Ruben Makinyan

The Rise of Ruben Makinyan

Ruben Makinyan, known online as Ratatal, arrived on the chess server in June 2023 with modest ratings and a very large appetite for games. Over the next three years, he transformed that account into one of the most active and resilient forces in online chess. His

looks less like a rating curve and more like a launch trajectory, with a steep climb from the 1800s into the online elite within a remarkably short window.

Openings, Instincts, and the Gambit Drawer

Ratatal is a 1.e4 player through and through. In every recorded year, the King's Pawn opening has accounted for the overwhelming majority of his white games. That loyalty extends into his black repertoire, where he embraces sharp and storied lines.

• As White, he scores consistently against the Caro-Kann Defense, a brick wall he happily dismantles with patient pawn pushes and queenside pressure.
• As Black, he gravitates toward the Sicilian Defense, especially the Najdorf Variation, where he has played more than a thousand games combined across time controls.
• His signature twist is the Blackburne Shilling Gambit, a cheeky sideline he plays by the hundreds and still manages to win at a strong clip in rapid chess.

captures a player who trusts his preparation even when the opening name sounds like something invented at a bar.

Volume, Comebacks, and a Queen Who Checks a Lot

Ruben's preferred habitat is Blitz, and he plays it like a competitive sport. More than 8,500 blitz games have made him a familiar name in the pool, and his bullet account is almost as busy. He also finishes what he starts: his endgame frequency sits above 85 percent, and his average decisive game runs past 80 moves.

His tactical awareness is the stuff of nightmares for opponents. He has engineered a comeback rate near 88 percent, and after losing a piece he still wins roughly 47 percent of the time. Across nearly 20,000 analyzed games, his queen delivers more checks than any other piece, and he wins nearly 57 percent of games when he lands the first check.

If you face him at four in the morning, bring a thermos. His best win rate by hour arrives at 04:00, suggesting a nocturnal grinder who only gets stronger as the night wears on.

Rivalries That Built the Grind

A player with Ratatal's volume inevitably collects rivals. His most frequent opponent is javier, who has faced him 45 times. Ruben holds a narrow edge over javicio with 23 wins, 21 losses, and a single draw, a margin thin enough to keep the series personal. Another constant companion, Vesna Bogdanovic, also met him 45 times and pushed him into 17 losses, helping ensure Ratatal's rise included plenty of hard lessons.

These extended series against familiar usernames forged a unique kind of chess education: learning to beat the same stubborn ideas over and over, and then losing to them when complacency crept in.

Records and Little Numbers

Ruben's scoreboard is absurd for a three year span. He has won more than 9,600 games across all time controls, with losses around 8,400 and draws around 1,400. His longest winning streak reached 49 straight games, and his longest losing streak stalled at 15, which tells you he tends to answer bad runs with immediate revenge.

In real terms, his peak performances placed him deep in the online elite: 2869 (2026-08-04) in blitz, 2850 (2026-08-29) in bullet, and 2612 (2026-05-23) in rapid. Not bad for a player who started his account in the 1700s and 1800s only a few years earlier.