Krylov Alexey (Die_Sonne): The Sun That Rises at 3 A.M.
Krylov Alexey, known across the online chess world as Die_Sonne, German for "The Sun," is proof that some stars only come out at night. His single most productive hour is 3 A.M., where his win rate glows at 55.8 percent, while 9 A.M. is his worst, a slot he reportedly spends asleep or holding a grudge against the morning. Over roughly a decade he has logged more than 23,600 analyzed games, the overwhelming majority of them blitz chess, climbing from a modest 1363 rating to a blitz peak of 2986 (2026-09-17) and a bullet peak of 2935 (2026-04-16).
The Long Climb
Die_Sonne entered blitz in August 2016 rated 1363 and was past 2200 by the end of that same year, thanks to months like September, when he crammed in 512 games. The grind never really stopped: 581 blitz games in November 2019, and a frankly unhinged 730 in March 2024. Along the way he strung together a 23-game winning streak, with a mere 10-game losing skid as his worst slump. The career ledger stands at 8,177 blitz wins, 5,934 losses and 1,800 draws, plus 4,144 more wins in bullet chess.
A Repertoire With an Origin Story
He began life as a 1.e4 player, grinding the Sicilian Defense: Alapin Variation 489 times in 2016 alone at nearly 60 percent. Then came the conversion. Around 2020 the d-pawn took over, and by 2026 all but 15 of his 3,142 games as White began 1.d4. The Catalan Opening became his bread and butter, and against the King's Indian Defense he reaches for the Sämisch system, a pairing he has welded into a 61.35 percent win rate over 401 games.
As Black, his calling cards are the Ruy Lopez Brix Variation, his most played opening anywhere at 929 games, the cheeky Blackburne Shilling Gambit, the Four Knights Game and the Döry Defense. He has sprung the Blackburne Shilling trap more than four hundred times, which is roughly 430 more than a gambit that dishonest deserves:
Style: The Glacier With Opinions
With an endgame frequency of 87.79 percent, an average winning game stretching nearly 93 moves, and a first capture that usually waits until move 7, Die_Sonne is less a sprinter and more a very patient endgame machine. He has dropped a piece and still gone on to win 50.11 percent of those games, a statistic that should alarm his opponents. His comeback rate sits at 87.1 percent, one-sided losses occur in just 0.79 percent of games, and he resigns early in only 0.51 percent, meaning the man simply does not leave the table.
His favorite checker is the rook, deployed 28,068 times among roughly 70,000 career checks. Opponents have checked him a net 1,001 more times than he has checked them, a gap he is known to treat as a personal insult.
Rivals, Roommates and One Nightmare
No one has shared more board time with Die_Sonne than Evgeny Ermolaev: 126 games split 52-58-16, which is less a rivalry than a marriage. marat_denishev holds the nemesis crown at 10-30-8, the one lighthouse this sun cannot outshine. Happier hunting includes elseres at 35-13-3, ErnestoGuevaraLynch at 32-15-4, and the massive 91-game heavyweight series with Edgar Karagyozian split nearly even at 44-36-11. Even the sun has spots: Sherif Khater leads their series 26 to 19.
The Daily Chess Incident
Die_Sonne's daily chess career consists of exactly one game, played in August 2016, featuring the Barnes Opening: Walkerling, a loss, and a rating of 1054. He has never returned, and honestly, respect. He plays 13.65 percentage points better in rated games than casual ones, saves his best weekday triumphs for Fridays, and would like everyone to know that if you are paired against him at some ungodly hour: check the clock, guard your rook, and whatever you do, do not take the e5 pawn for free.