Eric Rosen | |||||||
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Country | United States | ||||||
Born | September 3, 1993 | ||||||
Title | International Master (2015) | ||||||
FIDE rating | 2361 (November 2023) | ||||||
Peak rating | 2423 (June 2015) | ||||||
Twitch information | |||||||
Channel | |||||||
Years active | 2017–present | ||||||
Genre | Gaming | ||||||
Games | Chess | ||||||
Followers | 252,000 | ||||||
Associated acts | |||||||
YouTube information | |||||||
Channel | |||||||
Years active | 2013–present | ||||||
Genre | Online chess | ||||||
Subscribers | 668,000[1] | ||||||
Total views | 193,207,704[1] | ||||||
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Last updated: February 22, 2024 |
Eric Rosen (born September 3, 1993[2]) is an American chess player. He was awarded the FIDE Master title in 2011 and the International Master title in 2015.[3] Rosen began playing chess as a child with his father and brother and became the United States Chess Federation (USCF) K12 national champion in 2011.[4][5] While attending the University of Illinois, Rosen was on the chess team that secured a spot at the President's Cup in 2013 and 2014.[6][7]
Rosen produces educational content on the online platforms Twitch and YouTube.[8] While primarily known for his chess content, Rosen has also produced Scrabble livestreams and videos for his audience.[9]
Rosen was born on September 3, 1993, and grew up in Skokie, Illinois.[10] He is Jewish.[11] At the age of 7, he learned the rules of chess while on holiday in the Bahamas.[12] Rosen's first major success came at age 9, when he won the Illinois 3rd Grade State Championship.[13]
Attending Niles North High School, Rosen led the school's chess team to two state championships, and third place in nationals.[14] In his junior year, Rosen won the 2011 U.S. K-12 Championship with a perfect 7-0 score, beating then-IM Marc Arnold in the final round.[15] US Chess called his clean sweep "one of the outstanding individual achievements in this tournament's history",[15] and the Skokie Village Board named May 16, 2011, Eric Rosen Day.[12]
In 2011, Rosen achieved the title of FIDE Master by surpassing an Elo rating of 2300.[16]
Rosen attended the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign for two years from 2012 to 2014, studying mathematics and computer science.[10][17] He had been offered a full ride chess scholarship by the University of Texas at Dallas, but Rosen turned it down as it would have seen him playing for the B-Team.[18] Instead, Michael Auger, the Illini Chess Club President and Rosen's future roommate, convinced him to study at Illinois.[18]
In his freshman year, the team competed in the Pan-American Championships for the first time since the 1970s, and tied for first with four wins and two draws, after being seeded 14th.[18] This took the team to the President's Cup, the Final Four of collegiate chess, for the first time since 1991.[17] Rosen's team was the only college in the Final Four which did not offer chess scholarships, and the only team without a coach or Grandmaster.[19] In a "fairy tale story", the team made it to the President's Cup again in 2014, after placing 3rd at the Pan-American Championships.[17][7]
In 2015, Rosen transferred to Webster University on a chess scholarship,[9] who had won the President's Cup in both of Rosen's previous appearances.[10][20] Playing for Webster University SPICE (Susan Polgar Institute for Chess Excellence), he was trained by Susan Polgar, the former Women's World Champion. In 2017, Rosen graduated from Webster University with a B.A. in Interactive Digital Media.[10]
Rosen placed 9th in the 2011 World U-18 Championship in Caldas Novas, Brazil, with 6 out of 9 points, in doing so earning his first International Master norm.[21]
From 2012 to early 2015, Rosen's FIDE rating stagnated at around 2300, dipping to 2259 in 2013.[22][16] However, in June 2013, Rosen achieved his second IM norm, with a tied first place finish at the 29th North American Masters in his hometown of Skokie, Illinois.[23][24]
At the 9th Philadelphia Open in May 2015, Rosen gained 50 rating points and his third International Master norm after tying for first in the U2400 division.[25][23] A month later, Rosen gained 51.4 rating points and a fourth IM norm after a 2nd place finish at the 24th Chicago Open, with 6.5 out of 9 points.[26] These two tournament performances took him to his peak FIDE rating of 2423.[16] With his final IM norm won, and a rating over 2400, Rosen was awarded the title of International Master in September 2015 at the 86th FIDE Conference in Abu Dhabi, UAE.[16][23]
In 2018 he unwittingly defeated reigning world champion Magnus Carlsen in a bullet game.[27] In 2022 he won chess.com's online "IM not a GM speed chess championship" whose 16 entrants were prominent chess players who did not have the grandmaster title.[28]