Absolute Player Bios

Robert Rizzo, born in 1949, has been a USCF member for more than 30 years. He lives in a suburb of NYC and is employed as a financial analyst. He is the captain of his company's chess team, which captured the TOP COMPANY title at the US Amateur Team - East tournament 6 times since 1990. Previously, Bob was also President of his high school and college chess clubs. Bob is a USCF club level director whose credits include directing the American College Unions - International NYS Regional Chess tournament, co-directing the Under-1800 section of several NYS Championships and assisting with the Harvard Cup man vs. computer events.

Bob is a charter member of the Long Island Industrial Chess League (LIICL), an organization which he was instrumental in resurrecting in 1984. He is also Editor of the LIICL newsletter, The League Leader. As a member of the Chess Journalists of America (CJA) he has covered many top-level chess events in NYC including Karpov-Kasparov, Anand-Kasparov, Deep Blue II-Kasparov, Kaparov-Deep Junior and X3D Fritz-Kasparov. His articles on the latter two tournaments appeared in Chess Life. In the past, Bob has been a frequent contributor to the NYS Chess Association's magazine, Empire Chess, specializing in Chess Crosswords and Chess Acrostics. He has also contributed �On the Square� articles to the Campbell Report which can be found at www.correspondencechess.com. Bob served for many years as an elected NYS delegate to the USCF.

He has been engaged by Barnes & Noble, where he gave a presentation entitled, "Chess in the 21st Century." Annually he directs a Charity Chess Tournament to raise funds for the needy and co-directs an All Star Match between the LIICL and its sister organization, the Commercial Chess League of New York. Mostly "retired" from over-the-board play, Bob now channels most of his chess energies toward correspondence tournaments. His foremost achievements to date include winning a preliminary section of the World Cup XII tournament and playing Board 4 on the US team which beat Portugal in a 20-board match. Bob has attained the title of USCF Correspondence Senior Master and the ICCF IM title along with a norm toward the SIM title.

He also serves on the USCF Correspondence Chess Committee and is one of the chief architects of the Absolute Project. Robert Rizzo can be reached at [email protected]