The Blitz Machine
Andrei Stancioiu, known online as andreistancioiu, is a chess grinder in the truest sense. Across more than 23,000 rated games, his preferred time control is clearly Blitz, where he has piled up nearly 19,700 games. His Blitz journey peaked at 1966 (2018-11-06), and his rating graph shows a player who never stopped showing up:
.The Rivalry That Would Not End
Every player needs a foil, and for Andrei that foil is Mihai Ionescu. The two have faced each other 168 times, a number that suggests neither side was ever willing to walk away. Andrei lost most of those battles, but the rematch button never stopped calling him. In a world of casual rivalries, that is loyalty.
Opening DNA
Andrei has a favorite child, and its name is the Scandinavian Defense. He has played it more than 5,300 times in Blitz alone, winning over 52 percent of those games. As Black he also reaches for the Benko Gambit, and as White he is happy to enter the King's Gambit Accepted, especially the Fischer line with 4.Bc4. His opening chart is a museum of stubborn, fighting chess:
.A Style All His Own
- His decisive games run long, with an average length near 67 moves, and his endgame frequency is over 69 percent.
- He rarely resigns early, with an early resignation rate below 2 percent.
- His win rate is remarkably balanced: 51.26 percent with White and 50.36 percent with Black.
- He once won 17 games in a row, and he also lost 20 in a row, which means he experiences chess at maximum volume.
- His best time of day is 2:00 AM, so if you meet him in the middle of the night, he is probably fully awake and fully dangerous.
Andrei has delivered 63,451 checks in his career, and his queen is the piece he sends forward to say hello. He may not always take the smooth road, but he always takes the board.