Robert Lee Hess (born December 19, 1991) is an American chess player who received the FIDE title of Grandmaster (GM) in 2009. In May 2012, his FIDErating was 2635, fifth in the United States.[1] Hess is a commentator for Chess.com, covering events such as the World Chess Championship and Candidates Tournament.[2][3] He also streams chess content on his Twitch channel GMHess, which has 73,000+ followers.[4]
After deferring a year to play chess,[5] Hess attended Yale University and graduated in 2015 with a degree in history.[7] He became the co-founder and chief operating officer of The Sports Quotient, a now defunct sports blog.[8][9]
Chess playing career
The 2006 U.S. Junior Champion,[10] Hess achieved his final norm for the International Master title at the 2007 Cannes Open,[11] and was later awarded the title IM by FIDE.[1]
Hess obtained his second norm by winning the SPICE Spring Grandmaster Invitational in March 2009. The next month, he secured his third and final grandmaster norm in the Foxwoods Open, a performance which included an upset over Hikaru Nakamura. In 2009 Hess also won the K-12 SuperNationals tournaments.[17][18][19]
In the 2009 US Chess Championship in May, Hess tied for second with Alexander Onischuk, with a score of +5 −1 =3, losing only to eventual winner Nakamura.[20] He was on the silver-medal US team at the 2009 World Team Championships in Bursa, Turkey.[21] Hess was awarded the 2010 Samford Fellowship "based on his chess talent, work ethic, dedication and accomplishments".[7] He was also a member of the 2010 US Olympiad Team.[22] In December 2011 he tied for first–second with Alexander Kovchan in the Groningen Chess Festival, defeating Evgeny Romanov and Sergei Tiviakov on his way to a 2702 performance rating.[23]
Hess scored additional successes in the late 2010s. In 2017, he won the North American Open in Las Vegas.[25][26] In 2018, he scored 5.5/9 at the Isle of Man Masters, drawing with former world champion Viswanathan Anand in the process.[27][28] Hess’s most recent major chess event is the FIDE Grand Swiss Tournament 2019, where he scored 5.5/11 and defeated then-reigning U.S. Champion Sam Shankland.[29]
Additionally, Hess has coached PogChamps participants Ludwig Ahgren and Hafu. Hess and Ahgren together won the Twitch Rivals Hand & Brain Showdown in 2021.[33][34]
Hess is a longtime supporter of the Charity Chess Championship, which in 2017 raised over $20,000 for Band of Parents; in 2018 raised over $56,000 for ovarian cancer research at Mount Sinai Hospital, and in 2019 raised over $60,000 for pancreatic cancer research at Memorial Sloan Kettering Center.[38]
References
^ ab"Hess, Robert". ratings.fide.com. Retrieved August 19, 2022.
^Hanken, p. 23. Shulman (who handed Hess his only loss) and Ivanov (whom Hess defeated) had the best tiebreaks. Shulman was declared the Foxwoods Open Champion after winning an Armageddonplayoff game against Ivanov. Id., pp. 17–18.
^Hanken, p. 20. FIDE and the USCF maintain separate rating systems. Although both use the Elo rating system, a player's rating may be higher under one system than the other. Many players are rated by the USCF, but not by FIDE, or vice versa.
