Hikaru Denies Tang Four-Peat, Outpaces Carlsen

GM Andrew Tang was denied a record-equaling four-peat in Saturday's Bullet Brawl by a dominant performance by GM Hikaru Nakamura that saw him capture his 38th title and the $400 first prize. Following a successful The American Cup campaign, Nakamura scored 68.5/75 and accrued 252 points, outscoring the five-time world champion GM Magnus Carlsen by 40 points.

GMs Andy Woodward and Ediz Gurel rounded out the top four with scores of 198 and 190, while FM Anastasia Avramidou's 25th-place finish was enough to win the $100 best women's prize.

The next edition of Bullet Brawl will commence on Saturday, April 5, at noon ET/17:00 CEST.

Standings

Chasing his fourth straight win, Tang entered Saturday's 208-player Bullet Brawl with all the momentum he needed to seal the deal; however, winning this edition would be trickier than usual—Nakamura and Carlsen both stood in his way.

Being the record holder for Bullet Brawl victories, Nakamura posed the greatest threat to Tang's chances, and this was felt in the first game of the event as Nakamura toppled Tang in a 76-move thriller. When checkmate was delivered, both players had a mere 0.6 seconds left on the clock, a statistic that becomes more interesting when you consider that earlier, Tang spent eight seconds dealing with Nakamura's 19.Ng6!!.

While a first-round loss is generally inconsequential in Bullet Brawl, subsequent losses to GMs Nikolas Theodorou, Nitzan Steinberg, and the recently crowned European champion GM Matthias Bluebaum slashed Tang's hopes of a four-peat.

All eyes then turned to Carlsen and Nakamura, whose powerful 15/16 and 13.5/16 starts, respectively, saw them emerge as the frontrunners. Nakamura's only losses during this time were at the hands of the world number-one, though he would later avenge these and finish with 3/5 against his longtime rival. See if you can spot the tactic Nakamura detected to clinch a positive head-to-head score.

The pivotal moment of the arena occurred a quarter of the way through when Carlsen lost three straight games. The first and the third were against Nakamura, while the second was against one of the heroes of Vietnam's 2024 FIDE Olympiad team, GM Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son.

With Carlsen out of the way, Nakamura cruised to victory and extended his lead to 40 points, scoring an unassailable 30/32 in the second half of the event. In a clash with 17-year-old Indian IM Aswath S, Nakamura demonstrated why he is so hard to beat, clinically converting a chaotic, Modern Defense middlegame. 

Excluding the 27-time winner GM Daniel Naroditsky, Nakamura holds more Bullet Brawl crowns than all of the other winners combined. He also maintains an all-time win rate of just under 39 percent, which even includes Bullet Brawls he did not join.

A maiden title still eludes Carlsen; however, it appears to be a matter of time before the recipient of FIDE's GOAT award makes his mark on the Bullet Brawl leaderboard.

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