D3rm0chelys: The Bullet Chess Leatherback
D3rm0chelys is named, roughly, after Dermochelys, the genus of the leatherback sea turtle: the largest turtle on Earth and, inconveniently for everything nearby, one of the fastest reptiles in the ocean. The chess translation is exact. Since October 2020 there have been more than 11,000 online games, the overwhelming majority of them bullet, and a climb from the low 1300s to a blitz peak of 2707 (2025-06-26). Armor, speed, and no reverse gear.
The Bullet Habit
The preferred time control is bullet, and the ledger agrees: 7,225 games with 3,398 wins, 3,388 losses, and 439 draws. That is a coin flip stretched across years, with exactly ten wins separating light from darkness. The peak sits at 2683 (2026-09-01). Along the way there was a 35-game winning streak, later balanced by a 19-game losing streak, because the rating system keeps receipts. Slow the clock to rapid and the turtle gets scarier: 59% wins there and a rapid peak of 2605 (2026-06-07).
The curve starts flat, goes vertical in mid-2022, and never really stops climbing. Turtles grow slowly, then they swim.
An Opening Repertoire With a Sense of Humor
With White, the first move has been a years-long tasting menu. 2020 was 258 games of 1.e4. 2021 added 518 more, plus single experiments with 1.b4, 1.g4, 1.f4, 1.g3, and 1.b3, because bullet players answer to nobody. 2022 went full English Opening with 878 games of 1.c4, and from 2023 onward it has been 1.d4, well over a thousand times. The bullet specials are louder: the Amazon Attack and its Siberian branch at nearly 600 games, 512 games of the Australian Defense, and the London Poisoned Pawn Variation, whose database entry has one word redacted while the pawns remain fully poisoned.
With Black, the Caro-Kann Defense is the backbone, 585 bullet games deep, mostly the stony Exchange and Classical flavors, plus a side of Sicilian Defense with Dragon garnish. There have also been 209 encounters with the Amar Gambit, the classic bullet experience of watching someone open 1.Nh3 and deciding to accept the dare. Daily games go 31-4-1, where the Amazon Attack is a flawless 6-for-6.
The Unreasonable Optimist
D3rm0chelys resigns early in 1.02% of games, which is one white flag per hundred. The rest of the time is spent doing what leatherbacks do, which is keep swimming. Nearly 78% of games reach an endgame, the first capture usually waits until move seven, and wins average 75 moves, which in bullet terms is practically a road trip.
- Comeback rate: 81.6%. Down a piece? Still wins 46% of those games.
- Only 1.9% of losses are one-sided. Even defeats stay competitive.
- Tilt factor: 19. Monk-like.
- Checkmate finishes just 1.25% of games; most victories arrive by flag or surrender, though the queen has checked 10,297 times and the rook recently took over as chief executioner.
- Four career stalemates, zero suffered. Even the draws are earned.
Rivals, Roadblocks, and One Perfect Victim
- Strong-cat1, the great equalizer: 97 games, 38 wins, 38 losses, 21 draws. Perfectly balanced, as all rivalries should be.
- Hristo Ivelinov, the nemesis: 30 meetings, 1 win, 28 losses. Some turtles meet sharks.
- FM Roel Abelgas, 2-25-2, a coach in everything but contract.
- frogkgj, 1-20, another recurring lesson.
- caduceo2022, the perfect victim: 17 games, 17 wins, not one draw offered as mercy.
- erraigacrux (15-4) and brothers205 (20-10), proof the turtle bites back.
The 2 AM Window
The data insists the best time to play is 02:00, and the hourly table backs up the chaos: a 57.7% win rate at 23:00, a catastrophic 23.1% in the 01:00 hour, then a flawless 100% at 02:00 on what is presumably a very small sample and a great deal of confidence. Saturday is the friendliest weekday at 51.5%, Wednesday is the enemy at 45%, and rated games run about 40 points worse than casual ones, meaning D3rm0chelys is at peak danger exactly when nothing is at stake. A leatherback that never resigns, a repertoire with jokes in it, and 7,000 coin flips. The ocean is long.