Handsama: Blitz Chess Veteran and Comeback Story
Some players study chess. Handsama plays it, at speed, at volume, and almost exclusively with the king's pawn. Of 736 first moves logged in 2025, 729 were 1.e4, three were 1.e3, and one was a 1.g4 that has since been placed in witness protection. The result is an online blitz and bullet specialist whose career reads like a telenovela: a whirlwind debut, a mysterious seven-year vanishing act, and a comeback even louder than the original run.
The 2018 Debut and the Great Disappearing Act
Handsama arrived in February 2018 and immediately set a caffeinated pace: 58 games in the first month, then 1,152 blitz games in March alone, and another 1,000-plus in April. That is roughly 35 games a day, less a hobby and more a cardiovascular event. Then, at the height of the grind, the account went silent for about seven years.
In September 2025 the ninja returned, and the second act got better: hundreds of bullet games per month, a 400-point climb, and a bullet peak of 2644 (2025-11-05) reached in November 2025. Not everything translated to the slower formats: rapid chess remains a haunted house, with four games, zero wins, and one lonely draw.
Openings: Fearless, Offbeat, Slightly Prehistoric
As Black, Handsama treats mainstream theory as a suggestion rather than a rule. The headliner is the Ruy Lopez: Schliemann Defense, played 277 times in blitz at a perfectly disrespectful 50%, with the Dutch Defense riding shotgun. Then there is the Blackburne Shilling Gambit, a trap Handsama sets as Black in blitz at a monstrous 57.75% win rate. Exhibit A:
Every repertoire has a villain, though. The Caro-Kann Defense drags the blitz score down to a shaky 36%, and the Colle [redacted] Rhamphorhynchus Variation, a name so dangerous part of it had to be redacted, sits at a humbling 37%. The strangest footnote: facing the Barnes Defense, theoretically a free lunch, somehow yields only a 32% win rate in bullet. Chess is humbling like that.
Style: Resign Early, Rise Late
The data contains a beautiful contradiction. Handsama resigns early in 63% of decided games, yet posts an 86% comeback rate and a microscopic 1.03% rate of one-sided losses. Translation: leave only when the game is truly dead, because staying means staying dangerous, even a piece down (44% of those games still convert). Games average over 74 moves with endgames in more than 80% of outings, the queen is the favorite checking piece, and the finish is often the real thing: 552 career wins by checkmate.
When the finish is not checkmate, it is temporal. Over 1,000 games have been lost on time, making the flag the only opponent with a winning record. Fittingly, the longest win streak (11 games) beats the longest loss streak (10 games) by exactly one. The tide here turns fast.
Nemeses and Favorite Prey
arrru7 has shared 32 knife-fight games with Handsama, standing at 15-17. CuzIm Better and emiliofelix ramirez both live up to their reputations at 7-15, while titpro remains deadlocked at a diplomatic 10-10-2. On the sunny side of the ledger sit brastam (15-6) and drhazzi (11-6), proof that some dance partners bring snacks.
Handsama Fun Facts
- Peak blitz rating: 2559 (2025-10-04), set in October 2025.
- Best hour to play: 5 AM, with a 63% win rate. Second best: never, because at 6 AM it drops to 12.5%. Sleep is a feature, not a bug.
- Sundays win the week at 48%; Thursdays lose it at 44%.
- Tilt factor: 10. The ice is not just cold, it is load-bearing.
- 67% win rate against lower-rated opponents, 30% against higher-rated ones. Punch down responsibly.
- Rated games run about 46 points better than casual ones. Casual chess is apparently just stretching.
- Most played bullet response as Black: the Australian Defense, because someone has to defend the continent.