Who Is Dale Kirton (ttyn)?
Dale Kirton, known on the chessboard as ttyn, is living proof that stamina is a chess skill. Since arriving in October 2024, Kirton has played roughly twenty-one thousand rated bullet games, a pace best described as a coffee IV drip with a chessboard attached. The grind has paid off: the bullet rating climbed from the low 1700s to a peak of 2186 (2026-07-11), and the blitz sample, tiny as it is, reaches 2401 (2025-09-08). Kirton was still queueing games deep into 2026.
The Bullet Chess Treadmill
The career bullet ledger reads 9,993 wins, 10,438 losses and just 513 draws. Draws, apparently, are for people with somewhere to be. When Kirton wins, opponents tend to throw in the towel: 4,797 career wins by resignation and 2,278 by checkmate. When Kirton loses, the clock often collects instead: over 8,000 defeats by timeout, meaning Kirton has lost more games on time than many players will ever play in total. Flag management remains the one opening book never fully mastered.
The style notes are telling. The average game runs about 61 moves whether won or lost, the endgame appears in two-thirds of games, and an 84.77% comeback rate shows lost positions get dragged back from the dead with disturbing regularity. One-sided defeats happen less than 1% of the time, and the tilt factor sits at a frosty 17. Kirton does not rage. Kirton queues the next game.
Dale Kirton's Openings and Style
With White, the first move is basically a religion: 1.e4, over ten thousand times, with the odd e3 thrown in like a plot twist. Frequent party guests include the Caro-Kann Defense (1,085 games and counting) and the wonderfully obscure Bird Opening: Dutch Variation, Batavo Gambit, a line most players see once in a lifetime and Kirton has seen nearly 900 times.
With Black, the Sicilian Defense carries the workload, though the Alapin Variation has been a lifelong frenemy hovering in the low 40s. The genuine moneymaker is the Tarrasch Defense against the Queen's Gambit: 619 games at a 56.7% win rate, the best large-sample result in the whole repertoire.
A typical evening in ttyn-land, via the Alapin:
Rivalries and Regular Opponents
Every grinder needs a nemesis, and Novakovlcslobodan answers the call with authority: 61 meetings and a 40-18-3 lead. Mario Carbon (55 games) and Amr El (47 games) keep the losses column well fed too. For balance, rob banc (24-20-1) and zaid0112 (21-18-1) are the rare rematches that end in smiles.
Blitz, Clock Watching and Quick Facts
Officially, blitz is the preferred time control. In practice, Kirton has played exactly eight blitz games, going 6-1-1, which is either remarkable efficiency or the world's most dramatic warm-up act. Timing matters overall: the win rate peaks at 7 in the morning (56.8%) and sags badly around 4 am. The lesson is simple: play ttyn at breakfast, avoid ttyn at "why am I awake" o'clock.
- First move as White: 1.e4, roughly 97% of the time
- Most common checking piece: the queen, with over 15,600 checks delivered
- First to check in 58% of games, winning 55% of those
- Longest winning streak: 13; longest losing streak: 17
- White scores 50.7%, Black 44.7%, so choose a side accordingly
- Early resignation rate: just 11%, every game is fought to the bitter end