GM Oleksandr Bortnyk stole the show in Saturday’s Bullet Brawl after outscoring 186 of Chess.com’s quickest titled players to capture the $400 first prize for the 13th time.
Bortnyk’s score of 164 positioned him 12 points ahead of the second-placed GM Jose Martinez and thanks to a resounding streak at the start of the event, even GMs Andrew Tang and GM Magnus Carlsen were left in the dust.
Iran’s WIM Mitra Asgharzadeh continued her domination of the best women’s category and will receive $100 for her efforts, while “TheUnderDog001” finished first in the 500-player strong community event.
The next edition of Bullet Brawl will commence on Saturday, September 13, at noon ET/17:00 CEST.
Standings
| Rank | Fed | Title | Username | Name | Rating | Score |
| 1 | GM | Oleksandr_Bortnyk | Oleksandr Bortnyk | 3280 | 164 | |
| 2 | GM | Jospem | Jose Martinez | 3159 | 152 | |
| 3 | GM | penguingm1 | Andrew Tang | 3184 | 149 | |
| 4 | IM | MITerryble | Renato Terry | 3141 | 147 | |
| 5 | GM | wonderfultime | Tuan Minh Le | 3181 | 141 | |
| 6 | GM | MagnusCarlsen | Magnus Carlsen | 3199 | 140 | |
| 7 | IM | Sardaukar-2 | Dmytro Danylenko | 3066 | 129 | |
| 8 | GM | Sina-Movahed | Sina Movahed | 3042 | 116 | |
| 9 | IM | yosephtaher | Yoseph Theolifus Taher | 3135 | 112 | |
| 10 | FM | Bryanl106 | Bryan Enming Lin | 2919 | 111 | |
| 11 | IM | TanitoluwaAps116 | Tanitoluwa Adewumi | 2979 | 110 | |
| 12 | IM | FaustinoOro | Faustino Oro | 3059 | 109 | |
| 13 | IM | ProfessorChess101 | Yichen Han | 2953 | 108 | |
| 14 | CM | NikaVolkov | Nika Volkov | 2941 | 107 | |
| 15 | CM | MVM2008 | Matei-Valeriu Mogirzan | 2849 | 107 | |
| 16 | FM | Baag4Life | Tugstumur Yesuntumur | 2949 | 105 | |
| 17 | IM | rezamahdavi2008 | Reza Mahdavi | 3030 | 104 | |
| 18 | GM | Dr_Tyger | Haowen Xue | 3005 | 103 | |
| 19 | FM | Gunner214 | Mykola Korchynskyi | 2981 | 103 | |
| 20 | FM | Turboplombir | Sergey Sklokin | 2961 | 100 | |
(Full final standings here.)
Saturday’s Bullet Brawl saw a dramatic increase in participation compared to usual, most likely owing to the entry of Carlsen. Despite his numerous accolades, though, a maiden Bullet Brawl title eludes the five-time world champion. After finishing sixth this week, Carlsen will have to wait a little longer to break the jinx.
An illustrious group of 3100+ rated players joined Carlsen as pre-tournament favorites, with Tang and Bortnyk holding the most titles among them. However, the former’s winning prospects were called into question early by the latter, after a barnstorming kingside attack featuring two bishop sacrifices left Tang clutching at straws.
Although this was clearly Bortnyk’s piece de resistance, it was his 22/24 start, which included seven wins over GMs, that put him in the box seat.
IM Renato Terry became one of Bortnyk’s victims during this period after a queenside pawn storm in the French Defense: Winawer, Advance Variation proved too slow.
At the halfway mark, Tang started to become a thorn in Bortnyk’s side—he won four games in a row against the eventual winner. Bortnyk made amends for this by toppling Carlsen on two out of three occasions, as well as several other top GMs.
Bortnyk’s first win over Carlsen arose from a messy Modern Defense with 1.d4 that went awry for the world number-one, and the second was an 82-move epic where neither player budged until Carlsen’s flag fell.
In the end, Bortnyk’s fast start got him over the line. With this being his 13th title, Bortnyk has once again jumped ahead of Tang on the all-time leaderboard and is now outright third.
All-Time Leaderboard
| Player | All-Time Wins | 2025 Wins | 2024 Wins | 2023 Wins |
| GM Hikaru Nakamura | 46 | 12 | 19 | 15 |
| GM Daniel Naroditsky | 31 | 7 | 14 | 10 |
| GM Oleksandr Bortnyk | 13 | 3 | 7 | 3 |
| GM Andrew Tang | 12 | 8 | 4 | 0 |
| GM Jose Martinez | 4 | 0 | 1 | 3 |
| GM Ediz Gurel | 4 | 2 | 2 | 0 |
| GM Sam Sevian | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| GM Nihal Sarin | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| GM Yagiz Erdogmus | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| GM Alireza Firouzja | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| GM Tuan Minh Le | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| IM Yoseph Taher | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| IM Reza Mahdavi | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
Besides Bortnyk, the performance of Asgharzadeh was the most notable. On her way to yet another best women’s prize, the Iranian WIM bowled over Chinese Tong Xiao with the black pieces in scintillating fashion.
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, Daniel Naroditsky, Andrew Tang, Tuan Minh Le, and many more!
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