Gurel Cements Status As No. 1 Junior Bullet Brawler

Turkey's prodigious GM Ediz Gurel won his second Bullet Brawl of the month on Saturday after posting a 22-game unbeaten streak and staving off a late challenge from GM Nihal Sarin. Gurel scored 157 points, three more than the Indian super-GM, and 17 points more than GM Magnus Carlsen, who finished third.

Gurel will receive $400 for finishing first, while Nihal, Carlsen, and IM Renato Terry will receive $250, $150, and $100, respectively, for their placements. FM Anastasia Avramidou was the winner of the $100 best women's prize.

The next edition of Bullet Brawl will commence on Saturday, Nov. 29, at 12 p.m. ET/18:00 CET.

Standings

(Full final standings here.)

Two weeks after his last Bullet Brawl win, Gurel has once again managed to outfox the quickest players on Chess.com. The 16-year-old won with the same score as he did a fortnight ago, and with five wins to his name in 2025, Gurel is starting to become worthy of the moniker, "Mr. Consistent."

Of the 163 titled players in this week's brawl, 17 were GMs, and Carlsen was the most renowned of them. Nihal and GM Sam Sevian also played, meaning that a trio of super-GMs were in the hunt.

Several streamers joined the tournament as well, including GM Kayden Troff, who produced one of the entertaining moments of the event when he won a game after losing his queen.

As has been proven time and time again, expeditious play trumps accuracy in the Bullet Brawl arena, and Gurel capitalized on this. By the time the arena clock had expired, Gurel had played four more games than Nihal and Carlsen, and this proved decisive on the scoreboard.

Gurel got off to a flying start, notching 18 wins and two draws from his first 20 games. In the first game of the event, he swept aside Nihal in 27 moves with sage combinational play.

GM Sergei Zhigalko was another victim of Gurel during his opening streak—after 22 moves without a single mistake, the young winner pounced on a flawed intermezzo and proceeded to convert effortlessly.

By the time GM Matthias Bluebaum snapped Gurel's streak, his lead had ballooned to nine points. It was in the next 30 minutes, however, that the eventual winner stamped his authority on the arena.

Next, 22 games without a single loss followed, and Gurel left a montage of brilliances in his wake. See if you can spot some of the winning moves he found in the puzzles below.

Tough pairings against Carlsen and Nihal led to Gurel tripping on several occasions as the brawl drew to a close, and for a fleeting moment, it seemed that Nihal had a realistic chance to catch the leader.

With 10 minutes to go, Gurel steadied the ship and denied Nihal the opportunity to win for the second week in a row. The pair played out an amicable 22-move draw in the final game of the arena.

Remarkably, Gurel lost just a single game against non-GM opposition, and that was to the dangerous Terry. 

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, Andrew Tang, Tuan Minh Le, and many more!

Previous coverage:

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