Eric Rosen

Eric Rosen is the person chess YouTube goes to when it wants to actually learn something. An International Master (born 3 September 1993), Rosen has spent more than a decade building one of the most respected educational channels in online chess — 700,000-plus YouTube subscribers, hundreds of millions of views, and a reputation as the game’s favorite teacher. Where other creators chase drama, Rosen chases understanding; where others play the soundest lines, he plays the funniest ones. Chess, in his hands, is a game you fall in love with.

His chess credentials are the real thing. He started playing as a child with his father and brother, won the United States K12 national championship in 2011, and earned the FIDE Master title that same year before completing the International Master title in 2015 — peaking at a FIDE rating of 2423 in June 2015. At the University of Illinois, he played on the chess team that reached the prestigious President’s Cup in 2013 and 2014. This is not a content creator who happens to play chess; it is a serious tournament player who happened to become a great broadcaster.

The broadcasting began in 2013, when he launched his YouTube channel, and expanded to Twitch in 2017 under the handle imrosen. The early years were a slow burn: Twitch and YouTube were a side project, he has said, and in the first six months to a year there was very little return — he supported himself giving private chess lessons, and at the beginning there were maybe five people watching. Gradually, the audience built. A background interest in digital media, photography, and video production gave his videos a polish that most chess content lacked, and his teaching instinct did the rest.

Then came the clip that changed everything. In 2018, playing anonymously on Lichess, Rosen beat an account called “manwithavan” — a 2500-rated GM account that his Twitch chat informed him belonged to none other than world champion Magnus Carlsen. He posted the clip to YouTube; it pulled in roughly half a million views in a day and more than 40,000 upvotes on the front page of Reddit. Exposure like that doesn’t come twice, and Rosen was ready for it: years of patient teaching meant new viewers who arrived for the Carlsen story stayed for the lessons. His subsequent video “I Played Magnus Carlsen In Real Life” has since passed 2.9 million views, and “Wobbly Blitz Chess” sits near 2 million.

His signature contribution to chess culture is the Stafford Gambit — the cheeky, objectively dubious response to 1.e4 (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Nxe5 Nc6?!) that Rosen turned into a phenomenon. Chessgames.com’s commentators describe him as “a leading chess streamer and a popularizer and theoretician of the Stafford Gambit,” and they are not exaggerating: his endless explorations of tricky, trap-laden openings turned opening theory into entertainment. The Stafford videos are instructional comedy classics — a gambit played with total commitment, surprising success (he has beaten grandmasters with it), and infectious joy. His motto might as well be: chess is supposed to be fun, and he never lets you forget it.

The teaching is the product. Where other streamers show off, Rosen explains — breaking down grandmaster games, his own blitz battles, and viewer games with the patience of a born educator. Beginners become intermediates watching him; intermediates become dangerous. During the chess boom — the pandemic surge, the PogChamps era, the Netflix Queen’s Gambit effect — every platform was flooded with new players, and Rosen’s channel stood out for substance. Newcomers who wanted to actually improve, not just be entertained, found their teacher.

His sportsmanship is as famous as his openings. Gracious in defeat, generous with credit, unfailingly positive — in the sometimes-toxic world of competitive chess, Rosen is the walking counter-example. He has also shown range beyond the 64 squares: he produces Scrabble livestreams and videos for his audience, a reminder that the educator’s instinct applies to any game with depth. His ecosystem now spans Twitch, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and X, plus a second YouTube channel (Eric Rosen Extra), a clips channel, a newsletter, a merch shop, and imrosen.com — a proper media operation built around one person’s love of the game.

In 2025, he shared a milestone of a different kind: his marriage to IM Irene Kharisma Sukandar, Indonesia’s top female player and a two-time Asian women’s champion. The two had kept their relationship mostly private; the announcement delighted a community that had followed both of their careers for years. It was a fitting union for the chess world’s favorite teacher — two titled players, two educators, one shared life on and off the board.

Gambits, giggles, and genuine instruction: Eric Rosen proves that the best chess content is not about being the best player — it is about making everyone else better. The Stafford Gambit videos keep coming, the lessons keep landing, and hundreds of thousands of players are stronger, stranger, and happier for it. In a game with a reputation for intimidation, his warmth is radical. Every beginner he encourages is a victory bigger than any tournament.