Artem Postnikov (Mazarini41): FIDE Master of the Bullet Board
Artem Postnikov, known to online opponents as Mazarini41, is a FIDE Master with a patient diplomat's soul and a very impatient clock. The username nods to Cardinal Mazarin, the seventeenth century master schemer, and the resemblance is uncanny: Artem's games often look calm, quiet, and slightly mysterious right up until the position stops making sense for the other side. The "41" remains unexplained. It may be a lucky number, a password, or the number of titles currently in production. Sources are unavailable.
While the title certifies strength across all speeds, Artem's true home is bullet chess, where an entire game fits neatly inside a single coffee sip.
From 0 and 3 to Bullet Royalty
Every bullet legend needs a humbling origin story, and Artem's is a perfect one. The first recorded bullet games, played in March 2023, ended in three straight losses, briefly sinking the rating to 1758. A sensible person might have blamed the internet, blamed the mouse, blamed the moon, and quietly switched to slower formats. Artem instead spent the next fifteen months converting that embarrassment into fuel, storming past 2500 by June 2024 and reaching a peak of 2541 (2024-10-08) in October 2024.
The overall bullet ledger of 18 wins, 20 losses, and 7 draws says less about skill and more about altitude. Once you are trading punches above 2500, roughly break even is a compliment.
A Repertoire with a Sense of Humor
The opening choices split cleanly between "impeachably respectable" and "career decisions":
- French Defense Advance Variation, the main White weapon, earning a 68% blitz win rate.
- Caro-Kann Defense, handled with a steady 60% score across 25 blitz games.
- The Sicilian Four Knights Cobra Variation, a spicy side line paying out a 71% win rate.
- Amar Gambit, 14 blitz games, 71% wins, and zero remorse.
- The Amazon Attack, Siberian Attack line, a rare confession: only 31% wins. Even cardinals have vices.
For the uninitiated, the Amar Gambit begins with 1.Nh3, a move most club players reserve for losing on purpose. Artem plays it by choice, in rated blitz, and wins more than 70% of the time. Behold the gambit in all its glory:
As Black, the Alapin and the Rossolimo Fianchetto serve as trusted answers to 1.e4, each hovering near 65% wins. By 2026, Artem had also committed fully to 1.e4 as White: 29 games, every single one opened with the king pawn. That is not a repertoire, that is a vow.
The Grind Never Panics
The statistics describe a player who simply refuses to stay beaten. The comeback rate sits at 88.61%, and Artem still wins more than half of all games even after dropping a piece. Games run long: the endgame appears in nearly 73% of contests, and a typical win lasts about 77 moves. When it is time to deliver, the rook does the heavy lifting, with 593 rook checks narrowly edging the queen's 588.
Defeat is handled with dignity as well. One-sided losses occur just 2.3% of the time, three quarters of losses end in a prompt, businesslike resignation, and with a tilt factor of 9, Artem is roughly as likely to rage quit as a monastery cat.
Notable Rivalries
The most tenured sparring partner is timurgm11, with 17 games fought to a near even 8 wins, 6 losses, and 3 draws, the kind of rivalry that keeps both players honest. Against h1kari66six, the record is a flawless 7-0, and trickery_master has learned that trickery is not a defensive strategy here, also 5-0. The one genuinely balanced relationship belongs to Andrey Gorovets at 2 wins, 2 losses, and a draw, proof that Artem is, in fact, human.
The 4 AM Doctrine
The data holds one genuinely alarming discovery: the single best hour for Artem is 4 AM, when the win rate reaches a staggering 83%, while the 2 AM hour collapses to 27%. Fridays are the strongest day at 64%, Tuesdays the weakest at 45%. Translation for future opponents: schedule your challenge on a Tuesday at your own peril, but fear the Friday pre-dawn sessions. Rated games also run about 12 points behind casual ones, suggesting the cardinal performs best when the points are not watching.
Career Highlights
- FIDE Master title, officially earned from FIDE.
- Blitz peak of 2661 (2026-04-29), reached in April 2026.
- Rapid peak of 2236 (2026-03-15), backed by a 25-9-3 record in that format.
- An 11-game winning streak, balanced by a 9-game skid that proves the pendulum swings both ways.
- June 2024 blitz marathon: 202 games in a single month, 120 of them won.
- A blitz ledger of 317 wins and counting across the years.