Rohan Rajaram: The Ninjatrick Himself
Some players take years to climb the online chess ladder, learning openings slowly, building theory brick by brick. Rohan Rajaram, known to the chess world as ninjatrick, looked at that ladder, shrugged, and then seemed to teleport to the top. An official FIDE Master, Rohan's online story is one of the more dramatic transformations you will ever see: from humble bullet beginnings in 2018 to battling in the very highest rating stratosphere, all at speeds where a single mouse slip ends a kingdom.
A Bullet Affair
Rohan's preferred battlefield is clearly bullet chess. In 2018 his bullet rating was a modest four digits. Fast forward to 2026 and he has flirted with ratings most players only see in their dreams, peaking above 3100. His game count tells its own story: thousands upon thousands of one-minute games, a volume of bullet chess that would make most grandmasters reach for the aspirin.
The Amar Gambit Evangelist
Here is where ninjatrick becomes a legend. Most serious players would never dream of building an entire career on the Amar Gambit, that cheeky 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Qe7 oddity. Rohan has played it over three thousand times in bullet alone, winning roughly sixty percent of those games against increasingly baffled victims. The joke, apparently, is that it is not a joke. Alongside it, he has racked up serious mileage with the French Defense, the Nimzo-Larsen Attack, and the gloriously named Rhamphorhynchus Variation of the Colle. His opening repertoire reads less like a textbook and more like a dare.
Rivals and Rituals
No bullet career is complete without nemeses, and Rohan has cultivated several. His most played opponent by a landslide is Drabmajor2011, with nearly seven hundred games between them, a rivalry Rohan dominates with over five hundred wins. Less happily, Kent Slate has handed him more than three hundred defeats, proof that even ninjas occasionally meet a bigger dojo. Other frequent dance partners include joshuagarry and Lucas Do Valle Cardoso, both of whom know exactly what it feels like to see 2...Qe7 flash across the board for the hundredth time.
How He Wins
The stats sketch a distinctive portrait of Rohan's style:
- An 81.5% comeback rate, meaning even after dropping material he finds ways to slither back into winning positions.
- Endgames in over 80% of his games, which is either remarkable endurance or a refusal to finish anyone off early.
- A longest winning streak of 27 games, balanced by a 21-game losing streak, because bullet giveth and bullet taketh away.
- An early resignation rate of just 1.39%. The ninja does not leave the shadows until the job is truly done.
Notably, his best hour of the day is noon, where his win rate soars, and his most feared checking piece is the ever-versatile queen.
The Legend Continues
From a single bullet game in September 2018 to one of the most prolific and recognizable bullet grinders around, Rohan Rajaram has built his reputation the hard way: one sixty-second war at a time, armed with an opening that should not work and a resilience that does. If you queue up for a bullet game and see ninjatrick across the board, do yourself a favor. Do not trust your preparation. He almost certainly is not using any.