Bullet Brawl‘s most prolific winner, GM Hikaru Nakamura, has started 2026 with a hat trick of victories. In Saturday’s event, GM Jose Martinez built a 21-point lead, but with just over 20 minutes to go, Nakamura bolted to the finish line, not only surpassing Martinez, but doing so by a comfortable 14 points.
For finishing first, Nakamura will receive $400 for the third week in a row, while GMs Martinez, Sam Sevian, and Sergei Zhigalko will receive $250, $150, and $100, respectively.
An strong performance by FM Anastasia Avramidou saw her finish 19th and consequently, pick up the $100 best women’s prize.
The next edition of Bullet Brawl will commence on Saturday, Jan. 24, at 12 p.m. ET/18:00 CET.
Standings
| Rank | Fed | Title | Username | Name | Rating | Score |
| 1 | GM | Hikaru | Hikaru Nakamura | 3377 | 171 | |
| 2 | GM | Jospem | Jose Martinez | 3211 | 157 | |
| 3 | GM | Konavets | Sam Sevian | 3227 | 149 | |
| 4 | GM | Zhigalko_Sergei | Sergei Zhigalko | 3209 | 144 | |
| 5 | GM | Oleksandr_Bortnyk | Oleksandr Bortnyk | 3226 | 140 | |
| 6 | GM | wonderfultime | Tuan Minh Le | 3194 | 132 | |
| 7 | GM | gurelediz | Ediz Gürel | 3277 | 130 | |
| 8 | GM | HVillagra | Cristobal Henriquez | 3082 | 126 | |
| 9 | GM | mbojan | Bojan Maksimović | 3009 | 126 | |
| 10 | IM | MITerryble | Renato Terry | 3173 | 121 | |
| 11 | GM | dropstoneDP | David Paravyan | 3142 | 117 | |
| 12 | FM | Herzog2012 | Mark Smirnov | 2946 | 114 | |
| 13 | CM | Tunartank | Tunar Davudov | 2964 | 113 | |
| 14 | IM | Legendinunknown | Harshavardhan GB | 2927 | 110 | |
| 15 | FM | TrimitziosP7 | Petros Trimitzios | 2933 | 110 | |
| 16 | GM | Twitch_ElhamBlitz05 | Elham Amar | 2873 | 105 | |
| 17 | CM | christianallen359 | Christian Gabriel Allen Leydenz | 2779 | 99 | |
| 18 | CM | Hamlet | Hamlet Antonyan | 2851 | 99 | |
| 19 | FM | anasta10 | Anastasia Avramidou | 2806 | 99 | |
| 20 | FM | AllCer7 | Allahverdi Hamidov | 2821 | 99 |
(Full final standings here.)
Nakamura’s status as the best Bullet Brawl player is secure for now after the world number two proved that he can win from the most unlikely situations for the second week in a row.
100% – @GMHikaru has won every Bullet Brawl this year 😤 pic.twitter.com/ifNBQ92YTb
— Chess.com (@chesscom) January 17, 2026
Although Nakamura kicked off the arena with a perfect 16/16 against players such as GMs Sevian, Ediz Gurel, and Cristobal Henriquez Villagra, GM Tuan Minh Le and Martinez started to put pressure on him after his streak was snapped by the latter of the two.
Martinez’s start wasn’t squeaky clean either, however, after beating Nakamura, he scored 19/21 and built a 21 point lead. The speed with which Martinez won many of his games contributed to his uprising. See if you can spot his sacrifice that lead to a crisp conversion over South African NM James Dinham below.
Meanwhile, Nakamura was winning the majority of his games but was stifled by tough pairings. He had to face Sevian a whopping 11 times and while he won eight of these, the periodic losses stung his chances of a comeback. In one game, the players struggled for 33 moves before Nakamura found two rook sacrifices that sealed the result.
Nakamura also scored 4/5 against Gurel, 3/4 against Le, and 4/4 against Bortnyk.
As the final 20 minutes of the arena approached, it seemed that Martinez’s lead would be unassailable. However, Nakamura rinsed and repeated his heroics from last week’s arena and scored 13/15 in the final stretch.
Comparatively, Martinez scored 5.5/15.
In one of their most important games against each other, Martinez found himself on the brink of what could have been a decisive victory in a rook endgame, but his two-pawn advantage fell apart and Nakamura clinched the win.
10 minutes later Nakamura toppled Martinez again with an opportunistic middlegame tactic, closing the gap to a single point.
With momentum on his side, Nakamura was now favored to win the event and he didn’t disappoint. For the 52nd time in history and third time this year, Nakamura won Bullet Brawl.
| Player | All-Time Wins | 2026 Wins | 2025 Wins | 2024 Wins | 2023 Wins |
| GM Hikaru Nakamura | 52 | 3 | 15 | 19 | 15 |
| GM Daniel Naroditsky | 32 | 0 | 8 | 14 | 10 |
| GM Andrew Tang | 14 | 0 | 10 | 4 | 0 |
| GM Oleksandr Bortnyk | 13 | 0 | 3 | 7 | 3 |
| GM Ediz Gurel | 8 | 0 | 6 | 2 | 0 |
| GM Jose Martinez | 4 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 3 |
| GM Nihal Sarin | 3 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 |
| GM Jeffery Xiong | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 |
| GM Sam Sevian | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| GM Yagiz Erdogmus | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| GM Alireza Firouzja | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| GM Matthias Bluebaum | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| GM Tuan Minh Le | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 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 |
When his victory was confirmed, Nakamura left a touching tribute to the late GM Daniel Naroditsky, prompted by the nature his comeback:
“In Bullet Brawl, the only person who could keep that fast pace and dominate was Daniel Naroditsky. He’s the only person who, where if he didn’t get off to a red hot start, he could just like pound the last 20 or 30 minutes and be red hot. I don’t really think there’s anybody else who could do it like Danya.”
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, Andrew Tang, Tuan Minh Le, and many more!
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