Rohan Ahuja (rquery98): The IM Who Makes Fighting from Behind Look Easy
From Enthusiast to International Master
Rohan Ahuja, who checks into chess sites as rquery98, has been around the online board since 2009. What started as a small rating tag soon became a steady climb, and today he carries the FIDE title of International Master. His username may look like random letters and numbers, but his results say no, this is a player who knows how to punish mistakes. His favorite place on the site? Rapid is the answer. In Rapid he has an unspoiled line: 12 played, 12 won, 0 lost. Hard to argue with that.
A Rapid Heart with a Blitz Workout
Rohan may enjoy Rapid the most, but his daily training table is full of blitz. Through years of play, those games number in the thousands, almost 6,600 in blitz alone. His path from a casual player to a serious titleholder is best seen in the climb itself, with each spike and dip eventually leading him to a top-rated zone. That story looks like this:
He is also remarkably hard to send home early. His longest winning streak runs to 13 consecutive wins, and even a painful 16-game losing streak did not kill his appetite for the next game. That resilience is one of his best traits.
An Endgame-Seeking, Comeback-Making Style
One of the more fascinating things about Rohan is how often he lets the game go deep. A huge chunk of his games reach an endgame, which is exactly where he feels comfortable. He does not resign after one misstep either; he has a high comeback rate and still wins a big percentage of the battles where he loses a piece early. Against stronger opponents he sometimes struggles, but if you hold the advantage against him, you are still not safe.
- Longest winning streak: 13 games
- Comeback rate: almost 88%
- Rapid record: 12 wins from 12 games
Openings, Familiar and Strange
Rohan's opening mind has room for both of the practical and the completely unusual. He is a frequent visitor to the King's Indian Attack and often tests opponents in the Sicilian Defense. On the other side of the spectrum, he has spent hundreds of games in the wild and unusual space of the Hungarian Opening with the Wiedenhagen-Beta Gambit. He can be a theorist when he needs to be, but he is never afraid to make the game weird just to get his favorite pieces out and fighting.
As a visual summary of his results with these choices:
Rivals and Familiar Names
Every busy online chess player ends up with recurring ghosts. For Rohan, the most frequent is Rogelio Jr Antonio. The two of them have faced each other dozens of times, and their duel is so close that the score now reads almost like a coin flip. That kind of shared history is what makes the chess world feel small, and also what keeps Rohan coming back to the board. He knows those games are worth it.