Bortnyk Becomes 3rd Player To Win Back-To-Back Brawls

GM Oleksandr Bortnyk has cracked the Bullet Brawl code. He outpaced GM Daniel Naroditsky to claim his second straight title and the $400 first prize on Saturday. Amassing 69 wins, seven draws, and six losses in a performance that mirrored his performance last week, Bortnyk finished six points ahead of Naroditsky and 44 points ahead of third-place GM Tuan Min Le.

The winner of this week's $100 best women's prize was FM Anastasia Avramidou, who scored 105 points and finished 17th, while Sundram Kumar set a community event record by scoring 300 points.

The next Bullet Brawl will take place on Saturday, October 19, 2024, at noon ET/18:00 CEST.

Standings

October has been a cracking month for Bortnyk so far, and with his latest Bullet Brawl victory his winnings from Chess.com events total $1,900. This is a hefty payday considering that Bortnyk has only spent approximately 10 hours playing in these events, makes revenue from streaming on top, and seems to have fun doing so!

Saturday's field was comprised of many of the usual suspects including GMs Naroditsky, Le, Jose Martinez, David Paravyan, and Emin Ohanyan, as well as 125 other titled players, making a title defense difficult for Bortnyk. To make matters worse, the nine-time winner stated on stream that he was sick and that "it's pretty hard to play chess." 

Eagle-eyed viewers may have also noticed that GM Magnus Carlsen was online moments before the start of the arena which would have been another barrier to victory, but alas, the FIDE-proclaimed GOAT of chess did not join in the fun.

Bortnyk got off to a flying start despite sickness, winning his first seven games before being held to a draw by FM Dachey Lin. Another 19 games would go by without a single loss.

A win with Black over fellow streamer WFM Lile Koridze in 11 moves is an instructive example of how principled Bortnyk is against dubious opening setups.

FM Christophe Gregoir also fell victim to Bortnyk during this period after the latter conjured a kingside attack out of thin air and checkmated the Belgian. 

Like in last week's arena, the greatest threat to Bortnyk's title defense was his Charlotte Chess Center colleague Naroditsky, who not only snapped his winning streak but scored 3/4 against the eventual winner. Just six points separated the two at the end of the arena which is unsurprising given their historic rivalry online and offline.

Congratulations to GM Daniel Naroditsky and GM Oleksandr Bortnyk for winning the CCC Memorial Day Rapid Championship!

Blitz coming soon - see results at https://t.co/2ah8KGSNFH pic.twitter.com/qRIGpGMfNk

— Charlotte Chess Center (@CLTchesscenter) May 28, 2023

In the end, a collection of miniatures against 2900+ players is what helped get Bortnyk's nose in front to become the third player (after GMs Hikaru Nakamura and Naroditsky) to win back-to-back titles.

A special mention must also go to the winner of the community event, Kumar aka "SpeedyBoss," who was so dominant that he finished 68 points ahead of the second-place finisher.

All-Time Leaderboard

*Bortnyk's ninth win will be added shortly.

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