16-Year-Old Gurel Steamrolls His Way To 5th Bullet Brawl Title

The 16-year-old Turkish prodigy and GM Ediz Gurel has moved to fifth on the all-time Bullet Brawl leaderboard after picking up his third win of 2025. Gurel scored 177 points, comprising 49 wins, six draws, and seven losses, giving him a winning margin of 38 points over the second-placed IM Yoseph Taher.

Gurel will receive $400 for his efforts, while Taher, GM Oleksandr Bortnyk, and IM Renato Terry will receive $250, $150, and $100, respectively for their top four finishes. The $100 best women's prize was won by Iranian WIM Melika Mohammadi for the second time.

The next edition of Bullet Brawl will commence on Saturday, October 25, at noon ET/17:00 CEST.

Standings

(Full final standings here.)

Less than two weeks out from the 2025 FIDE World Cup, where three Candidates Tournament spots will be on offer, Gurel has shown that he is in tip-top shape by dominating Saturday's Bullet Brawl.

In a field featuring the nine-time winner Bortnyk, the defending champion and former super-GM Jeffery Xiong, as well as GM regulars Haik Martirosyan and Haowen Xue, the margin of victory for Gurel was impressive. Some would say his performance was reminiscent of the often dominant 48-time winner, GM Hikaru Nakamura.

Gurel set himself up for success by winning his first nine games with at least 10 seconds to spare in each. A 16-move win over a fellow prodigy, 11-year-old FM Ashwath Kaushik, was his most concise of the nine. A brilliant bishop sacrifice which bore the threat of checkmate ended the game as swiftly as it began. 

The Peruvian IM Terry's start was also strong—after losing to Gurel in the first game of the arena, he scored 8/8 before holding the leader to a draw in their rematch.

A 25-move win over IM Yuri Hambardzumian showed that Terry wasn't just interested in winning; he was looking for the quickest way to bowl over his opponents. See if you can spot below the checkmate in two that he found.

Though Gurel led from start to finish, it was the tail-end of his tournament where he really shone. Undefeated streaks of 12 and 15 games, separated by a single loss to Bortnyk, made it impossible for anyone to catch him.

In the first streak, Gurel defeated three GMs: Martirosyan, Chessbrah's Aman Hambleton, and Pranav Anand, while in the second he beat seven: Pranav (three times), Cristobal Henriquez Villagra, Xiong, Hambleton, and Bortnyk.

Gurel's most stunning victory was not against his GM opposition, however, but against IM Reza Mahdavi. Battling through a relatively equal middlegame, the 16-year-old had to defend against the enterprising 16...Nxf2!! before unleashing an attack that most GMs would be proud to execute in a classical game.

One of the other highlights of Gurel's run is when he traded his queen for two rooks and set up a mating net while his opponent still had 22 points of material left on the board.

When the arena clock expired, Gurel stood alone far above the rest of the field—Taher's score of 139 which earned him second was the lowest second-place score of 2025. Notably, five of the top 10 finishers are below the age of 20, reaffirming that the future of speed chess is bright.

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