nicholson97

Meet nicholson97

nicholson97 is a chess addict disguised as a username. Since November 2018, this player has stacked up more than 25,600 recorded games, most of them in the two most frantic formats: blitz and bullet. The profile may list Rapid as the preferred time control, but the numbers tell a different story. nicholson97 lives where the clock is loud and the moves are faster.

Starting near 1,200 in blitz, nicholson97 climbed to a blitz peak of 2431 (2024-02-07) and a bullet peak of 2629 (2025-12-12). The trajectory looks less like a learning curve and more like a rocket launch.

The Climb: 2018 to 2024

In 2018, nicholson97 was a raw e4 player with a losing white record and a winning black record. That early split was a hint: this was someone who loved to defend and counterattack. 2019 brought a torrent of blitz games, with ratings swinging from below 1,100 to over 2,200 inside a single year. There were painful dips along the way, including a 25-game losing streak that would have broken most players.

By 2020, nicholson97 made a critical identity shift. The king's pawn nearly disappeared, replaced by the queen's pawn. In 2021, d4 appeared more than 1,900 times as a first move while e4 almost vanished. The Queen's Gambit Declined family became home, and the results followed. The blitz rating crossed 2,300 in late 2022 and peaked at 2431 (2024-02-07) in February 2024.

A Repertoire of Sharp Surprises

With the black pieces, nicholson97 is a serial Scandinavian Defense player. Against 1.e4, the reply 1...d5 has appeared in more than 1,500 blitz games, converting at a 65 percent clip. The Alekhine Defense is the second weapon of choice, with an even more impressive 74 percent win rate. Opponents who try to prepare something tricky against the Scandinavian quickly discover that nicholson97 has seen it all before.

As White, the repertoire revolves around 1.d4 and the Queen's Gambit Declined, especially the sharp Chigorin lines where the win rate climbs toward 85 percent. There is also a love for aggressive London System setups and a healthy dose of the Amar Gambit, a rare opening that keeps club players guessing.

If you want to see the Scandinavian in action, this is the kind of line nicholson97 has played thousands of times:

Blood Feuds and Friendly Farms

No online chess story is complete without rivals. Against Dr. Norbert Barth, nicholson97 has fought 117 times, a nearly dead-even series at 55 wins, 59 losses and 3 draws. If there is a kryptonite, it might be Rodrigo Casares, who leads the head to head 65 to 38 from 103 meetings.

On the flip side, clauditox has absorbed 86 defeats, with nicholson97 winning 64 of those games. The series against fromrookietomaniac is almost too cruel to print: 57 wins and a single loss. The name said rookie to maniac, but the rookie became the repeat client.

The Comeback King

The most remarkable number in the box score is the comeback rate: 81.94 percent. When nicholson97 falls behind, he wins anyway more than four times out of five. Even after losing a piece, he still wins 58 percent of the time. The one-sided loss rate is just 1.11 percent, meaning blowouts are almost never the ending.

There is a 52-game winning streak on the resume, a current 12-game streak, and a healthy tilt factor of just 25. He reaches the endgame in 79 percent of games, and a typical victory takes about 71 moves. The best time to catch this player is 11:00, when the win rate jumps to 66 percent. On weekends, Saturday is the best hunting ground at 62.5 percent.

Bullet Marathons and the Future

In December 2025, nicholson97 played 2,978 bullet games in a single month, roughly 96 games a day, and followed it with 2,778 games in January 2026. That is not a hobby, that is a second career. The bullet rating peaked at 2629 (2025-12-12) during the same stretch, and this player appears to be getting faster with age.

If nicholson97 ever slows down enough to focus on Rapid, the current 2114 (2023-03-01) of 2114 feels like an understatement. The volume, the comebacks and the opening knowledge are all there. The only question is whether the clock can keep up.