Graciela Villarreal: The Queen of the Rematch Queue
Meet Graciela
Graciela Villarreal, known on the chess server as Jos030457, is not a casual player. Over roughly a decade she played close to 49,000 rated online games, which works out to more than thirteen games per day. For some people chess is a hobby; for her it is a lifestyle with a very busy clock.
Her profile may list bullet as the preferred time control, but her bullet record is a tiny sample of three games: two wins and one very educational loss. Blitz is where the real story lives.
The d4 Devotion
Watch Jos030457 play White and you will see a familiar opening move: 1.d4. It is not a phase. In her final year of active data, she opened with d4 nearly four thousand times and with e4 exactly once. She likes to keep things simple.
With Black, she built her home in the Sicilian Defense. The Taimanov and Alapin variations alone account for thousands of games, and both score above 54 percent. When she is White, the King's Indian Defense is a frequent guest, and she usually handles it well.
Familiar Faces
With almost fifty thousand games, she has seen some familiar usernames. Her most frequent opponent is dimitri casciello, who faced her 220 times. Graciela leads that series 115 wins, 94 losses, and 11 draws, so the rubber match is probably scheduled for later today.
Marathon Woman
Her numbers show a fighter's mentality. She recovers from losing positions at a stunning 78.67% rate and still wins more than half of her games after dropping a piece. She also knows how to go on a heater, with a longest winning streak of 17 games, followed by a longest losing streak of 14, which is the most honest possible description of online blitz.
She appears to be an early bird. Her best winning hour is 6 a.m., when she wins 63.1% of the time, so the only people awake to face her are fellow chess addicts and very sleepy night owls.
Notable Numbers
- Won 27,290 blitz games.
- Longest winning streak: 17 games.
- Longest losing streak: 14 games.
- Comeback rate of 78.67% after falling behind.
- Best time to catch her in form: 6:00 a.m.