William Paras

Portrait of a Bullet Specialist

William Paras, known on the leaderboard as willeyumo, is a bullet chess specialist with a suspiciously long attention span. Since first appearing online in January 2023, he has played more than 15,000 rated games, most of them in his beloved bullet format, and most of them starting with the move 1.d4. He grinds endgames like a classical player, then does it with seconds on the clock, which is either admirable or unhinged depending on which side of the board you are sitting.

The headline number: a peak bullet rating of 2474 (2026-01-18), reached in January 2026, after starting his journey in the 200s. That is a climb of well over 2,000 points, earned one tiny, frantic game at a time.

The Great Climb

William's rise reads like a staircase drawn by someone allergic to resting on steps. Within six months of his debut he had broken 1000. By August 2023 he touched 1300. Then came the volume: 253 bullet games in February 2024, 385 in January 2025, 432 in March 2025, and an almost religious 637 games in July 2025, roughly 20 a day, every day, plus meals. (He lost more than he won that month. The grind does not care about your feelings.)

• January 2023: bullet debut, rating in the 200s.
• June 2023: crosses 1000.
• October 2024: breaks 2000 for the first time.
• July 2025: the 637-game month, peak of 2346.
• December 2025: breaches 2400.
• January 2026: career-best 2474.

For a change of pace he dabbles in blitz and rapid, peaking at 2364 in blitz and 2233 in rapid, the latter arriving on Christmas Day 2025, presumably wrapped for himself. His daily chess account is kept the way some people keep a journal: sporadically, and mostly in 2023.

A d4 Devotee With a Gambit Problem

The repertoire is a personality test. In 2023 he opened with 1.d4 in 1,773 games and with 1.e4 in exactly 15. By 2025, 1.e4 had vanished from his white repertoire altogether. This is a Queen's pawn player, full stop.

His most-played weapon is the quirky Australian Defense, wheeled out more than 1,100 times in bullet alone with a winning record. His most profitable line is his Queen's Gambit Declined setup against the early Bf5 move: over 61 percent as White in bullet, 68 percent in rapid, and a bullying 87.5 percent in daily chess, where opponents have all the time in the world to lose to it. He is also a serial trapper, with more than 500 games featuring the Blackburne Shilling Gambit, sprung on 1.e4 players who were expecting a nice quiet Italian.

• Australian Defense: 1,100+ bullet games, winning record, guaranteed confusion.
• Queen's Gambit Declined with the early Bf5 treatment: the breadwinner at every speed.
• Blackburne Shilling Gambit: 500+ games of chess crime.
• Amar Gambit: because every bullet player needs an opening named like a dare.
• English Opening: a quiet side arm scoring nearly 58 percent in bullet as White.

Friends, Rivals, and One Kryptonite

No one has faced William more than ohsnorlax: 166 meetings, with William winning 105. That is not a rivalry, that is a subscription. flyinghippomonkey has absorbed a 25-2 record, and celloplayer268 has kept things interesting at 28-15 in William's favor. Against derekchessbarber, the series sits at 21-20, essentially a coin toss with extra steps.

Then there is horridhenry2000. Fifty-two games, seven wins, forty-three losses. Every bullet grinder has one opponent who simply refuses to cooperate, and for William this is the final boss.

How He Actually Wins

• Longest winning streak: 32 games. Longest slump: 11 games, which at his volume is a bad afternoon.
• Comeback rate near 80 percent: even after dropping a piece, he still scores almost half the time.
• Endgame frequency of about 69 percent, with winning games averaging 66 moves. He wins bullet games the long way.
• First capture usually lands around move six. He is not shy.
• More than 2,200 wins by checkmate and more than 2,200 by timeout. The clock is a weapon and he knows it.
• 99 percent of his defeats end in resignation: when it is over, he shakes hands and queues again.
• 141 career stalemates, each one a small diplomatic incident.

A scheduling note from the data: his win rate peaks around 5pm and craters after 8pm. If you see willeyumo online at dinnertime, that is your moment. Mondays are his best day of the week, Saturdays his worst, and against lower-rated fields he wins about 72 percent, so the ecosystem remains in balance.

The Bottom Line

William Paras is proof that chess improvement has no shortcuts, but it apparently does have 637-game months. From a 264-rated bullet debut in January 2023 to a 2400-plus peak three years later, he has outgrinded, outlasted, and occasionally outflagged his way into the upper tiers of online bullet chess. The opening is 1.d4, the plan is to keep playing forever, and the trajectory, based on everything above, is still pointing up.