Tyler1 chess rating (From 199 to 1960 in 10 months) 🚀

A world class League of Legends gamer/streamer (5 roles at challenger), powerlifter/bodybuilder, father, and..

“The Biggest Chess Prodigy known to humankind.” – IM Levy Rozman aka Gothamchess

Tyler1 aka BIG_TONKA_T rapid chess.com timeline:

Born on March 7, 1995, Missouri, United States (real name: Tyler Steinkamp).
Opened his chess.com account on July 7, 2023 at the “late” age of 28 years old. As if age was such a big deal!?
Started as a pure noob with a 199 rapid chess.com rating.
Played chess up to 13-14 hours a day playing the Anna Cramling’s Cow opening on white (e3 d3 Ne2 Ng3 Nd2 Nb3) and black (e6 d6 Nd7 Nb6 Ne7 Ng6).
1200 rating and 2500 Puzzle rating in 2 months. Playing 40-50 rapid chess games everyday, he has stopped streaming, doing over 7500 puzzles and played over 2300 rapid games. While playing hundreds of blitz games. Astonishing!
1400 rating, percentile 94% in 3 months.
1700 rating, percentile 98.5% (which means he is in the Top 1.5%) in 8 months on March 2024.
1960 rating, percentile 99.4% and a Puzzle rating of 3500 in 10 months. Played over 6,000 games and has done over 12,000 puzzles (162 hours).
July 16, 2025. Hasn’t reached 2000 rating yet in rapid chess. Instead, he is now dedicating his time to play a shitload of bullet chess games daily.

“I think this man is more dedicated to chess than Nikaru Nakamura, Magnus Carlsen, and Stockfish combined.” – Levy Rozman aka Gothamchess

Getting such a chess rating evolution while:

Being a Top 0.01% League of Legends players reaching challenger in every single role.
Being the father of a newborn baby.
Maintaining an hulking bodybuilder physique on a 6’5″ frame.

How he does that:

GRINDING (inhuman volume just like he did for League of Leagends)

Getting a Chess.com Diamond membership to be able to do an unlimited amount of puzzles.
Playing as much rated rapid game as you can on Chess.com. Keep on playing despite having a lot of negative streaks (-300 elo) like he had.
Making as much Puzzles as you can on Chess.com.
Stick to playing the same opening over and over again on every single game you play. He played the Cow opening on white and black.
Stick to Chess.com rapid game only. Working the ladder on just one type of game on one platform is more than enough. Playing at lichess too would be counterproductive.
Forget about books, watching videos, getting courses, and coaching.
Just play and do puzzles.
He doesn’t even bother to review his games. He just learn from his mistakes by playing more games and solving more puzzles.

Some particularly interesting and useful YouTube videos about Tyler1 rapid chess ascension (pun intended as always).

What can WE LEARN From Tyler1’s CHESS Climb