Bullet Brawl Winner Martinez Executes Knight And Bishop Checkmate

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GM Jose Martinez was crowned as November’s first Bullet Brawl winner after surviving a late resurgence by GM Oleksandr Bortnyk on Saturday. Having built a solid lead in the first half of the event, Martinez looked to be running away with the event. However, a 15-game win streak by Bortnyk meant that the race to the finish was closer than expected.

The top-scoring female in Saturday’s event was a new winner, WCM Veronika Shubenkova, who won $100 for her efforts, while in the community event, Cesar Lagos managed to win by a margin of 12 points over Umut Can.

The next edition of Bullet Brawl will take place on Saturday, November 11, 2023, at 1 p.m. ET/19:00 CEST.

How to review games?
The games from October’s final Bullet Brawl can be found here.

After a third-place finish in last week’s event, Martinez returned to the Bullet Brawl arena with the accuracy and dexterity required to finish ahead of his colleagues rated 3000 and higher. While top bullet chess players like Bortnyk, IM Renato Terry, and GM Tuan Minh Le were playing, Martinez was able to capture a lead after a strong start.

Martinez’s first loss was to Le, well after the arena had begun. Image: Chess.com/YouTube.

It wasn’t all smooth sailing for Martinez, though. In his fifth game, the Peruvian was tested by GM Jose Cardoso, who forced the eventual winner to checkmate with a knight and bishop with just 12 seconds left on the clock!

Bortnyk also piled the pressure on Martinez as the match clock wound down, scoring 15 straight wins in an attempt to wrestle the title from Martinez and double down on his victory in the previous edition. A 26-move, electrifying win over GM Sergei Zhigalko was the boost of momentum Bortnyk needed to galvanize his comeback attempt.

As he often does, Bortnyk also streamed the arena live on his Twitch, and viewers were treated to an animated celebration after the GM found a surprising checkmate following a middlegame mouse slip.

When the clock did expire, though, Martinez had an eight-point buffer over Bortnyk (238 to 230), and one of the reasons for this was the result of one of their earlier clashes, which the Peruvian GM converted after an incisive knight sacrifice.

With 106 titled players playing in Saturday’s Bullet Brawl, it was unsurprising to see a few familiar faces in the field. Most notably, popular content creator IM Eric Rosen made a cameo. The American IM, who scored 88 points, was able to finish in 24th place thanks to his tactical acumen.

November’s second Bullet Brawl is expected to gain a significant boost at the top end as the 2023 FIDE Grand Swiss finishes up in the Isle of Man. Expect to see players such as GMs Hikaru Nakamura, Alireza Firouzja, and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave back online next Saturday.

Standings

Rank	Fed	Title	Name	Username	Rating	Score
1		GM	Jose Martinez	Jospem	3160	238
2		GM	Oleksandr Bortnyk	Oleksandr_Bortnyk	3171	230
3		IM	Renato Terry	MITerryble	3075	201
4		GM	Tuan Minh Le	wonderfultime	3076	191
5		IM	Yoseph Taher	yosephtaher	3035	185
6		GM	Vi Pranav	vi_pranav	3078	180
7		IM	Andrew Hong	OgZPanda	3076	178
8		NM	Janak Awatramani	12teen	2926	158
9		GM	Leon Livaic	Elsa167	2894	136
10		FM	Dmitry Goltsev	GoltsevDmitry2000	2870	131
11		GM	Vugar Rasulov	vugarrasulov	2923	130
12		GM	Sergei Zhigalko	Zhigalko_Sergei	2978	129
13		FM	Faustino Oro	FaustinoOro	2926	122
14		FM	Eldiar Orozbaev	Brave_spirit12	2835	121
15		IM	Rohith Krishna	WhiteKnight2612	2791	114
16		CM	Egor Baskakov	stollenmonster	2823	108
17		FM	Gabriel Arteaga	Gravity_Chess	2932	104
18		FM		Rubinstein_Akiba	2774	97
19		CM	Artem Bardyk	BardArtem	2803	92
20		GM	Jose Cardoso	TheBigBoss04	2901	90

(Full final standings here.)

Bullet Brawl is an exciting new titled arena that features Chess.com’s top bullet specialists and now 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:

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