2Im_literally_noob: A Chess Player Profile
Every so often a username makes a promise and the chess board cheerfully breaks it. Such is the case with 2Im_literally_noob, a player whose handle claims total beginner status while their rating history quietly argues otherwise. Since showing up in late 2023, this account has grown from a shaky first month in rapid chess into a genuine threat across bullet, blitz and rapid, with a peak rapid rating well north of 2300 and a peak bullet mark of 2276 (2026-01-25). Either the modesty is sincere or the sandbagging is world class. The evidence points to the second.
First Moves: The Early Chaos
The debut in October 2023 was, to be polite, enthusiastic. Nearly 200 rapid games appeared in a single month, ranging from an opening height of 1773 down to a closing 1456. That is not a rating curve, that is a coin falling down a staircase. What followed was a slow, stubborn climb through 2024, punctuated by a spectacular August where a 246 game rapid binge pushed the number past 1900. By early 2026 the account had settled into the low 2300s in rapid and had simultaneously built a bullet rating above 2100, mostly in bursts that suggest a person with a mouse, a clock, and no intention of using the full minute thirty.
The b3 Doctrine
Ask what 2Im_literally_noob plays and the answer arrives immediately: 1.b3. In 2024 alone the first move b3 appeared 1,492 times, against a grand total of one outing for 1.b4 and four for 1.e3. By 2025 the devotion became scripture with 2,767 recorded b3 openers. This is a player who looked at the entire canon of chess theory and chose the Nimzo-Larsen Attack, then chose it again, and again, roughly 1,088 times in rapid alone with a winning rate near 56 percent.
The supporting cast is equally idiosyncratic:
- The Colle System with its Rhamphorhynchus line, deployed hundreds of times as a reliable club with a steady score.
- The Amar Gambit, a wilder choice that produces brilliant wins and bruising losses in roughly equal measure.
- The Modern Defense and the Australian Defense as the main answers to 1.e4, plus the occasional Czech Defense for spice.
- One single game of the Sicilian Alapin, in the Daily pool, which ended in a loss. That format has not been spoken of since.
Speed Merchant: The Bullet Habit
If b3 is the identity, bullet is the heartbeat. December 2025 brought 827 bullet games. January 2026 brought another 657. The peak bullet rating of 2276 arrived on a January morning, which is either a sign of genius or of the maintenance of a very particular sleep schedule. Across all formats the account has logged thousands of wins, and the termination data reveals a specialist's signature: 1,305 wins by timeout against only 532 losses. The clock is treated as a fifth piece, and a very aggressive one at that. The rating trend from 2025 to 2026 shows the climb clearly
.For contrast, early resignation happens in just over 2 percent of losses. This is not a player who storms off. This is a player who plays on, flags the opponent, and then types nothing at all.
Stubbornness, Comebacks, and Blood Pressure
The comeback rate sits above 76 percent, meaning that once a piece is lost, the game is closer to halfway started than finished. The longest winning streak reached 11 games while the longest losing streak stretched to 12, which tells a story about weekends. Right now the account rides a modest three game win streak, but the wider pattern suggests that the next twelve game slide is always a bad Tuesday away.
Rivalries Worth Watching
Every rivalry has a final boss, and for this account it goes by the name of HaubalieBaubeli: seven meetings, zero wins, six losses and a lonely draw. That is the one opponent guaranteed to bring out the b3 with extra venom. At the other end of the spectrum stands renzoo28, who has been dismantled seven times in eight tries.
The longest running series belongs to Cris92Ve, a genuinely balanced rivalry at eight wins, six losses and a draw. magnusliu is right behind with a near dead heat of seven wins, six losses and one draw. Those two matchups are where the quality shows, tight games with no free points on either side. Here is one for the archive from the cris92ve series.
Signatures and Quirks
A b3 opening, a fianchettoed bishop and an early e3 is the standard picture. The typical win runs deep into the middlegame, and the endgame frequency is high, because this player does not mind grinding out a small edge for forty moves before collecting.
- White is clearly the happy side, with a 54 percent win rate against just under 48 as Black.
- The 21:00 hour produces a 75 percent win rate. Midnight prompts an immediate existential crisis and a 40 percent score to match.
- The one and only Daily game was a loss, so the correspondence chess experiment began and ended in the same afternoon.
- The results tend to beat lower rated opponents at a ruthless 66 percent clip, and there is no shortage of confidence when the rating gap is on the wrong side of the ledger.
The Verdict
2Im_literally_noob is a fitting name only if the word is being used ironically, the way a giant is nicknamed Tiny. Thousands of games, a fixed and slightly eccentric opening repertoire, a bullet rating that would frighten most club players, and enough stubbornness to make comebacks the default setting. The account is a study in doing one odd thing over and over until it becomes a weapon. The bishop on b2 has seen a lot. It is not done yet.