Vladislav Nevednichy: The Grandmaster Called Firegrizzly
Some grandmasters introduce themselves with quiet dignity. Vladislav Nevednichy introduces himself as Firegrizzly, a username promising a bear that is also on fire, and then backs it up with a FIDE Grandmaster title and more than 7,000 games of blitz chess. Blitz is his preferred battlefield, a place where quick paws, long memory, and a mildly alarming tolerance for 90-move grinds pay the rent.
The Ascent of Firegrizzly
Firegrizzly first padded onto the scene in May 2019 and wasted no time, charging into the high 2600s almost immediately. What followed was years of patient siege warfare around the 2600 to 2700 mark, until September 2025, when the blitz rating finally smashed 2801 (2025-09-25). The chart below is simply what a grizzly climbing a mountain looks like.
The Siberian Arsenal: Nevednichy's Openings
Every bear has a signature mauling. His is the Amazon Attack, Siberian Attack flavor, unleashed 847 times in blitz with a win rate a hair under 50 percent, which at this level is a coin flip with claws attached. But his true daily bread is the bishop-opening grindstone:
That innocent little flick of the dark-squared bishop is the gateway to his spicy London System, which the scorebooks coyly record as "London [redacted] Poisoned Pawn Variation," suggesting the exact recipe is classified. Behind it sit the Döry Defense and a lifelong devotion to the French Defense with black. As White he plays 1.d4 the way other mammals breathe. In 2025 he opened with 1.e4 exactly three times, presumably to confirm it still existed.
How the Firegrizzly Hunts: Playing Style
- Endgame merchant: 91 percent of his games reach the endgame, and his wins average a bruising 83 moves. He does not win sprints. He wins hikes.
- The rook is the claw: nearly 8,000 rook checks make it his favorite checking piece by a landslide.
- Nearly unkillable: an 88 percent comeback rate, and even after losing a piece he still wins about 45 percent of the time. Please stop feeding the bear.
- Knows when the honey jar is empty: he resigns early in over half of his losses. A grizzly respects the sunset.
- Tilt resistant: a tilt factor of 9. The bear does not rage. The bear recalibrates.
He is also strictly a morning bear. His win rate peaks at 10 AM and collapses to 30 percent after 10 PM, with the midnight slots registering a flat zero. After dark, Firegrizzly is just a grizzly, which is honestly still intimidating.
Grizzly Grudge Matches: Famous Rivals
No fisherman works this river alone. Vice64 has met him 173 times in a rivalry so balanced it deserves academic study: 75 wins for the bear, 70 against, 28 draws. Irina Bulmaga has logged 90 meetings and kept it close at 44 to 35, while Vjacheslav Weetik actually leads the all-time series 37 to 26 and has probably framed that statistic. Against Konstantin Kodinets, though, the menu reverses: 17 wins to 6.
Firegrizzly by the Numbers
- 7,285 blitz games, 3,480 wins, and a 10-game winning streak somewhere in the fur.
- Bullet: 63 wins, 62 losses, 9 draws. A perfectly balanced diet.
- Rapid: 12 wins, 12 losses, 11 draws. Also balanced. Suspiciously so.
- Daily chess: one game played, one draw achieved, never returned. Undefeated in spirit.
- White win rate 50.2 percent, black 45.1 percent. The bear is right handed.
Legacy of the Fire Grizzly
Whether he is grinding rook endgames at 10 in the morning or firing another Siberian Attack at an unsuspecting 1.d4 victim, Vladislav Nevednichy has built one of the most distinctive blitz careers online: grandmaster technique, glacial patience, and the unmistakable energy of a bear that caught fire somewhere around 2019 and decided to keep it.