Sevian Wins 1st Bullet Brawl Title Ahead Of FIDE World Rapid & Blitz Championships

GM Sam Sevian became the 12th player to win one of 83 Bullet Brawl's held since January 2023 after scoring 66 wins, three draws, and 11 losses during Saturday's event. In preparation for the 2024 FIDE World Rapid & Blitz Championships, Sevian put his best foot forward and finished on 237 points, eclipsing GMs Oleksandr Bortnyk, IM Yoseph Taher, and 206 other titled players to win the $400 first prize.

FM Anastasia Avramidou's score of 97 points bagged her the $100 best women's prize while 16-year-old Sundram Kumar convincingly won another Community Bullet Brawl title.

The next edition of Bullet Brawl will take place on Saturday, December 21, 2024, at noon ET/18:00 CEST.

Standings

Two weeks before the start of the 2024 FIDE World Rapid & Blitz Championships in New York, many of the world's best speed chess players have flocked to Chess.com's titled events looking to sharpen their tactical spears and fine-tune their time management.

Saturday's Bullet Brawl drew several players who will participate in the upcoming event, including GMs Hikaru Nakamura and Daniel Naroditsky, though a double power outage for Nakamura and a late for Naroditsky prevented both from contesting the podium.

Ever the professional, Sevian rose to the occasion and claimed his first Bullet Brawl title. He will also play in New York, fewer than five hours away from where he was born. The home-ground advantage, coupled with a spate of good results in recent events, will leave Sevian fancying his chances to secure top-10 finishes in both events.

Sevian started Saturday's Bullet Brawl with a bang, dispatching Bortnyk and then scoring 14 points in his next 15 games. GMs Raunak Sadhwani, Denes Boros, Ediz Gurel, and Christopher Yoo were all cut down by a merciless Sevian who pounced on every mistake his opponents made.

See if you can spot the simple yet effective move that ended Sevian’s clash with Turkish prodigy Gurel. 

With Bortnyk breathing down his neck in the second half of the event, Sevian kept his composure and relied on intuition and speed to keep his nose in front.

In a matchup with dangerous Polish IM Kacper Drozdowski, the American put on a bullet chess clinic, shifting all of his pieces to the kingside before launching a scintillating attack. The fragility of Drozdowski's king was quickly exposed.

With a decisive gap opened between himself and Bortnyk, Sevian could relax in the last 10 minutes of the event but still delivered some of his best chess. Chessbrah's GM Eric Hansen was the final recipient of a Sevian kingside brilliancy before the arena clock expired.

Sevian's Bullet Brawl win will bolster his confidence heading into the FIDE World Rapid & Blitz Championships, and he has shown that he is more than capable of performing better than his 23rd seeding in the Blitz. If nothing else, Sevian's seeding paints a powerful picture of the field expected to contest the titles on offer in New York.

All-Time Leaderboard

*Sevian's first 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