Book Club Night Kit

How To Win At Chess, Next Level

Levy Rozman

Cozy night

Levy Rozman (GothamChess) follows up his bestselling beginner guide with a friendlier, funnier tour of intermediate chess ideas, full of diagrams, annotated games, and his signature online-teacher warmth. It is a how-to book that somehow reads like hanging out with an enthusiastic friend.

Soup, Tea, and Thirty-Two Little Pieces

Come sit with us for mushroom barley, honey cake, and Levy Rozman's very friendly guide to getting better at chess. No rating, no rules knowledge, and no finished book required.

Reading level: Moderate

Best for: A club that likes a side of hands-on puzzling with their tea, and does not mind if half the group skipped the diagrams

Discussion

Warm-up

1.Who taught you chess, or tried to? Tell us about the kitchen table, the park bench, or the app where it happened.
2.Reading this, which moment made you feel the warmest: recognizing something you already knew, or finally understanding something that had quietly bugged you for years?

Digging in

1.Rozman's voice is jokey and encouraging rather than stern. Did having a teacher who clearly likes you change how it felt to be told you were doing something wrong?
2.This book is about the middle, the awkward stretch after beginner and before good. Where else in your life are you in that stage, and has anything about it been secretly nice?
3.Some sections felt like a cup of tea and some felt like homework. Which pages did you linger on, and which did you lovingly skim?
4.Chess asks you to sit still, look hard, and wait. Did reading this slow your brain down in a way that felt good, or did it make you restless?

Going deep

1.By the later chapters Rozman is asking for real patience from you. Did your relationship with your own mistakes shift anywhere across the book, and were you gentler with yourself by the end than at the start?
2.Without giving away where he lands, the book ends up saying something about why we keep playing a game we will never master. What did that leave you feeling, and does it apply to anything you keep coming back to?

On the table & to sip

To eat

Black and white checkerboard brownies

A board you can eat, baked in one pan and cut into squares. Chess-nerdy, zero fuss, and sweet enough to soften a long diagram.

Pirozhki or warm hand pies (beef and onion, or mushroom)

A nod to the Eastern European chess tradition the book lives downstream of, and the perfect thing to hold in one hand while you stare at a board.

Big pot of mushroom barley or borscht with sour cream and dark rye

Slow, warm, chess-club-basement food. Make it ahead, let it sit on the stove, ladle it out whenever someone gets hungry.

Honey cake (medovik) or a plate of tea biscuits

Layered, patient, built in stages, which is also how Rozman says you get better.

To sip

Samovar-style black tea with jam and lemon (no alcohol)

Endless hot tea is the true chess beverage. Set out a pot, a jar of cherry jam, and let people stir it in. Non-alcoholic.

Spiced hot chocolate with a cinnamon stick (no alcohol)

The after-school, learning-the-game drink, thick and comforting for anyone who wants to curl up instead of compete.

Hot toddy with honey and lemon

For the long-game players. Warm, slow, and best sipped while pretending to calculate three moves ahead.