Nawangtang: Dawn Patrol, Blitz Marathoner, Undefeated Daily Legend
Some people play chess. Nawangtang plays chess the way the tide comes in: relentlessly, repeatedly, and with roughly 26,700 blitz games as receipts. Since surfacing online in September 2019 at a humble 1359, Nawangtang has grinded, tilted once or twice, adjusted, and grinded again, all the way into the 2600s and a peak that hit 2671 (2026-04-11) in April 2026. The final tally so far: over 15,000 wins, 13,000-plus losses, one 13-game winning streak, and exactly two daily games (both won, obviously).
The Long Climb
The ascent was not a rocket launch, it was a stair climb with 30,000 steps. Nawangtang crossed 2000 within two months of the very first game, ended 2019 at 2154, and then pushed the ceiling higher nearly every year: 2285 in 2020, 2326 in 2021, 2399 in 2022. A 2023 plateau at 2308 briefly suggested the mountain had opinions, but the response was 2504 in 2024, 2562 in 2025, and a 2671 peak in 2026. That is a 1,300-point journey built almost entirely out of one-day-at-a-time blitz.
Side quests: bullet chess was conquered briefly (a 2456 peak in August 2022) and then gracefully semi-retired, while rapid chess has been quietly climbing toward a 2508 peak. The endgame of this story has not been written yet.
The Repertoire: e4 Now, e4 Forever
Nawangtang opens with the king pawn in essentially every game. In 2019 the first-move log read 640 e4 and exactly 2 f4, and in 2020 there was a mysterious 11-game h4 phase that science has yet to explain. As White, the most frequent visitors are the Caro-Kann Defense and the French Defense, both handled at a healthy 54% clip. The true secret weapon, however, is the King's Indian Attack against the French: nearly 700 games at a bruising 59.85%. The Alapin Variation Sherzer setup chips in at 59%.
With the black pieces, loyalty belongs to the Sicilian Defense, and specifically the Dragon Variation, which has absorbed nearly 1,000 games of Yugoslav Attack punishment and lived to tell about it:
Known weaknesses: the Amazon Attack Siberian line (a rough 41.78% over 517 encounters) and opponents who insist on the Bird's Batavo Gambit, which Nawangtang somehow wins with 54.86% of the time.
Rivals, Nemeses, and One Eternal Border War
No online career is complete without adversaries, and Nawangtang has collected them like chess clocks. libertatea is the defining rivalry: 154 games, a 79-64-11 record, and presumably decades of shared therapy bills. muitoshoku100 has been dispatched 40 times against 23 losses across 63 meetings, and Simo Matkovic is pleasant territory at 26-12.
Then there is Jonathan Gottehrer, who owns a stunning 27-11 edge in their 39 meetings and remains, scientifically speaking, kryptonite. Every hero needs a weakness. Meanwhile imm1977 sits at a perfectly dead even 16-16-4, the chess equivalent of two dueling pianists who refuse to stop.
Quirks, Habits, and Sleep Schedule Crimes
- Peak performance hour: 5:00 AM, a stately 54.9% win rate. Worst hour: 18:00, an immaculate 0%. Challengers, take note of the free points available at dinner time.
- Never says die: a 6% early resignation rate and an 85% endgame frequency mean games average 77-plus moves. If you want the resignation, you had better actually deliver mate.
- Comeback artist: an 86.6% comeback rate and a one-sided loss rate of just 0.16%. Blowouts are not on the menu.
- Ice in the veins: a tilt factor of 11 out of 100. Cooler than the other side of the pillow.
- Favorite checking piece: the queen, deployed for 30,277 checks, with the rook trailing at 26,655. Subtlety is for other people.
- Undefeated in daily chess: a flawless 2-0, including a win with the Modern Defense Pterodactyl Variation. Undefeated, untested, undefeatable.
- Perfectly balanced diet: a 61% win rate versus lower-rated opposition and 28% versus higher-rated ones. Feeds downward, gets fed upward.
Legacy
Thirty thousand games in, the queen still checks, the dawn still wins, and daily chess remains undefeated territory. The losing streak record (11) sits just under the winning streak record (13), a statistical reminder that the universe keeps everyone honest. Queue up against Nawangtang at 5 AM and you had better have a plan for the Yugoslav Attack. Queue up at 6 PM and, well, enjoy the point. Checkmate.