Vivek H: The Sunrise Bullet Veteran
Vivek H, known at the board as vivham, has been an online chess regular since December 2022, and the receipts are overwhelming: more than 7,000 rated games, the vast majority of them played with barely any time on the clock. He will tell you his true love is blitz, and the hundreds of blitz games back him up, but the thousands of bullet games suggest the clock gets a vote too.
Vivek H's Opening Repertoire: c4 Today, c4 Tomorrow
As White, Vivek plays the English Opening the way other people breathe. His 2025 first-move log shows 1.c4 played 1,480 times; 2026 doubled down with 1,846, plus a few token d4s and one daring b4 for garnish. The loyalty pays: his blitz English games win at 64%, the Taimanov setup converts at over 60%, and the King's English Variation hits nearly 77%.
With the black pieces he trusts solid, sensible structures. The Caro-Kann Defense has absorbed more than 700 bullet games of punishment, and the Slav Defense is his blitz comfort blanket at a 63% win rate. He has also faced the Amar Gambit 277 times, an opening whose unofficial backronym, Absolutely Mad And Ridiculous, he would probably co-sign.
How Vivek H Wins: Long Games, Short Flags
For a speed player, Vivek plays long. Wins average about 75 moves, losses about 81, and endgame positions appear in 84.5% of his games. He is a trench-warfare type who would rather squeeze a rook than hurl a piece, though the queen remains his most common checking piece, with his rooks logging nearly 5,600 checks of honest overtime.
- 1,647 career wins by timeout. The flag is effectively his favorite piece.
- A 91% comeback rate and a 47% win rate even after dropping material. He does not do despair.
- A tilt factor of 9 out of 100. His longest losing streak was 9 games and his facial expression reportedly did not change.
- Only 0.77% of his losses are one-sided. When Vivek goes down, there is a brawl first.
- A 43% early resignation rate, though nearly 2,000 checkmate losses suggest the white flag is used very selectively.
- His rated win rate runs about 31 points below his casual rate, proof that important games make his hands sweat like everyone else's.
Rivalries
Every grinder has a dance card. bartoszkruhlik has met him 52 times and lost the series badly, 31-17-4. wa_ncho holds the nemesis role, up 18-14 across 33 meetings. timdins is the coin-flip rivalry at 10-11, and kenji_92 trails slightly at 8-11. The group chat for this foursome must be chaotic.
The Body Clock of a Chess Player
Vivek is a sunrise assassin. At 7am he wins 59% of his games, and 8am is nearly as good at 58.6%, but at 6am the win rate collapses to 12.5%, suggesting his internal engine finishes booting around 6:45. Mondays are his best day, 8pm is his danger hour, and November 2025 alone contained 995 bullet games, roughly 33 per day. His longest winning streak stands at 13 games, which he is likely more proud of than most of his diplomas.
The Climb So Far
From a 1514 bullet rating in his first month, Vivek ground his way up to a peak of 2261 (2026-01-04) in January 2026, with a blitz peak of 2129 (2025-07-20) back in July 2025. The trajectory is less a rocket than a patient staircase, built one flagged opponent at a time.
The verdict: a solid-state endgame machine with one favorite opening, one favorite hour, and a suspicious talent for surviving lost positions. Schedule your morning games accordingly.