Tang Wins 5th Bullet Brawl Title By 65-Point Margin

Four months after winning his fourth Bullet Brawl title, GM Andrew Tang returned to the top spot in Saturday's event, notching 76 wins and six draws. When he finished with a winning score of 287, 65 points stood between Tang and his nearest challenger, GM Sam Sevian, making Tang's $400 run one of the most dominant in Bullet Brawl history.

GM Pranav Venkatesh finished in third place with 211 points, edging out GM Tuan Minh Le who will receive $100, while IM Karina Ambartsumova stopped a spirited WGM Lile Koridze to secure the $100 best women's prize.

The next edition of Bullet Brawl will commence on Saturday, February 1, at noon ET/18:00 CEST.

Standings

Saturday's event was joined by 236 titled players with no shortage of GMs, despite notable absentees, GMs Hikaru Nakamura and Daniel Naroditsky. Tang entered as the top seed but was flanked by a throng of 3000+ rated players including GMs Le, Sevian, Venkatesh, Jose Martinez, Matthias Bluebaum, and Oleksandr Bortnyk. Four of these players have previously won brawls.

Tang's start was electric and after scoring nine wins in a row to kick off the event, he took a commanding lead. Clutch efforts during scrambles were common for the first Chess.com hyperbullet chess champion, and the biggest test in this period came against Armenian IM Robert Piliposyan. Braving a five-second deficit, Tang hung in the game long enough for his opponent to slip up.

As is so often the case in Bullet Brawl, an extraordinary streak cemented the eventual winner's lead. For Tang, this came at the tail-end of the event—he scored 37/38, with the only interruption coming at the hands of Dutch IM Artur De Winter.

GMs Bluebaum, Adham Fawzy, Venkatesh, Gyula Pap, and Aman Mikaelyan were all casualties of Tang's rampage, and his game against the latter was the most picturesque. Procuring a healthy advantage stemming from the London System, Tang ushered his pieces to the kingside before uncorking a game-ending knight and rook sacrifice.

To cap off an indomitable performance, Tang took a page out of the Naroditsky playbook and used pre-moves to four-move checkmate his final opponent and add four more points to his score.

Such dominant victories are rare in Bullet Brawl, but Tang's winning margin of 65 points is still a considerable distance from the record of 96 set by Nakamura in October 2024. Nevertheless, Tang has shown that he is not only capable of winning editions of Bullet Brawl but also challenging the lofty point records set primarily by the 34-time winner.

Accolades must also go to the winner of the community event, Peruvian expert Cesar Frank Talledo Lagos, who posted a score of 281 and added another title to his resume. Talledo Lagos, along with the second and third-place finishers, "Macmasterr" and Sundram Kumar, have snapped up first in most community brawls since the event's inception. On Saturday, Talledo Lagos pulled out all the tactical stops to hold onto first.

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