Praveen Thipsay: Grandmaster of the Bullet Chess Marathon
Praveen Thipsay holds the Grandmaster title from FIDE, and his online record suggests he also intends to personally stress-test every chess server on the planet. Playing as Thipsay, he has logged more than 42,000 games, over 21,900 of them bullet wins. His preferred time control is blitz, though the play history disagrees: the profile says blitz, the game log says bullet, and the game log has more than 41,000 receipts.
Repertoire: 1.e4 With Conviction
As White, Praveen opens 1.e4 with the zeal of a true believer: 4,258 games of it in 2024 alone, against exactly eleven 1.d4 experiments. He meets the French with the Advance Variation, handles the Caro-Kann with the Exchange, keeps the Center Game loaded for the unprepared, and plays the Amazon Attack in both directions, nearly 1,500 games with it as White and more than 1,500 against it as Black, scoring above 52% either way.
His Black-side workhorse is the Scandinavian Defense, deployed more than 5,000 times: meet 1.e4 with 1...d5, recapture with the queen, and let the opponent burn clock time trying to prove queens belong in the corner.
He is also a certified gimmick exterminator. Opponents have tried the Barnes Defense, the infamous 1...f3, more than 1,500 times, and he wins about 57% of those. The Amar Gambit has been hurled at him roughly 1,400 times with similarly disappointing results for its fans. The one line that genuinely annoys him is the Poisoned Pawn London, the only staple where his win rate dips under 50%.
Style Notes: Endgame Tenant, Comeback Artist
Roughly 79% of his games reach an endgame, and his average win runs about 59 moves while his average loss stretches to 76, so even beating him is a part-time job. He is first to check nearly 59% of the time, favors the queen for that chore, and usually makes his first capture around move six, because patience is also a weapon.
- Comeback rate: 89.7%, he wins most games even after falling behind
- Win rate after dropping a piece: just over 50%, a lost piece is apparently a suggestion
- One-sided losses: 0.45%, an endangered species
- Checkmated only 43 times in 42,000 games, while delivering 367 checkmates of his own
- Tilt factor: 14, glacier included at no extra cost
- About a third of his losses end in an early resignation, because he spots a dead position faster than most people spot a winning one
The Nemesis File: chosroes
Every online grinder has a nemesis, and Thipsay's is Chosroes: 175 head-to-head games ending 74-87-14 in chosroes' favor, which the mathematics community calls "behind." The ledger is far kinder elsewhere. Thomas(Hanwen) Xuan has dropped 47 of 77 meetings, Jinsoo KIM has lost 51 of 87, and even Eddy Osei only manages near-parity at 63-58 across 125 games.
Midnight Rules and Streak Symmetry
His best hour is 11 PM, where the win rate touches 60%, with 1 AM close behind. At exactly midnight the number collapses to 22%, so the sensible advice is to log off before the clock strikes twelve. Thursday is his best day of the week, Monday his worst, and his longest winning streak (14) exactly matches his longest losing streak (14), a symmetry the universe apparently insists on.
When he slows down for rapid, the class shows: a 13-1 run in September 2024 and a flawless 9-0 in August 2026. Blitz, his stated favorite, also holds his highest career peak at 2610.