learned English. I speak also German and recently started to do some lessons in French, but possibly working on the English grammar at a professional level is something I will pursue in the coming years. Daniel's YouTube channel is also the direction that I want to take myself, focusing on educational content, not milking drama or showing basic checkmates in two.

Of course, I’ve always liked IM Levy Rozman (GothamChess) and the way he promotes chess—there’s no other chess creator who can do it like Levy. I believe all of us possess a talent or two that we may or may not discover during our lifetime and I’m very happy that Levy discovered his. You’ve probably heard that a couple of months ago Levy announced that he’ll be pursuing the GM title and before I realize what’s happening, I became his coach! If you would have told me a year ago that I’ll be coaching GothamChess and doing commentaries on his channel, at that moment I would probably wake up from a daydream. Because that’s what usually happens. But here we are and it’s suddenly very real. Levy is my current and possibly the most important challenge of my professional career. I want to help him to accomplish his dream, because I can relate to it, and I know it can be done. Everyone who says that Levy can’t do it, only cements the resolve. As John Locke from my favorite TV series “Lost” would say - “Don’t tell me what I can’t do!” We’re working very hard.

There’s no other chess creator who can do it like Levy.

What is your single favorite piece of chess content you've ever created?

When I started to stream, I wanted to do some educational streams and upload it all on Youtube. I came up with a title GM Neiksans Boot Camp and ever since, I’ve done about 40 episodes on them. I know it’s wrong for the Youtube algorithm, you’ŗe not supposed to post videos longer than 15 minutes and I could have easily split them in many parts but whatever—I’m not going to change what I started years ago. I’ve got so much positive feedback on the videos that it inspires to continue the work. If I would have to select a single episode, probably the one on Catalan. Anyway, I have a good feeling that I haven’t created the best single favorite piece of content just yet.

What is your single favorite piece of chess content that was created by someone else?

I have never really thought about it but if I’d have to choose, the first thing in my mind comes Danya’s best chess impressions, especially when he does a Yasser. Always cracks me up!

Imagine you could do a chess-based collab with anyone in the world. Who would it be, and why?

Can I name three? First, Arnold Schwarzenegger. He was the biggest action movie hero in my childhood. I don’t think many people are even aware that Schwarzenegger was also running a successful business and became a millionaire before his acting career had even started! He is multi-talented and has worked very hard his entire life. I think Arnold is a truly fascinating person and it would be fantastic to meet him in real life, play a chess game and talk about life experiences.

Second, one of the poker greats, Daniel Negreanu. Poker used to be quite a passion of mine when I returned to competitive chess. For many years in Latvian chess circles there was one game that dominated "after dark" and that was zolīte (a national card game in Latvia). But around 2010 or so all of Latvia suddenly switched to No-limit Texas Hold'em and besides my own attempts at playing I would also spend hundreds of hours watching some of the best moments of the Word Series of Poker, High Stakes Poker, and Poker After Dark. Daniel is a living poker legend and he’s my absolute favorite. I just love how he plays; his incredible intuition to read opponents cards has no equal and the friendly banter could be something that I’ve subconsciously been trying to replicate. Daniel is also a decent chess player so I could teach him some of the finer chess techniques while he could explain to me how not to tilt. Because I always tilt in poker (and have very bad bankroll management).

Finally, it would be great to teach some chess to Kristaps Porzingis! I shared the picture of Kristaps playing chess last year with Chess.com and suggested that they should do PogChamps NBA edition, with Porzingis and Luka Doncic continuing their rivalry from this year’s NBA Finals on the chessboard as well. If this ever happens, I volunteer to coach Porzingis since he’s a Latvian, just like me!

Share any other thoughts you have! Unique things about your content that no one else does; something your audience doesn't know about you; or anything else.

I don’t think there’s anyone in the chess circles who knows this, but when I quit chess after graduating high school, I was a gamer for many years. One of the first games I ever played on my first PC was Might and Magic VIII: Day of the Destroyer and I became a huge fan of the series, including Heroes of Might and Magic. I was an active member of the Might and Magic online fan community back in the days of 3DO and Celestial Heavens online communities with my old gamertag “arturchix” and even attempted to design our own fan game, called Might and Magic Tribute. When Ubisoft decided to revive the Might and Magic brand with Heroes V around 2003/2004, I was one of the hand-picked members from the fan community for a direct contact with Ubisoft.

This was a fascinating time. We were talking with the developers about potential game concepts, and I even went to some live meetings in Budapest and Warsaw to meet them in person. I also went to GamesCom in Cologne, Germany for the Heroes V release party. I had a lot of behind-the-scenes knowledge about the Heroes games, Dark Messiah and HoMM: Kingdoms browser game that we secretly tested for months. At least two of the fans (that I know of, there might be more) were eventually hired as game designers for Ubisoft, and even though I wanted to be as well, I realized I lacked the required skillset. Our little community had a very strong bond and the partnership with Ubisoft lasted for years. However, I slowly stepped out of it before the release of Heroes VI which coincided with my return to competitive chess. Fun trivia: one of the HoMM: Kingdoms special achievement artifacts was named after me, and one of the hero sketches designed after my photo. If you have the Heroes V game, you can check the game credits and find my name! 

I still like to play some computer games (I’m a huge fan of Elder Scroll series, played a lot of Fallout, GTA games, Call of Duty, etc.) but in general, I’ve lost the passion for gaming and basically have no time for it anymore. That stage of my life is officially over, and all my focus is on chess. Eventually I will retire as a competitive player to work on content creation full-time.