carmichess: A Biography of the Long Grind
Every good chess story needs three ingredients: a humble start, a stubborn opening addiction, and a nemesis. carmichess, an online chess grinder whose rated journey began in October 2018, has all three, plus a username that sounds like a law firm specializing in quiet positional squeezes: Carmichael & Chess, Attorneys at Endgame. Preferred battlefield: rapid chess, where thinking is allowed but regret is not.
The Long Climb from the Basement
The rapid rating began life at 573, a number usually found on piano sheet music. There followed hundreds of games, a conversion from 1.d4 to 1.c4 around 2020, and a slow, patient ascent that mirrors the way carmichess actually plays: capture nothing early, rush nothing, let the opponent self-destruct. Blitz tells the boldest chapter, rising from roughly 1000 in late 2018 to a peak of 2334 (2026-06-21), a climb of more than 1,300 points, with a suspiciously vertical stretch in 2026 suggesting either serious study or a pact signed in the language of pawns. Rapid eventually cracked 2019 (2025-04-15) in spring 2025, completing the comeback tour.
The English Opening Empire
Since 2020, white games have been practically a monoculture: c4, c4, and, when feeling spicy, c4. The English Opening gets played in more flavors than a gelato shop, from the ever-faithful Drill Variation to the Botvinnik System with its cozy kingside fianchetto. The Amazon Attack appears over 300 times across formats, which is fitting, because the resulting positions attack with all the subtlety of, well, an amazon. A sample of the house style:
Black Side Business: The Sicilian Desk
As Black, the Sicilian Defense is the money maker, posting a 69 percent win rate in rapid and a healthy 61 percent in blitz. Opponents who try the Amar Gambit, that whimsical 1.Nh3 that sends a knight to the rim and a strategy to the sea, actually lose more often than they win here, which is the correct punishment for 1.Nh3. Not every experiment aged well, though: a daily chess fling with the Barnes Defense finished 0 wins and 12 losses, and an overall daily record of 163 wins against 241 losses suggests slow chess and carmichess are simply not compatible roommates.
Nemesis and Snacks
Some rivalries are epic. This one is arithmetic. Across 191 meetings with Anna Kantane, the ledger reads 31 wins, 155 losses and 5 draws, a rivalry so one-sided it loops back around to impressive. carmichess keeps lining up anyway, which is either admirable persistence or Stockholm syndrome with extra knights. On the friendlier side sits monitor_7, vanquished 14 times against a single draw, the closest thing this account has to a house cat. And then there was the record 39-game losing streak, a dark valley carmichess walked into and, crucially, walked out of, which tells you most of what you need to know about the temperament involved.
Style: The 6 A.M. Endgame Machine
The numbers sketch a clear portrait. Roughly 70 percent of games reach an endgame, wins average a patient 64 moves, and the early resignation rate is a tiny 3.7 percent, meaning the resign button is treated as purely decorative. The comeback rate sits at 81 percent, and carmichess even wins nearly half of all games after dropping a piece, which must be genuinely haunting for opponents. Peak performance arrives at 6 a.m. with a win rate north of 61 percent, while 11 p.m. results collapse like a hubristic rook lift. The schedule is therefore clear: brilliance at dawn, sleep by midnight.
Quirks and Curiosities
- Longest winning streak: 16 games, presumably fueled by confidence and possibly espresso.
- Most common checking piece: the queen, deployed with the enthusiasm of a door knocker.
- First capture usually lands around move 6 or 7: patience first, violence later.
- Rated games outperform casual ones by 18 points of win rate; this player shows up when it counts.
- In 2026, 477 of 480 white games opened with c4. The English Opening is not a choice here, it is a lifestyle.
- Peak bullet rating stands at 2270 (2026-05-31), proof the grinding also works at panic speed.
Legacy (So Far)
carmichess is the rare player whose biography doubles as a training manual: start anywhere, pick one opening, refuse to resign, schedule your genius for the morning, and lose 155 times to the same person without losing your sense of humor. The climb from 573 to the 2200s is still being written, one little c-pawn push at a time.