Anton Barash (zenitushka)
Anton Barash, known online as zenitushka, is a National Master whose chess identity is built on volume, stubbornness, and a deep love for the French Defense. His journey has taken him from a modest 1,155 Blitz rating in 2010 to a serious 2,500+ peak in online Blitz, with enough bullet games in between to make a bronze statue tired. This is a player who shows up, clicks, and keeps going long after everyone else has logged off.
From Club Grind to Bullet Machine
Anton prefers Bullet, and his marathon sessions paint the perfect picture. Some months he played over 800 games in a single stretch, and he somehow made the volume work for him. His French Defense games alone could fill a small chess library; the Exchange, Advance, and Classical variations all show up in huge numbers. Across his entire online career his strongest jumps came after miserably slow starts, particularly the 2017 month when he dropped to 1,299, then bounced back past 1,800 by playing 262 games in one month.
He is a National Master now, but the first impression was pure club player. From 2010 to 2011 his ratings swung between 1,100 and 1,400 in different pools. It took years of daily repetition to turn "wins often against familiar people" into "does this to everyone."
Opening Roots and Repertoire Delight
Ask a true zenitushka fan and they will tell you about the Amazon Attack, a favorite white weapon with a healthy 57% win rate. He also uses the Vienna Gambit with real ambition, especially in the Max Lange Defense line, and as Black he goes to the Scandinavian Defense with a win rate above 55% in bullet. In rapid he has silly records against the Blackburne Shilling Gambit and the Amazon Attack, both far over 60%.
His opening personality changed in important ways. For most of his career he lived on 1.e4. Then around 2024 the data flips and 1.d4 shows up in a big way. This is not a conservative change; it is a chess player who can never let the repertoire get stale.
A quick look at a French Exchange type position is all you need to see him at home:
Old Foes and Repeat Customers
Anton’s record contains names that appear so often they feel like neighbors. Against tinyattacker he owns a ferocious 36 wins, 8 losses, and 7 draws in 51 games. That is not a rivalry, that is a tribute. Then there is leonkalenjian, who shows up as a genuine bogeyman: Anton has 6 wins but 30 losses against him, a pattern that probably created entire evenings of rematches and a great excuse to stay up late.
- Faced tinyattacker 51 times with huge margin
- Faced leonkalenjian 46 times and still seeks revenge
- 26 times against ymania? Actually the track says 27 games, all wins.
- H20: versus ymania55 he won 11 of 15 meetings
Tough, Gifted and Weirdly Elastic
His mental game is built around show workers that play a lot, and a mind that goes forward even after a bad day. He has a 14 game winning streak, a 15 game losing streak, and a low one-sided loss rate of around 5%. That basically means he almost never gets swept of position and still unseats. His comeback rate after losing a piece is 86%, a strong reminder that the game is not over until the server says so.
He is notably better with white (55% win rate) than black (47%), and his favorite online window is right around 09:00. He scores above 52% on every single weekday, which suggests a constant level of hunger rather than a habit that only fires on weekends.
Master Without the Filter
Anton Barash is not a player who saves a golden rating for special occasions. He is the kind of National Master who appears at any hour, in any time control, with a prepared French Defense and a willingness to test a random opening if it looks fun. His [peak number: 2508 (2025-03-15) in Blitz and 2172 (2026-01-26) in Rapid are impressive, but the real achievement is the route: thousands of online games, dozens of opening micro-obsessions, and the stubborn belief that the next game is always worth playing.