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.
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 my conversation with Eric Rosen, you’ll discover:
-Is chess a sport?…01:10
-How both victory and defeat is short-lived in chess…05:05
-How a chess master answers the question, “What do you do for a living?”…12:40
-Where does the chess industry go from here?…17:50
-Risks inherent with combining your passion with your career path…26:14
-Knowing when to say “no” to opportunities…34:05
-How top chess players train their bodies and minds…45:20
-Is there a “ceiling” of achievement if you begin playing chess later in life?…54:22
-What’s next in Eric’s life, chess and non-chess…1:00:15
Article: “The New Chess Boom”