Martin behind the username
Martin Neugebauer, better known around the server as MartinNeu, is an International Master who has made the fastest hotel of chess his natural habitat. Since 2018, he has played more than 9,300 rated online games, and the overwhelming majority are blitz. That is not a casual relationship with the chess clock; that is a long term friendship.
He is patient when the position is tricky, almost too patient when the minutes have all gone. His best time to play is 06:00, according to his own numbers, which means the rest of the world is asleep and the board is all his.
A long road in fast time controls
Martin's blitz journey has been wonderfully bumpy. He has taken on more than 500 games in some months, sometimes winning, sometimes walking into a wall, and then climbing straight back up. His losing streak reached 11 games once, but his winning streak reached 12, so the fire is still there.
His consistency in chaotic time controls is rare: His comeback rate is 89.4 percent, and he still wins nearly 67 percent of games against lower rated opposition. None of that happens without a thick skin and an even thicker opening to know.
An about face for old friends
Martin is an e4 player at heart. When he has the white pieces, he almost always pushes the king pawn. That makes life easy for him but not for the opponent who has to face his devotion to the Caro-Kann Defense. He has played the Caro-Kann more than 600 times with black and with white, which is a lot of sessions in the same opening neighborhood.
Opponents who prefer sharp play will meet him in the Sicilian Defense, where he likes the Najdorf and the Alapin and keeps scoring. He also used excruciatingly long games: his average decisive game runs about 80 moves, so do not bring a short relationship to the board.
Rivalries worth revisiting
Every regular player has a few names on their receipt. Martin's dashboard includes Khatanbaatar Bazar with 50 games, szabadaba with 47, and honestgirl, who has taken the better end of their 49 matches. A honest rivalry is not a bad thing; it is what makes the next blitz game feel like a final chapter.
Style notes from the clock
- He does not resign early, with an early resignation rate below 0.6 percent, so carry your best endings when you step in.
- He wins 47.5 percent of his white games and 41.6 percent of his black games, which is a tilt toward order but not a collapse.
- His best moment of the day is 6 AM and his worst is 7 PM, a warning for all late night challengers.
- He has lost more games than he has won in total blitz record, but he still walks to the next game with no hesitation.
Martin Neu is not a website's definition of a perfect score engine. He has been in danger, researched back, gone on streaks, and survived more six-hour marathons than should be allowed. That is what an International Master looks like after a lot of blitz coffee and swap.