Grandmaster Matthieu Cornette: The Night Owl of Bullet Chess
Some grandmasters grind out 40-move masterpieces. Matthieu Cornette, known to the online chess world as Tocras, would rather beat you in the time it takes to reheat your coffee. A FIDE-titled Grandmaster with a demonstrated allergy to slow chess, Tocras has built one of the more entertaining online profiles around, complete with a bullet peak of 2952 (2026-06-19), an 18-game winning streak, and a comeback rate suggesting he simply does not acknowledge lost positions.
- Name: Matthieu Cornette
- Handle: Tocras
- Title: Grandmaster (FIDE)
- Specialty: Bullet chess, with blitz as a close second
- Favorite checking piece: The rook, because subtlety is optional
From Blitz Grinder to Bullet Assassin
The story starts back in 2015, when Tocras was a blitz player hovering in the mid-2400s. The climb from there was steady and unsentimental: 2500s by 2018, 2700 territory by 2020, and eventually a blitz peak of 3003 (2026-06-15), alongside a bullet rating that tops out at 2952 (2026-06-19). His very first bullet games in March 2019 began near 1958, which means he treated the bullet leaderboard less like a wall and more like a speed ladder.
The pandemic chess boom turned him into a volume shooter, with 277 blitz games in May 2020 alone and nearly 400 in September 2022. His bullet win count now sits above 1,600, and the chart below tells the story of a decade spent getting faster, sharper, and considerably less merciful.
The Opening Repertoire: Closed Sicilians and Alekhine Chaos
With the white pieces, the Sicilian Defense: Closed is his signature weapon, played more than 560 times in blitz at a win rate north of 65%. He also keeps a soft spot for offbeat company, scoring heavily with the Czech Defense and the Amazon Attack, and somewhere in the database sit 72 games tagged Barnes Defense with his name attached, which is either a data quirk or an advanced form of psychological warfare.
Against 1.e4 he leans on the Alekhine Defense with nearly 600 blitz games, mixing in the Scandinavian Defense, the Caro-Kann, and a French Defense that wins over 63% of his bullet games. The Alekhine suits him perfectly: provoke first, punish second. A typical start looks like this:
Playing Style: Grind First, Ask Questions Later
Despite the speed-chess resume, Tocras is no wild gambler. More than 80% of his games reach an endgame, his wins average a patient 74 moves, and his rook has delivered close to 8,000 career checks, making the heavy artillery his piece of choice. Drop a piece against him and you should start worrying immediately: he wins more than half of the games where he loses material, and his overall comeback rate tops 86%.
- Tilt resistance: 11 out of 100, practically certified unflappable
- Peak danger hours: late evening, ideally around 23:00 when everyone else is getting sleepy
- White vs Black: a 59% win rate with White, and with Black he plays like the board owes him money
- Longest win streak: 18 games, at which point the queue presumably begged for mercy
- Longest losing streak: 11 games, proof that even Grandmasters have Mondays
Rivalries and Regular Dance Partners
Every online grinder has a dance card, and Tocras has filled his. His most frequent sparring partner is Роман, a genuine rivalry stretched across 62 games with the score nearly even at 28 wins to 26 losses. Against Sudhanshu Ranjan, however, there are no coin flips: 20 wins to 5 with zero draws in 25 games, meaning these two have never once agreed to a handshake of equality. Longtime regulars like white31 (27-16-2 in 45 games) and Konstantin Kodinets (23-12-8 in 43 games) round out a schedule that reads like a speed-chess support group.
Tocras by the Numbers
- 1,600+ bullet wins and counting
- 86.6% comeback rate from losing positions
- 18 consecutive wins at his very best
- ~8,000 career rook checks, the artillery of choice
- 74 average moves per win, patience included at no extra cost
So if you queue for bullet and a Grandmaster named Tocras appears on the other side of the board, hydrate, stretch, and premove something nice for yourself. The comeback is coming.