Tang Back In Limelight Following 34-Game Bloodbath

GM Andrew Tang put his shoulder back to the wheel fewer than 24 hours after winning the 2025 Chess.com Hyperbullet Championship and won his seventh Bullet Brawl of the year after a 34-game streak. Tang scored 62.5/75 and amassed 220 points, earning himself the $400 first prize ahead of GMs Oleksandr Bortnyk, David Paravyan, and Daniel Naroditsky.

The $100 best women's prize was won by WIM Mitra Asgharzadeh for the second week in a row, while Community Bullet Brawl maestro Sundram Kumar won the concurrently run untitled event by an 18-point margin.

The next edition of Bullet Brawl will commence on Saturday, June 21, at noon ET/17:00 CEST.

Standings

(Full final standings here.)

Saturday's Bullet Brawl had a strong sense of déjà vu as many of the players who played in the Hyperbullet Championship qualifiers backed up for the weekly arena. Five knockout participants: GMs Tang, Bortnyk, Naroditsky, Sergei Zhigalko, and Emin Ohanyan joined regulars GMs Paravyan, Guha Mitrabha, Dmitry Andreikin, as well as IMs Renato Terry, Reza Mahdavi, and Kacper Drozdowski in a field of 138 titled players.

FM Rustam Rustamov led for most of the first half on Saturday thanks to a 16-game streak to kick off the arena. One of Rustamov's key wins was against Paravyan, which turned from a theoretical Petrov's Defense: Classical Attack, Marshall Variation, Staunton Variation into a chaotic time scramble.

Despite being less recognizable than some of the other 3000+ players in the field, Rustamov's recent success in online tournaments is hardly surprising. In the last 18 months, the 15-year-old has improved his FIDE rating from 1995 to 2334, and in March he won the U16 Azerbaijan championship with a commanding score of 10.5/11 and a performance rating of 2387.

Rustamov's fairytale run eventually came unstuck, though, when he lost games to Tang, Ohanyan, and FM Sergey Sklokin in close succession, allowing Paravyan to hit the front.

At this point of the event, Tang was sitting in seventh place, 28 points behind the leader; however, pandemonium at the top and a lack of streaks allowed Tang to begin climbing higher.

15 wins and 20 minutes later, Tang had closed the gap... and he didn't stop there. Tang went on to win 19 more games in a row, going the entire second half of the event unbeaten.

GM Mahdi Gholami Orimi, IMs Yoseph Taher, Stephane Bressac, Gianmarco Leiva, Miguel Medina Paz, Nitish Belurkar, and a host of FMs and CMs fell at Tang's feet during his 34-game streak, and a highlight reel of brilliancies was created in the process. One example was a queen-winning sacrifice against Brazilian NM Eduardo Barbosa Mesquita.

A second tactic against Argentinian FM Leonel Amato left his opponent down by a pawn and with an exposed king.

Finally, Tang unleashed all of his pieces on FM Jake Shanty's king and forced his opponent to give up material.

When the arena clock expired, Tang's score was 37 points higher than the second-placed Bortnyk, who achieved his position by leapfrogging Paravyan in the final seconds after successfully converting in 102 moves against Drozdowski.

Although Bortnyk didn't stream this week's Bullet Brawl, the following clip from 2024 demonstrates just how good the 28-year-old is at preempting his opponent's moves.

After his latest victory on Saturday, Tang has now equaled GM Hikaru Nakamura's seven Bullet Brawl wins in 2025 and is one win shy of joining Bortnyk in third place on the all-time leaderboard.

All-Time Leaderboard

Bullet Brawl is an exciting arena featuring Chess.com's top bullet specialists. It takes place weekly on Saturdays. The format is a two-hour arena with a 1+0 time control; the prize fund is $1,000. Like Titled Tuesday and Arena Kings, Bullet Brawl often features top GMs, including Hikaru Nakamura, Daniel Naroditsky, Andrew Tang, Tuan Minh Le, and many more!

Previous coverage:

• • Announcing Chess.com Community Bullet Brawl Tournaments
  • Introducing Bullet Brawls And New Arena Options