The following article is an excerpt from a large article titled Best Chess Podcasts: The Ultimate Guide To Chess Podcasts in 2022. Despite the “Review” in the title, it is primarily a subjective look at the landscape of chess podcasting and, as such, isn’t “objective” by any means. In this post/series of posts, I will share my impressions about different chess podcasts.

About the podcast

The Gotham City Podcast is a podcast hosted by the International Chess Master from New York, Levy Rozman. If by any chance you don’t know anything about Levy ¹, he is the owner of the biggest Youtube chess channel ² called Gotham Chess and arguably one of the biggest chess celebrities on the Internet.

The Gotham City Podcast, officially launched in August 2021, features Levy hosting different – often very well-known – chess, poker, and Twitch – personalities and engaging in conversations about everything related to chess, but also topics from the other areas of life.

My impressions of the podcast

First of all, let’s not fool ourselves – anyone who is capable of achieving the level of success Levy has achieved in the last few years has to be a very intelligent, capable, and hard-working individual.

Furthermore, everyone who has ever watched any of Levy’s videos knows what kind of energetic, overly dramatic, and entertaining persona he takes up when presenting content on the Internet.

Last but not least, anyone who has ever read some of his tweets or listened to his streams/commentary knows he is sometimes very opinionated – and not afraid to express this opinion publicly and openly.

Why am I mentioning this pseudo-psychological couch analysis? Because I have a feeling all of these character traits become even more apparent in The Gotham City Podcast and in a conversation with his guests.

Almost every episode I listened to is a combination of very deep, profound, and insightful conversation, humouristic and less humouristic stories and anecdotes, somewhat silly jokes, and Levy’s opinions. For example, in the episode nr. 17  featuring John Bartholomew, in a short span of the first 30 minutes Levy talks with John about how his involvement with Chessable came to be, profoundly and openly expresses his opinion about Chessable and its usefulness for 2000+ players and shares a story about how some young player has blitzed his preparation up to move 40. All this makes the podcast very fast-paced, interesting to listen to, and entertaining.

Of course, that is not to say that all the credit goes to Levy as a host. Due to his success as a content creator and his involvement with chess.com, from the get-go, Levy has – similarly to the hosts of The Late Knight Show Podcast – had access to big names in the chess world – and not only chess world – that your average podcaster simply doesn’t have. I mean, how many chess podcasters can get Anish Giri as a guest in the very first episode they launch? Or get Dommaraju Gukesh to join the show immediately after his impressive performance in the Chennai Olympiad 2022?

This combination of very interesting and high-profile guests together and Levy’s vibrant and entertaining personality is what definitely makes this podcast worth checking out.

Why don’t I listen to it more regularly?

Now, as usual, you might be wondering „Wow Vjeko, you just had so many nice things to say about the Podcast, why don’t you listen to it more regularly?“

As usual, it is a very good question. Here is my reasoning:

• First of all, everything I wrote earlier about, say 64: A Chess Podcast is kinda valid here. Gotham City Podcast’s schedule is very irregular ³, there is no official website or way to find out who the future guests will be and I also think Levy’s interviewing skills are inferior to, say, Ben Johnson’s interviewing skills – which is not that surprising given that hosting a podcast is quite different to recording a youtube video and for Levy – The Gotham City Podcast is definitely a side gig, not the main focus.
• Secondly, the Gotham City Podcast was launched at the height of the chess boom, at the moment when chess was exploding on Twitch and when several chess streamers were starting to make it big. It is not surprising that the first few episodes featured several well-known online personalities such as Samay Raina, NortherLion, QTCinderella, and Michelle Khare. Since I personally never had too much of an interest in a competition like Pogchamps nor its participants ⁴ I didn’t get into the habit of listening to The Gotham City Podcast in the early days and went on to listen to other podcasts launched around the similar time, instead.
• Furthermore, since a number of guests that appeared on The Gotham City Podcast are quite famous, I already had the opportunity to hear some of them (Anish Giri, Anna Rudolf, Eric Rosen, Kostya Kavutskiy) on other podcasts/channels. In contrast to, say, The Perpetual Chess Podcast, Cover Stories With Chess Life, 64: A Chess Podcast, and The Chess Experience Podcast, Levy’s guest list is a bit more uniform and lacking in variety.
• Even though I said that Levy’s energy and personality are what makes the podcast fast-paced and entertaining, I realized there is a limit to how much of the „fast-paced “ and „entertainment“ I can intake. I experienced a very similar problem with The Gotham City Podcast as with the majority of Levy’s content – I can consume it for a while but inevitably I get fed up/bored and have to switch to something else. Whether it is due to the fact my complaints are objective, due to the fact I am not necessarily Levy’s target audience, or the fact I am not necessarily his biggest fan, I will not dare to venture.

So long story short, The Gotham City Podcast is a podcast worth checking out, especially if you are a big fan of Levy’s regular content – but also if you are not. I personally will continue listening to it occasionally and checking the episodes every now and then, but I highly doubt I will become a regular listener.

Notable episodes of the podcast

• By far my favorite episode of The Gotham City Podcast is the aforementioned episode number 26 featuring Dommaraju Gukesh, a young Indian superstar. The interview provided us with a unique glimpse into a mind of a chess prodigy, directly after his stellar performance at the 2022 Chess Olympiad.
• I also really liked episode number 11 with Anna Cramling, mainly because of the very insightful and open conversation about the problem of sexism in chess and Anna’s own negative experience(s).
• Another episode I personally found interesting was episode number 15 with the Swedish nr.1 GM Nils Grandelius. Nils is a very strong player ⁵ but also an extremely nice, humble, and passionate individual, with an enormous love for the game. He usually doesn’t get that much publicity, so it was really nice to have the opportunity to learn more about him and his perspective on chess.

1. In which case, I have to ask – have you been living under a rock or something?
2. at the moment of writing
3. At some point, there was a three-month hiatus from one episode to another
4. as fits any self-respectable chess elitist
5. understatement of the year?