Ray Robson

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Ray Robson

Full name	Ray Robson
Country	United States
Born	October 25, 1994 (1994-10-25) (age 13) Guam

Title	FIDE Master (FM)


FIDE rating	2433
Peak rating	2433 (April 2008)

Ray Robson (born October 25, 1994) is an American chess player. He is the youngest FIDE and International chess master in the United States.

1 Early life
2 Chess career
3 See also
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Early life

Robson was born in Guam to Gary Robson, a professor at the college of education (applied linguistics) at St. Petersburg College, and Yee-chen, a kindergarten teacher at Country Day School.^[1] They later moved to Largo, Florida where they live today. An only child he learnt chess from his father at age 3. He attended public school for kindergarten, then a public school for the gifted in first grade, then from grades 2-5 he was at a private Montessori school. He started homeschooling in grade 6, and is now in 7th grade.

Robson has said he wants to become a professional chess player, and his parents hoped for him to gain a chess scholarship to college.^[2] In April 2005, at the "Super Nationals" (the world's largest scholastic chess tournament) in Nashville, he won every match he played and emerged as the national champion in the elementary age (K-6) division. By winning this title he won a four-year scholarship covering full tuition and fees, along with a housing stipend, to the University of Texas at Dallas. The scholarship has a cash value of about $48,000 to non-Texas residents. The only stipulation is that the winner must meet the university's entrance requirements at matriculation, which for Robson won't be for several years.^[3]

[edit] Chess career

Robson has won seven national scholastic titles (including regulation events and blitz events). In addition, he has represented the United States in international scholastic events since 2004. Robson finished in the top ten at the World Youth Chess Championship from 2004 to 2007, and he tied for first place in the 2005 and 2006 (U12 Boys, Silver on tiebreak) Pan American Youth Chess Championships.

Robson also plays in many of the major open tournaments in the United States. He finished in the top ten both at the 2006 National Chess Congress in Philadelphia and at the 2006 North American Open in Las Vegas.^[4] Robson's performance at the former event qualified him for the 2007 U.S. Chess Championship, making him the youngest player in the history of the event to participate.

In 2004, at the age of nine, Robson defeated his first National Master in tournament play. In 2005 he defeated his first International Master (IM), and in 2006 he defeated his first Grandmaster (GM). He studied with GM Gregory Kaidanov for almost two years (2005-07), where the two mainly communicated over the phone and Internet. He has been working on his own since June 2007.^[1]

Robson was awarded the FIDE Master (FM) title in June of 2005 after tying for first place at the Pan American Youth Chess Championship in Brazil. He earned the USCF National Master (NM) title in January of 2006 by raising his chess rating above 2200 (the minimum required for the title of National Master). Robson earned the three norms needed for the IM title in only six weeks: the first at the 6th North American FIDE Invitational on November 3, 2007, in Chicago, Illinois; the second 24 days later at the World Youth Chess Championship in Antalya, Turkey; and the third 13 days later (December 10) at the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) GM Invitational in Dallas, Texas, making him the youngest IM-elect in the United States (the official title, which comes from FIDE, should be awarded in the spring of 2008).^[5]