Dave Lazarus worked for 35 years in information technology. But at 60 years old he found himself unemployed. And the prospects of landing a new job in IT weren’t terribly encouraging.

So on the advice of an old friend, he went back to an old passion: chess. And he started teaching chess to elementary students first in an after-school program and then as a private teacher.

The combination of the COVID-19 pandemic and the popular Netflix series “The Queen’s Gambit” led to an explosion in demand for online chess lessons. Today Dave teaches chess 7 days per week to a mix of students from grade 1 through 5. His online chess group,  “Dave’s Young Tigers,” has 180 members so far.