Rene' Phillips: The Coach Who Plays Every Weird Opening at Once
Meet ElCoachRene
Rene' Phillips, better known as ElCoachRene, is a National Master who apparently teaches by example. The lesson is simple: play more chess than your whole club, use an opening shelf that looks like a salvage-yard botany catalog, and then somehow win anyway. In just over a decade, Rene has racked up more than 36,000 rated games, so the coach nearly always has a comeback story to tell.
The Blitz Playground
The preferred time control is clearly Blitz. Enough said? In 2022, ElCoachRene played only 837 blitz games in a single month without fully vaporizing their hands. Most coaches would call that a theme park.
Here is the ride itself:
- Longest winning streak: 18 wins in a row, the kind of heater that starts rumours.
- Longest losing streak: 14 straight losses, the kind of cold spell that makes you close the app and hug the cat.
- Comeback rate after dropping a piece: 80.9%. Rene may give you the rook exchange, but the game is just getting started.
- Endgame frequency: 74.49%. The coach saves a lot of energy for the most painful half of chess.
The Repertoire of a Winged Pterodactyl
Rene plays the London System no problem, and then quickly introduces you to the Nimzo-Larsen Attack, the Amazon Attack, and the Barnes Defense like a lunch menu made entirely from oddities. As Black, the Australian Defense and the Pterodactyl Variation of the Modern Defense also appear. It is a repertoire that makes move reviewers say "?!" out of confusion alone.
The beautiful part is that the weirdness works. The same openings that look chaotic in bullet also turn into slow, tortuous wins in Daily games.
Rivals, Friends, and Forever Opponents
Every grand story needs a familiar face. Against ehg, Rene is basically the landlord: 29 wins out of 33 encounters, with a low draw total. Meanwhile, the matchup against jovipellazgjiku is a humbling counterstory: 3 wins, 11 losses, and 3 draws for Rene. That is a balanced relationship in the chessiverse.
The point: when the username ehg or jovipellazgjiku appears in the pairings, clear your calendar.
The Coach's Real Lesson
If you look only at the numbers, Rene' Phillips is a serious, battle-tested player with a pile of blitz games and a National Master title. But look closer and you see someone who refuses to follow the "boring 1.e4, 2.Nf3" teacher script. The coach selects the rare lines, laughs at the 14-loss streak, and comes back with an 18-game run.
Next time you play a weird opening, remember ElCoachRene: yes, that is the opening with the dinosaur vibes. If anyone can make the 30th extra pace look planful, it is the coach.