Ilyas Gazizov

The Man Who Said Yes to the Slav

Ilyas Gazizov (username ilyasgazizov) is a blitz chess specialist with a devotional relationship to the queen's pawn opening. While the rest of the internet is busy throwing pawns on e4, Ilyas calmly plays 1.d4 and invites you into his world, a world where the Slav Defense reigns supreme and games last long enough to require a snack break.

His signature setup unfolds like this:

Across hundreds of games, the Slav has delivered a win rate north of 58%, making it his most trusted weapon. If the Slav Defense were a restaurant, Ilyas would have a table with his name on it.

The Climb From Curious Newcomer to Blitz Menace

Ilyas arrived in late 2017 and promptly rocketed from 1546 to 2160 in a single month, which is the chess equivalent of a first date going suspiciously well. By his peak, his blitz rating had climbed to 2766 (2026-09-28), a number that took years of volume, patience, and an almost frightening willingness to queue up again after a loss.

The grind is real. In September 2018 alone he played 162 blitz games, and some months he clears more games than most players manage in a year. His career record in blitz sits at nearly 4,000 wins, and his trajectory tells the story better than words can:

The Opening Report Card

With White, Ilyas is a d4 loyalist who rotates through the Slav, the Australian Defense, and the closed Catalan, always with a positional smirk. With Black, he gets spicy, most famously embracing the Sicilian Defense: Four Knights Variation, Cobra Variation, a line he has played nearly 400 times and clearly enjoys more than his opponents do.

• Slav Defense (White): his bread, butter, and entire pantry
• Sicilian Cobra (Black): venom included at no extra charge
• Scandinavian Defense (Black): a reliable side dish with a winning record

The Rivalry Files

Every grinder has rivals, and Ilyas has two headline acts. Against tolichka228, the score is a comically perfect 15 wins, 0 losses, a record so clean it deserves framing. Against Mark Kotliar, the story flips: kot60 leads the head-to-head and clearly knows something the rest of us do not. Chess karma keeps the ledger balanced.

Style: Endgame Marathoner, Comeback Artist

Ilyas is not a blitzer of egos in 20 moves. Over 80% of his games reach the endgame, and his typical win runs about 73 moves, meaning he is perfectly happy outliving your will to continue. His comeback rate sits at a remarkable 86%, so if you think you have him beaten, congratulations, you have merely submitted an application. True to form, his one-sided loss rate is barely over 1%, and when he finally does deliver the verdict, it is usually the queen doing the doorbell work.

Fun Facts

• Longest winning streak: 11 games, tilt factor detectable at absolute zero
• Best hour to face him: never. His 4 AM win rate is the stuff of legends
• Monday is his strongest day, so schedule your upset attempts for Thursday
• He keeps a serious bullet hobby on the side with a 2470 peak, but blitz is home
• He almost never loses badly, which makes beating him feel like being outlasted by a marathon runner in comfortable shoes

The Bottom Line

Ilyas Gazizov is the rare online player who turned repetition into an art form: thousands of games, one beloved Slav Defense, a cobra in the back pocket, and the patience of a monk. Challenge him at your own risk, and maybe avoid Mondays.