Rafael Mejias CM

Player Overview

Rafael Mejias, known online as chosenpr, is a FIDE Candidate Master who plays chess the way some people drink coffee: constantly, and with a preference for rapid. He is a fighter first and a theorist second, happy to steer the game into the endgame and outlast anyone sitting across the board.

With more than 18,000 rated games to his name, Rafael has built a career on volume, stubbornness, and a surprisingly effective counterattacking style. His best results come in the morning, which suggests a man who has never once stayed up late for a blitz binge.

Career Highlights

Rafael climbed the online rating ladder with remarkable persistence, and his blitz performance tells the story best:

• Earned the Candidate Master title from FIDE, placing him among the titled elite of online chess.
• Reached a blitz peak of 2465 (2023-08-17) in August 2023.
• Reached a rapid peak of 2092 (2023-10-23) in October 2023, his strongest showing in his preferred time control.
• Strung together a 16 game winning streak and is currently riding a 6 game streak.
• Boasts a comeback rate of 82.95%, meaning Rafael is never truly out of a game.

Playing Style and Openings

Rafael's opening repertoire is an ode to sharp, practical chess. As White, he enjoys the space-grabbing lines of the Scandinavian Defense and the solid central tension of the Caro-Kann Defense. As Black, he is equally at home in the Sicilian Defense, the French Defense, and the resilient Petrov's Defense.

He also has a playful side. The Amar Gambit and the Döry Defense appear in his games with surprising frequency, and his results in those offbeat lines are genuinely dangerous. His opening win rates show just how much trouble opponents get into:

Rafael is an endgame specialist at heart. His endgame frequency sits at 73.74%, and his average winning game lasts 75 moves. He does not believe in early resignations, which is fitting for a player whose current losing streak is exactly zero.

Signature Rivalries

Every great player has a foil. For Rafael, Sebastian Toro is the ultimate adversary, with 35 meetings and a razor-thin margin between them. Their battles are the stuff of online chess legend, and you can relive one here: View Game.

Then there is ruubeen8a, whose head-to-head record against Rafael is a brutal 1 win in 33 attempts. Against Hector Morales, meanwhile, Rafael keeps things competitive, with a lead that could flip at any moment. These rivalries define his online career and prove that even in rapid play, every point is earned.

By the Numbers

Rafael's stats paint the picture of a resilient, relentless competitor. He wins 51.25% of his games as White and 48.25% as Black, and he delivers the first check of the game 51.6% of the time. When he lands that first check, his win rate jumps to 58.12%.

• Longest winning streak: 16 games
• Longest losing streak: 10 games, but he bounced back every time
• Win rate after losing a piece: 47.4%
• One-sided loss rate: just 2.62%
• Best time to face him: never, but statistically his strongest hour is 08:00