Daniel Blanca

The Man, The Myth, The Minute

Daniel Blanca, who answers to tendermx on the chessboard, is a bullet specialist with a username that reads like a menu item and a playstyle that reads like a fire alarm. The "mx" hints at Mexico. The "tender" suggests a cut of meat. Both readings are accurate.

In the six months between September 2025 and February 2026, he has played more than 1,650 online games, most of them blitz, but his heart, his rating, and his legend live in bullet chess: one-minute mayhem at a pace that would make a hummingbird ask him to slow down.

His surname means "white" in Spanish, and he honors it: in 2026 he has opened with 1.e4 in 123 of his 127 games as White. The other four consist of three 1.d4s and one heroic, unexplained 1.b3.

The Six-Month Speedrun

September 2025: Daniel starts blitz at 1350. One hundred nine blitz games later, he finishes the month over 2000. By November his blitz peak touches 2322, but the real show is bullet, where a January featuring 131 games and a February featuring 111 more end with a peak of 2504 (2026-02-11) on February 11, 2026. The chart below is less a graph than a ski jump.

The Arsenal

Daniel's opening repertoire is equal parts homework and mischief:

• The Scandinavian Defense: his bullet signature, 71 games and a 61.97% win rate.
• The Amazon Attack: 200 blitz games as White, plus 131 more in the Siberian Attack sub-line. He has played this system more times than most people check their phones during dinner.
• The French Defense: his blitz fortress as Black, 142 games, including 108 in the stodgy-but-effective Exchange Variation.
• The Sicilian Defense: Alapin Variation: 70.73% in blitz. When Daniel meets the Sicilian, he plays 2.c3 and lets you do the worrying.
• The Barnes Defense: yes, that means 1...f6. Forty-two bullet games, a winning record, zero remorse.
• The Poisoned Pawn London: 10 bullet games, an 80% win rate, and a name so potent the database ships it with "[redacted]" built in.

His favorite bullet weapon in five moves:

Every arsenal has soft spots, and his are the French Winawer Advance (43.24%), the Döry Defense (35.48%) and the Catalan (30.77%). If you know what the Döry Defense is, congratulations, you might be his next nemesis.

Style: Patient Violence

Daniel is a certified comeback artist, with paperwork: an 89% comeback rate, and he still wins 52.69% of games in which he drops a whole piece. Only 1.72% of his losses are one-sided, so if you ever steamroll him, print it and frame it.

• 76% of his games reach an endgame, and his average win runs 73 moves, which in bullet is not a game but a pilgrimage.
• 314 wins by flag against 191 by checkmate. The clock is his second favorite piece.
• A tilt factor of just 8, which is low by any scale. Medically chill.
• A perfect 100% win rate in games played at 12:00, making him the rare chess player whose form peaks at lunch. Sunday is his best day of the week.
• When he checks first, he wins 62% of the time, and his most common checking piece is the queen, with 1,582 career queen checks.
• An early resignation rate of 0.86: when the position dies, he buries it fast and queues the next bullet.

Rivals and Nemesis Management

Every bullet grinder accumulates regulars, and Daniel's ledger reads like a support group:

• borderline1988: his most frequent opponent at 16 games, with a 5-10-1 record to show for it. The username is doing a lot of accurate describing.
• FlashpawnJ: one win, seven losses. Daniel reportedly refers to these as "eight learning experiences."
• dormiloncill: dead even at 4-4, the human coin flip.
• On the bright side, iqrafagalan (4-1), platanito2929 (4-1) and capapretayt (4-2) have all met the tender side of tendermx.

The Daily Chess Incident

In February 2026, Daniel tried the Daily time control exactly once, selecting the Caro-Kann Defense: Classical Variation for the occasion. He lost. His Daily record now stands at 0-1 with a rating of exactly 1200, preserved like a museum exhibit. He has not returned to Daily chess since, and frankly, the Daily format has not been the same either.

Fun Facts

• Longest winning streak: 13 games. Longest losing streak: 8, endured at tilt factor 8, as foretold.
• His median opening prep depth is 3 to 4 moves, which by bullet standards makes him a library with legs.
• 10 career stalemate draws, because even his draws refuse to be boring.
• Blitz peak: 2322, set November 16, 2025, a mere two months after that 1350 debut.
• Career king checks: 7. Even his king gets involved occasionally, usually to everyone's surprise.
• Currently riding a two-game losing streak, which he is presumably treating as a research project.

The Bottom Line

Daniel Blanca is what happens when someone treats bullet chess as a lifestyle: a 2500-club speed climber with a Scandinavian for every occasion, an Amazon Attack for every blitz pairing, and one carefully preserved Daily loss he will absolutely discuss if you bring it up. If you queue against tendermx at midnight, hydrate first. His wins average 73 moves, and he does not blink.