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4/22/11: Robert Hess ’15

By the staff | 12:30pm January 03 2012

Lots of kids take a gap year between high school and college. Robert Hess ’15 has taken a chess year. The 19-year-old Grandmaster won last year’s Samford Chess Fellowship, which supported his coaching and travel to tournaments around the world. This week, he’s in St. Louis for the US championship, where his “red hot” play qualified him for the semifinals, which start Saturday.

An aspiring finance guru and former hedge fund intern, Hess “strives to play innovative and creative games, a trait that makes him a dangerous competitor,” says his online bio.

Lest you think he’s all brains and no brawn, Hess played JV football at Manhattan’s Stuyvesant High School. He’ll never make it in the NFL—at least not on the field—but last year he was invited to play exhibition chess matches outside the home games of his beloved New York Jets. Hess “played 25 simultaneous games against all comers” outside the stadium, Bloomberg reports. “He never lost.”

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