GM Hikaru Nakamura won Bullet Brawl for the third consecutive week on September 26. He once again dominated the event, winning by a 25-point margin with 172 points. GM Tuan Minh Le took second place with 147 points, three points ahead of GM Oleksandr Bortnyk. FM Anastasia Avramidou took the top women’s prize with 102 points.
Bullet Brawl will return on Saturday, October 3, at 12 p.m. ET / 18:00 CEST / 9:30 p.m. IST.
Standings
(Full final standings here.)
Nakamura stumbled in his very first game of the event, losing to GM Sina Movahed, and it looked momentarily like first place might be in question. However, Nakamura went undefeated in his next 28 games, winning 24 of them and drawing four. That run included a 12-game winning streak, the longest of any player in the event.
Overall, Nakamura finished with a score of 54/70. A key to his Bullet Brawl success is that he typically plays more games than his rivals by winning many games quickly. For example, he spent just 10 seconds on his clock in this win against IM Reza Mahdavi.Â
Similarly, this victory against GM Jose Martinez took Nakamura just 17 seconds of thinking time.
This game against GM Sergei Zhigalko lasted slightly longer, but Nakamura still used less than half of his available time.
Minh Le took second place by scoring 45.5/62. He’s routinely one of the top bullet players in the world, and scored a convincing win against Nakamura along the way.
All-Time Leaderboard
| Player | All-Time Wins | 2026 Wins | 2025 Wins | 2024 Wins | 2023 Wins |
| GM Hikaru Nakamura | 68 | 19 | 15 | 19 | 15 |
| GM Daniel Naroditsky | 32 | N/A | 8 | 14 | 10 |
| GM Oleksandr Bortnyk | 17 | 4 | 3 | 7 | 3 |
| GM Andrew Tang | 15 | 1 | 10 | 4 | 0 |
| GM Ediz Gurel | 10 | 2 | 6 | 2 | 0 |
| GM Jeffery Xiong | 5 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 0 |
| GM Arjun Erigaisi | 4 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| GM Jose Martinez | 4 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 3 |
| IM Renato Terry | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| GM Yagiz Erdogmus | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| GM Nihal Sarin | 3 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 |
| GM Tuan Minh Le | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| GM Sam Sevian | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| GM Alireza Firouzja | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| GM Andy Woodward | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| GM Matthias Bluebaum | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| IM Yoseph Taher | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| IM Reza Mahdavi | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| GM Javokhir Sindarov | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
How to review games?
The games from this week’s Bullet Brawl can be found here.
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, Magnus Carlsen, Tuan Minh Le, and many more!
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