GM
Hikaru Nakamura
's record-breaking victory streak in the
Bullet Brawl
arena has finally come to an end after GM
Alireza Firouzja
stormed home to snatch first place in the 232-strong player event on Saturday.
Firouzja finished on 170 points, four ahead of Nakamura and a further seven ahead of GM
Ediz Gurel
. GM
Matthias Bluebaum
rounded out the top four, while WIM
Melika Mohammadi
captured the $100 best women's prize.
The next edition of Bullet Brawl will begin on
Saturday, November 7, at 12 p.m. ET / 18:00 CET / 10:30 p.m. IST
.
Standings
Rank
Fed
Title
Username
Name
Rating
Score
Longest Streak
1
GM
Firouzja2003
Alireza Firouzja
3386
170
8
2
GM
Hikaru
Hikaru Nakamura
3393
166
12
3
GM
gurelediz
Ediz Gurel
3397
159
8
4
GM
Msb2
Matthias Bluebaum
3184
136
10
5
IM
rezamahdavi2008
Reza Mahdavi
3237
136
5
6
GM
Dr_Tyger
Haowen Xue
3231
133
6
7
GM
amintabatabaei
Amin Tabatabaei
3211
129
5
8
GM
LyonBeast
Maxime Vachier-Lagrave
3210
125
7
9
FM
puz2010
Semyon Puzyrevsky
3079
125
7
10
GM
FaustinoOro
Faustino Oro
3256
124
9
11
CM
Germanovs_Georgijs
Georgijs Germanovs
3100
124
7
12
GM
Oleksandr_Bortnyk
Oleksandr Bortnyk
3248
124
5
13
GM
Parhamov
Parham Maghsoodloo
3204
123
17
14
GM
ChristopherYoo
Christopher Woojin Yoo
3153
121
4
15
GM
GHANDEEVAM2003
Arjun Erigaisi
3238
119
6
16
IM
Alonmindlin
Alon Mindlin
3032
118
4
17
CM
NikaVolkov
Nika Volkov
3058
115
6
18
IM
lz31415
Liran Zhou
3048
114
6
19
WIM
crazy_m_attack
Melika Mohammadi
2931
108
7
20
IM
Turboplombir
Sergey Sklokin-Bagiyan
3013
106
6
(Full final standings
here
.)
Saturday's Bullet Brawl was arguably the strongest in the event's history, featuring seven super-GMs:
Magnus Carlsen
, Nakamura, Firouzja,
Maxime Vachier-Lagrave
,
Arjun Erigaisi
,
Amin Tabatabaei
, and
Parham Maghsoodloo
.
Carlsen made a rare appearance in this week's event
logging in from Spain
. Photo: Maria Emelianova/Chess.com.
The presence of regular contenders such as GMs
Oleksandr Bortnyk
,
Haowen Xue
,
Matthias Bluebaum
, and
Christopher Yoo
, alongside the prodigious GMs Gurel and
Faustino Oro
, made Nakamura's bid to extend his record-breaking winning streak all the more challenging.
Oro finished in 10th place ahead of several of the super-GMs. Photo: Chess.com.
A blistering 14/15 start for Nakamura was an excellent platform to defend his title, made even sweeter by the fact that he defeated Firouzja twice during that stretch. In their first encounter, the American sacrificed his queen for a rook and bishop before putting on a masterclass in piece play.
Later, Nakamura once again heroed his minor pieces, this time against Bluebaum, spotting the incisive
15.Bxe6!!
and converting easily after the tactical shot.
By the time the final quarter began, Nakamura had built a commanding 16-point lead. However, the tournament took an unexpected turn at the 23-minute mark when the leader accidentally queued for a bullet game outside of the arena and didn't realize until the game was over. With his lead reduced to 13 points, Gurel and Firouzja remained within striking distance.
The moment that Nakamura queued for a lobby game after refreshing his page. Image: GMHikaru/Kick.
Right on cue, Firouzja produced some of his best chess of the day and emerged as the greatest threat to Nakamura's 73rd title bid. The French-representative scored 13.5/15 in the last quarter against world-class opposition.
There are only a handful of players capable of defeating this many elite players in a row in bullet chess.
Vietnamese GM
Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son
was among Firouzja's victims. In a messy middlegame, the world number-10 found a timely intermezzo that secured a winning position and kept his charge rolling. See if you can spot the winning combination below.
Firouzja also faced Nakamura for the final time, in what proved to be a decisive encounter in determining the tournament's winner. Playing the Caro-Kann Defense, Firouzja declined the conventional
2...d5
, instead opting for
2...d6!?
, adopting an Old Indian Defense setup. The opening gamble paid off, and Firouzja eventually confirmed a crucial victory.
An 11-move win over Xue in the next game, followed by a 25-move draw with Gurel, gave Firouzja the cushion required to deny Nakamura another title.
With this victory, he moves into equal ninth on the all-time leaderboard despite playing in considerably fewer editions than most of the players around him.
All-Time Leaderboard
Player
All-Time Wins
2026 Wins
2025 Wins
2024 Wins
2023 Wins
GM Hikaru Nakamura
72
23
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
GM Alireza Firouzja
3
1
1
1
0
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 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
Prizes: Firouzja $400, Nakamura $250, Gurel $150, Bluebaum $100, Mohammadi $100.
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!
Previous coverage:
Announcing Chess.com Community Bullet Brawl Tournaments
Introducing Bullet Brawls And New Arena Options