The ducgm Story
Trần Đăng Minh Đức, known to the online chess world as ducgm, is a bullet chess grinder with a d4 habit and suspicious levels of stamina. Playing since November 2015, Duc has stacked up one of the busier speed chess resumes around: more than 3,200 bullet wins, nearly 400 draws, and a peak Bullet rating of 2801 (2026-05-10), reached in May 2026.
Blitz (peak 2420 (2025-08-30)) and Rapid appear in the diet, but they are garnish. Bullet is the main course, and Duc has been eating it three meals a day for a decade.
A Decade of Bullet Chess
The bullet journey began innocently in July 2016: a debut near 1368, then above 2000 within weeks, because calibration was clearly optional. The rest was a long staircase: past 2300 by 2018 and 2019, a patient plateau, and then full ignition in 2025 and 2026. May 2025 brought 2440, June 2025 brought 2587 along with 329 games, and September 2025 featured a frankly medical 1,039 bullet games in one month, roughly 35 per day, every day.
By May 2026 the number hit 2801, and the rating graph finally resembled a proper mountain.
The wins come in every flavor. Across all speeds, checkmate has delivered 1,132 victories, but the flag has done even more damage with 1,607 wins by timeout. In this world, the clock is just another attacking piece.
Opening Repertoire: d4 Backbone, Chaos Garnish
As White, it is d4 on autopilot: over 1,400 first-move d4s in 2025 and more than 1,200 in 2026. Respectable systems follow, like the Catalan Opening Closed lines (59.68% in bullet) and the Slav Defense: Bonet Gambit (59.02%). Then come the choices that make theory textbooks wobble: the Australian Defense as a White sideline, a Poisoned Pawn line played 355 bullet times, and the gloriously dinosaur-sounding Colle Rhamphorhynchus Variation. A couple of line names in the official files even arrived with a word missing, which honestly says everything.
As Black, boring is not on the menu. The signature dish is the Barnes Defense, 1.e4 f6, a move usually reserved for how-not-to-play lectures. Duc has played it 862 times in bullet and breaks even with it, possibly the funniest outcome in chess. There is also the Amar Gambit (196 bullet games, almost exactly 50%) and the evergreen Blackburne Shilling Gambit, deployed 114 times in blitz at a 56% win rate. The classic trap, for educational purposes:
Style: Bullet Marathons and Relentless Comebacks
This is not a flag-and-pray specialist. An endgame appears in about 81% of games, the average win lasts around 80 moves, and the first capture usually waits until move 7, which in bullet terms is an ultra-marathon. The resilience stats are almost rude: an 85.3% comeback rate and a win rate just under 49% even after dropping a piece. Early resignation happens a mere 1.74% of the time, so lost positions get played until the board physically runs out of soldiers.
Aggression still fills the scoresheet: 26,011 checks delivered over the years, with the Queen leading on 8,850. Sixty-six career draws by stalemate suggest several opponents were saved from something worse.
Rivals, Nemeses, and Old Friends
- Mandy2k8: the most frequent sparring partner at 52 games, with the rivalry sitting at 20 wins against 31 losses. Pure motivation.
- Caio Victor Brandts Buys: the immovable object. Twenty-one meetings, 3 wins, 17 losses, and presumably a few names muttered under the breath.
- Okay: better news here, 15 wins against 9, one of the few scorelines that cooperates.
- hainamplayschess: 33 games split nearly dead even at 17-14-2.
Opponent Intelligence Report
Useful intel for future victims: the sweet spot is 19:00, where the win rate peaks at 59%, while the 21:00 hour collapses to 30%, so schedule accordingly, or do not, depending on which side of the board you sit. The longest winning streak is 15 games, and the longest losing streak is 16, because the chess gods insist on balance. Lower-rated opponents fall 64.6% of the time, higher-rated ones only about 30.5%, and when the ratings match it becomes a coin flip with extra steps.
Verdict: a bullet chess marathoner with a d4 backbone, a gambler's opening menu, and the patience of a tortoise moving at the speed of a hare.