The Prodigious Grinder
Jacob Templen Grave, better known to the online chess world as JacksterThePro, is a FIDE Master whose career reads like a ten year overnight success. From a modest Blitz rating near 1,000 in late 2016, he climbed to a 2803 (2026-08-18) of 2,803 by August 2026, playing more than 16,000 rated games along the way. His preferred battleground is Blitz, where he has logged nearly 10,000 games and earned a reputation as one of the most persistent grinders on the platform.
Style and Resilience
JacksterThePro is a fighter who rarely gets blown off the board. His one sided loss rate sits at just 1.8 percent, and his comeback rate is an absurd 80.96 percent. Even after losing a piece, he still wins 45.7 percent of the time, the kind of stubbornness that makes opponents sweat in the endgame. He reaches the endgame in 77.5 percent of his games and grinds out wins with long, patient battles, often outlasting flashier attackers.
He also plays his best chess at 2 a.m., when his win rate spikes to nearly 67 percent. Night owls rejoice.
Signature Repertoire
As Black, Jacob is a devoted Caro-Kann Defense player, with more than 700 Blitz games in the main line and a career best 53.19 percent win rate in the Classical Variation. The Exchange Variation has also been a reliable weapon. Against 1.d4, he favors the Nimzo-Indian Defense and the King's Indian Defense, though his Nimzo results suggest he loves it more than it loves him.
As White, he transformed from an early e4 enthusiast into a full time d4 player, leaning on the London Poisoned Pawn Variation and the Australian Defense. His opening prep depth grew from three moves in 2016 to six moves by 2021, proof of a player who treats online grinding as serious craft.
Rivalries
No biography is complete without rivals. Jacob has faced adumbrate 76 times, a rivalry where wins and losses are nearly dead even. Against suiramfla he has been a nightmare matchup, winning 34 of 39 encounters. And against ehhhusername, he is practically a landlord, collecting 17 wins and 6 draws in 24 games while conceding only a single loss.
The Numbers Behind the Grind
- Over 16,600 games analyz ed
- Longest winn ing streak: 21 games
- Longest losing streak: 13 games, nobody is perfect
- Checks first in 49.24 percent of games and wins 56.03 percent when he does
- The queenn is his favorite checking piece, delivering 15,535 checks