Austin Mei: The FM Known as TitanChess666
Some chess players climb the rating ladder gracefully. Austin Mei climbed it the way a rock climber scales a cliff face in the dark: stubbornly, brutally, and with a truly alarming number of falls. Starting out in the four-digit wilderness back in 2016, Austin ground out tens of thousands of games to earn the FIDE Master title, transforming the username TitanChess666 from an edgy teenager's keyboard smash into a name that blitz opponents dread seeing at the top of their challenge queue.
With over 8,000 bullet wins and nearly 4,000 blitz victories to their name, Austin is less a chess player and more a chess endurance athlete. If there were an Olympic event for "most premove attempts per minute," Austin would be on the podium, possibly with a medal, possibly just twitching.