Daniil Kaminskii: The Midnight Blitz Machine
Daniil Kaminskii, known to opponents as daniil_kaminskii, is a FIDE Candidate Master whose online blitz career reads like a highlight reel with the occasional plot twist. In roughly nine months he rocketed from solid club territory to a peak blitz rating of 2895 (2026-09-15), rattled off a 13-game winning streak, and generally treated the rating chart like a personal art project.
Blitz is clearly his natural habitat: over 400 games there, with bullet as the experimental laboratory. He is also famously hard to kill, but more on that later.
An Unrepentant 1.e4 Player
If you queue against Kaminskii, bring a plan against the king's pawn: 1.e4 appeared 229 times, while d4, Nf3 and friends combined for barely a cameo. His crown jewel with White is the Sicilian Defense: Najdorf Variation, a line he wins around three-quarters of the time, flanked by the trustworthy Caro-Kann Defense: Exchange Variation and a win-heavy Italian Game: Two Knights Defense.
- Najdorf Sicilian: the main weapon, and it shows.
- French Defense, Burn and Winawer lines: comfortably profitable.
- Kryptonite: the Alapin Sicilian with Black, and the treacherous Blackburne Shilling Gambit, which has conned him more than once.
Bullet Experiments: Pure Chaos Science
When the clock shrinks, Kaminskii gets weird, and it works. The infamous Amar Gambit, an opening so absurd that its name is reportedly an acronym for "Absolutely Mad And Ridiculous," has produced nearly a 90% win rate for him, including a perfect record with White. Even the Barnes Defense shows up in the lab with a spotless score. His bullet record of 84 wins against just 33 losses suggests the experiments are, disturbingly, peer reviewed.
Style: The Comeback Machine
Kaminskii does not do quick knockouts. He does slow, patient strangulation: an endgame appears in over 91% of his games, wins average a marathon 91 moves, and losses stretch even longer, meaning he makes you earn every point. His early resignation rate is a comically tiny 0.5%, and he wins more than half his games even after dropping a piece, with comebacks rescued almost 90% of the time.
- Favorite checking piece: the rook, with 667 checks delivered.
- Tilt factor: a zen-like 4 out of 10.
- Draws in bullet: 2. Patience is for other people.
Rivalries and Superstitions
Every hero needs villains, and Daniil has collected a few. Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son leads the anti-Kaminskii fan club at 4-0, with m_e_l_o and José Carlos Ibarra Jerez also undefeated against him. On the friendly side of the ledger, Irina Mikhaylova and Maxim Omariev are a combined 6-0 victims. His strangest quirk? Against equally rated opponents his win rate is exactly 0%, so the tactical advice is clear: never schedule a fair fight.
- Best day of the week: Monday, a 75% win rate.
- Best hour: midnight, where the win rate is a perfect 100%.
- Longest streak: 13 straight wins, no mercy.
The Bottom Line
Daniil Kaminskii is a night-shift grinder with a Candidate Master title, a Najdorf habit, and a suspiciously successful gambit problem. Give him 1.e4, a rook, and a 3 a.m. pairing, and expect long games, absurd comebacks, and the Amar Gambit working again for reasons nobody can fully explain.