Hi There,

I am just another guy who got into playing chess and more than “About me”, I would like to talk about the story about my chess journey.

So I was never really fond of chess during my childhood. I knew how the pieces moved but that’s it. My brother used to play chess here and there though, but just for fun, sometimes with cousins. But it so happened that a friend of mine in college happened to play chess. And they beat me a several times and that sort of was like a kick start for me. I wanted to beat them; be better. So I started playing.

This all was just before covid. I kept playing but didn’t know anything about the chess community (my knowledge limited to the two best chess players - Vishy Anand and Magnus Carlsen) or chess openings or stuff like that. Just random games and random moves that suited my brain.

Then came the turn around. Covid happened. I was at home, nothing much to do.

Enter : Samay Raina

Funny Guy who plays chess, well why not follow him I thought. And the legendary collab with Sagar Shah 🤌🤌🤌

I still miss the countless numbers of streams and trainings that they used to do and it was all very engaging - funny + interesting. I kept playing, I kept learning. I and my brother got hooked to chess. Like all we did was play chess. Hours and Hours.

I also got a chance to play with Samay once, when he happened to visit a chess cafe in my town (just for fun) after his stand up show.

PS: We both blundered our Queens on move 8 XD

I have learnt a lot from GothamChess (Like this guy is my chess guru)

Vienna opening and the little bit mid game stuff i understand - All thanks to Levy.

That’s how I coined the name - “gothamtot” for my account.

Also a Big Shout out to Daniel Naroditsky. His 1 hr long streams where he used to play 10 min games with a various rating brackets was very instructive.

My peak has been ~1950 Rapid rating and the best achievement I think in my Chess life would be that now I can play well enough to sort of evaluate a position being draw.

Also I want to play an OTB rated tournament some day. Lets hope I will some day :P

I know i should get a life. :P

Thanks again to all the players I have played online and the Chess lords XP

gothamtot97