Armend Budima

The Man Who Named Himself After An Opening

Armend Budima plays online as Rauzeri, which is essentially a confession: the Richter-Rauzer Variation of the Sicilian Defense with an Albanian-style definite ending bolted on, translating roughly to "THE Rauzer." It is the only chess username that arrives pre-hyphenated in theory, and the database can do nothing about it.

Since January 2022, Armend has played more than 15,000 rated games, nearly all of them blitz, climbing from a starting rating of 1739 all the way to a peak of 2510 (2026-01-16) in January 2026. That is roughly 770 points gained the hard way: one rapid-fire game at a time, hundreds of them every single month.

One Move To Rule Them All

Every single recorded game begins with 1.e4. Thousands upon thousands of games, and the first-move log shows nothing but e4, with exactly five games of 1.e3 scattered through the years like typos. Armend does not have an opening repertoire so much as an opening conviction.

• As White, the Sicilian Defense: Closed is the bread and butter, nearly 2,900 games and a steady edge above 51%.
• The French Defense: Winawer Variation and Advance lines are the secret weapon: over 430 games at a sparkling 57.5% win rate, consistently his best big sample.
• Caro-Kann, Scandinavian, Modern, Philidor opponents are all processed through the same e4 machine.
• As Black, it is Sicilian almost exclusively: Classical, Alapin, Moscow, and yes, the Richter-Rauzer, because branding matters.

The Blackburne Shilling Tax

Here is the funniest stat in the file: opponents have attempted the Blackburne Shilling Gambit trap against him 943 times, and he wins 48.7% of those games. Armend has seen the Nd4 trap so often that the position probably appears in his dreams, and the trap mostly just taxes the trappers.

Take the knight after 3...Nd4 and the queen swing to g5 will ruin your week. Armend stopped taking the bait somewhere around game 400.

Style: Grind Now, Win Later

• Roughly 82% of his games reach an endgame, with an average length of 77 moves. He is a long-distance runner in a sprinter's time control.
• An 85% comeback rate and a 44.6% win rate even after losing a piece. Down material is a lifestyle, not a sentence.
• His most common checking piece is the rook, with over 11,000 rook checks delivered. Brutal, honest, structural violence.
• Only about 60 of 15,000+ wins came by checkmate. Opponents resign long before mate arrives, which tells you the pressure arrives first.
• A low tilt factor of 10. Losses slide off him like water off a Closed Sicilian.

The Rivalries

Every grinder has a rogues' gallery. Roman Akopov is the nemesis: 89 games and a losing 38-46-5 record, the wall Armend cannot quite scale. Tom Borvander is the opposite story, 81 games with a healthy 47-29-5 ledger and presumably some anxiety issues. aflatunmamedov has logged 69 battles, while Capablanka71 sits in perfect equilibrium at 19-19-16, the most mutually respectful blood feud on the site.

Quirks and Habits

• Best playing hour: 1 AM, where the win rate hits 58%. Worst: 5 AM at 37.5%. Coffee is clearly a chess piece.
• His rapid career is a flawless 3-0, making him technically the most efficient rapid player in recorded history.
• Longest winning streak: 11 games. Longest losing streak: 10. Even his misery is symmetrical.
• Only about 8% of his blitz games are draws. Someone always has to lose, and Armend has strong opinions about who.
• Against lower-rated opponents he feasts at 59%, against higher-rated ones the menu reverses, but the effort never dips.

The Five-Year Marathon

The arc is simple and slightly heroic: 1739 in January 2022, 2300 within two months, four years of grinding in the high 2200s to 2400s against a brutal pool, then the 2026 surge that finally cracked 2500. Most players would call that a career. Armend calls it Tuesday, probably at 1 AM, probably after another Closed Sicilian.