King Of Bullet Brawl Returns To Win 35th Title

The king of Bullet Brawl, GM Hikaru Nakamura, returned to the top of Chess.com's high-speed titled arena on Saturday, claiming the $400 first prize and extending his all-time win count to 35. To reach the winning score (261), he scored 72/81 and did not concede any draws.

GMs Andrew Tang and 27-time winner Daniel Naroditsky secured second and third places in the event with scores of 241 and 215 and will receive $250 and $150, respectively, for their efforts. The best women's prize was again won by IM Karina Ambartsumova, whose score of 100 saw her take home a dollar for each point she scored.

The next edition of Bullet Brawl will commence on Saturday, February 8, at noon ET/18:00 CEST.

Standings

Saturday's Bullet Brawl was jam-packed with 238 titled hopefuls, each vying for their share of the $1,000 prize fund and a chance to play, and potentially upset, some of the world's best bullet chess players. For those who love an underdog story though, you will have to wait until next week—the top 12 finishers were all GMs, and the foremost of them, Nakamura, was unstoppable.

A busy start to the year and some technical issues meant that before today, Nakamura was yet to win a brawl, but the writing was on the wall for a triumphant return to the top. Two weeks ago, he finished 12th with a score of 141 after playing just half of the event. Had he duplicated his results in the first half, he would have won by a margin of 61 points.

In Saturday's brawl, Nakamura kicked off in style, illustrating the power of the bishop pair against GM Oleksandr Bortnyk before winning 10 games straight. 

GM Sam Sevian was the player who snapped Nakamura's streak, but four consecutive losses to other opponents dashed his chances of an early breakaway.

GM Jose Martinez also proved to be a thorn in Nakamura's side after scoring 2/2 against him; however, Nakamura made up for this by chalking up 5/5 against Tang. Speaking about his head-to-head clashes on Kick, Nakamura joked: "I can't play against Jose (Martinez) today but against Andrew (Tang), I'm just dominating him because he's not ready for the Beefeater." 

For those wondering, the "Beefeater" is a strangely named opening variation in the Modern Defense which Nakamura used to great effect to topple Tang twice.

Heading into the final quarter with a sizeable lead, Nakamura tightened the screws with two 12-game streaks, with the only interruption being a single loss to Naroditsky.

Clinical conversions were a constant during this period, and NM Mike Sailer was one of the players who fell victim to Nakamura. See if you can spot the remove-the-defender tactic that preceded checkmate.

With 35 wins under his belt, Nakamura has won approximately 38 percent of all the brawls since the tournament's inception. If Nakamura's wins were combined with Naroditsky's, this rises to more than 68 percent.

All-Time Leaderboard

Bullet Brawl is an exciting titled arena that features Chess.com's top bullet specialists and takes place weekly on Saturdays. The format is a two-hour arena with a 1+0 time control; the prize fund is $1,000.

Much 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