Who Is Almuth Emma?
Almuth Emma, known online as Cameleone, is an online chess powerhouse who turned blitz into a part time job. From late 2012 through mid 2018 she played tens of thousands of rated games, with blitz as her natural habitat. She is the kind of player who clicks Play, wins, loses, and clicks Play again without pausing to reflect.
A Repertoire Built for Battle
Almuth is not shy in the opening. As White, she hammered away at the Sicilian Defense with the Alapin Variation in more than 2,600 games, and she steered the French Defense into the Advance Variation over 2,000 times. As Black, her signature weapon was the ultra sharp Schliemann Defense against the Ruy Lopez, played roughly 2,600 times. That is a lot of nerve, because the Schliemann is not an opening for players who want a quiet evening.
For a taste of her favorite battleground:
.Grind and Grit
Some players protect a lead. Almuth Emma hunts. Her stats show a comeback rate of nearly 86 percent and a win rate of 44 percent after losing a piece. She also dragged opponents into the endgame in nearly 77 percent of her games, and her average win stretched to about 79 moves. She almost never resigned early, which means her opponents had to work for every single point.
Rivalry With indrapolak
No opponent appeared on her screen more often than Indra Polak. The two played a staggering 112 blitz meetings, with indrapolak taking the lion's share of the wins. Almuth still came back for more, and in online chess that kind of friendly obsession is as close to a love story as it gets.
Highlights
- Blitz peak of 2136 (2017-02-18) in February 2017.
- Longest winning streak: 14 straight games.
- Favorite sharp sidelines included the Scotch Game and the Blackburne Shilling Gambit.
- Her blitz rating journey is a wonderful mountain range: .
Her opening win rates across her favored lines are collected here:
.Legacy
Almuth Emma won 12,701 blitz games and lost 13,530. On paper that is a losing record, but in practice it is a monument to persistence. She logged more games in a single month than many players manage in a full year, and she did it while defending the most dangerous lines in chess. If volume is a form of talent, Cameleone is one of the greats.