The Composer and the Board
Meet Alex Shrauger, known online as mrmusicwriter. The name is a hint: every Alex game is a composition, sometimes a symphony, sometimes a weird little blues riff played with the black pieces. Alex is a National Master, which is a formal way of saying that 2700-level blitz games now feel like home. The journey started in 2014 with all the subtlety of a garage band, and it has never really stopped.
Favourite Melodies: The Opening List
If you want to survive an Alex game, make sure the Sicilian Defense is not part of the setlist. The Closed Sicilian alone has appeared in over 1,500 of their blitz games, and it somehow keeps them, weirdly, useful. They also have a deep relationship with the Caro-Kann Defense, the French Defense, and one opening that deserves its own album: the Amar Gambit. Yes, the Amar Gambit. In 2023 Alex played 1,100+ games between March and April, and the Amar Gambit was part of that range. Also the drawing board likes to show peaks:
.When the opening m!n is over, Alex usually keeps it legal. The view confirms that the Sicilian and Caro-Kann Sicilian Defense and Caro-Kann Defense are not just souvenirs, they are rooms in the museum. The spaces they play in have been rescued from, you know, a person who spent the entire opening trying to look interesting.
Rivals, friends, and unresolved piano chords
Some chess players have a thousand anonymous opponents. Alex has a few, but they also has a ring full of unforgettable names. The most frequently encountered rival is boilingpebble, who appears in 387 games and still no spark of drama. Then comes bluesjaic, with 336 meetings, and Alex has a big smile after almost all of them. There is also the rare Tyson Brady, who actually led the overall series 28 vs 4, giving Alex a nightmare with a broom. But when a game ends, Alex tends to win: against bluesaic, it is 310 wins to 24 losses.
No one in the top ten has escaped imports. myshellland is still waiting for a second win in 84 games, while duck1ly has exactly 0 wins in all 26 meetings. Alex apparently scores like a metronome that is always on.
Nocturne in all time controls
Alex's preferred home is Daily, where each move gets the time to breathe. But the numbers make it fairly obvious the blitz engine is always tuned. At peak, Alex achieved
of 2704 in December 2025, and the curve never goes flat:
They are a Gr&uumónnfeld Defense lover, a winning machine with a 36 winning stream, and if they get a forest, the moves can go very long. Alex may not be the quickest dy dagger, but the longest winning streak in the database is no joke.
Happy with his own chess, Alex warns that they play best at 10 AM, so if you schedule the game at any other hour, you are interrupted but you still have to work.