Meet Casablanca
Paris Prestia is a National Master who logs in under the screen name Casablanca. The name carries cinematic weight, and his chess follows the script: dramatic swings, unforgettable reruns, and an endless willingness to play one more game. He is first and foremost a disciple of bullet chess, where the clock is part of the character.
Prestia emerged in mid-2018 with a Blitz rating under 1000 and treated every month since as an opportunity to grind. By his peak years he was playing hundreds of games each month, a marathon schedule that few online players can match.
Built for Speed
While his record spans Blitz, Rapid, and Daily games, Bullet is where Casablanca truly lives. The chart below sketches his ascent in that format from a scrappy start to a breathtaking peak of 2928 (2026-07-20). Along the way he also pushed Blitz to 2964 (2026-06-23), and there is a good argument that no one has more fun per second spent at the board.
His totals are staggering. He has more than 10,000 wins in Blitz alone, and across all time controls his record approaches 27,600 rated games. This is a player who has never heard of the concept of a quiet day.
An Unusual Repertoire
Other players spend years memorizing main lines. Casablanca spends them collecting curiosities. The Amazon Attack: Siberian Attack appears more than 2,000 times in his Blitz history, a tribute to a line most players see once in a lifetime. As Black against 1.e4, he has a deep fondness for the Sicilian Defense, especially the fire breathing Dragon Variation, Yugoslav Attack. He is also one of the few players who will play the Barnes Defense and the Amar Gambit with a straight face and a plan.
Rivalries
His most played opponent is 1g31-O, against whom 607 games have been recorded. That record is not kind to Casablanca, but he keeps queueing up anyway. Against AmazingChess210, however, he is the clear boss with 135 wins in 206 meetings. Daniel Girsh has also shared a lot of board time with him, nearly 200 games in total.
The Marathon Mind
The personality behind the username loves a comeback. According to his statistics, he wins a surprising share of games after losing material, and his longest winning streak reached 30 games. Not everything glitters: at one point he also suffered a 14-game slide, a rough spell that would have made many players log off forever. Casablanca simply played through it.
His best results tend to arrive at 10 in the morning, when the coffee is strong and the clock is ticking. For Paris Prestia, the last message is always the same: play again, Sam.