Eric Rosen is an International Chess Master who was born Sept. 3, 1993 and grew up in Skokie, Illinois. Eric’s older brother Alex taught him to play chess in the summer of 2001 at the age of 7, while they were on a family vacation at the Atlantis Resort in the Bahamas. He competed in his first tournament at age 8. By age 9, he won the Illinois 3rd Grade State Championship.

He graduated from Niles North High School in 2012, where he led his chess team to two state championships, won the U.S. K12 Championship during his junior year, was voted homecoming king his senior year and was a featured subject in the documentary Chess State, which chronicled high school chess in Illinois. He earned his Fide Master Title in 2011, and his International Master Title in 2015.

He attended the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana for two years, where he and his longtime friend and fellow chess player Michael Auger revived the school’s chess team. The team made it to the Final Four competition of College chess in 2013 and 2014, an almost unprecedented accomplishment for a school that had no formal chess program. He later transferred to Webster University, where from 2015 to 2017 he competed for Webster University SPICE under the direction of former World Women's Champion, Susan Polgar. He  graduated from Webster in 2017 with a B.A. in Interactive Digital Media, 

Over the years, Eric has worked with a number of coaches who helped him tremendously. These include Tamara Golovey, GM Dmitry Gurevich, GM Yury Shulman, and GM Mesgen Amanov.

After graduating from Webster, Eric focused on teaching chess and on a number of creative freelance projects, all while traveling the world and competing in chess tournaments. In 2017, he also established a Twitch Channel and began creating more regular content for his YouTube Channel, which he established in 2013. 

In 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, he stopped traveling and for now is mainly based in St. Louis and devotes almost all his working time to creating online content. His YouTube and Twitch channels took off in 2020, growing to more than 300,000 YouTube subscribers and more than 100,000 Twitch followers by Jan. 1, 2021. 

Other Interests: Tennis, Scrabble, Photography, Ping Pong, Hacky Sack, Bowling, Geoguessr (check out the Eric Rosen Extra channel on YouTube)

Chess Highlights

2001:

2002:

2003:

2007:

  • Broke 2000 USCF rating

2009:

  • Winner of the US Junior Open in Milwaukee, WI
  • Defeated GM John Fedorowicz in 16 moves at the US Open in Indianapolis, IN; took first place in the U2300 division
  • Awarded the National Master Title

2010:

  • Illinois Denker tournament of High School Champions Representative
  • Led the Niles North High School Chess Team to 1st place at the IHSA State Chess Team Tournament

2011:

2012:

  • Led the Niles North High School Chess Team to 1st place at the IHSA State Chess Team Tournament
  • Winner of K-12 National Bughouse Championship with partner Matthew Dahl
  • Led University of Illinois Chess Team to a tie-for-first finish at the Pan-American Intercollegiate Championships in Princeton, NJ

2013:

  • Awarded the Life Senior Master Title
  • Led University of Illinois Chess Team to a 3rd place finish at the Pan-American Intercollegiate Championships in Lubbock, TX

2014:

  • Featured in Chess State Documentary produced by Rick Rysso.

2015:

  • Secured 3rd IM Norm at the Philadelphia Open and tied for first place in the U2400 division
  • Tied for 2nd place overall the Chicago Open in Wheeling, IL
  • Awarded the International Master Title

2016:

2018:

  • Unknowingly defeated Magnus Carlsen in the lichess Titled Arena
  • Appeared on the front page of Reddit