Sarin bounces back from FIDE World Cup heartbreak, wins third Bullet Brawl title after victories over Carlsen, Nakamura

Indian Grandmaster Nihal Sarin bounced back from his disappointing second round exit from the ongoing FIDE World Cup in Goa by winning the latest edition of Chess.com’s Bullet Brawl on Saturday.

Sarin defeated some of the biggest names in the world including Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura – ranked first and second respectively in the FIDE Classical ratings – as well as compatriot R Praggnanandhaa en route to winning the weekly online event for the third time and take home US$400 in prize money.

Bullet Brawl is Chess.com’s weekly two-hour arena featuring titled players with a 1+0 time control and a prize money of $1000. Players get paired based on their scores rather than their ratings, and the player that collects the most points at the end of the arena is crowned the champion for that week.

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Sarin had clinched the latest edition of Bullet Brawl after going unbeaten in his last seven games, finishing top of the 162-player field with 151 points – six points ahead of American GMs Nakamura and Andrew Tang.

Nakamura, the most successful player in Bullet Brawl history with 48 titles, finished second after beating 14-time winner Tang in the tie-breaks, collecting the $250 prize money that is reserved for the runner-up.

None of the other Indians were among the top-10 with Praggnanandhaa and GM Pranav V, who was also among the participants in the World Cup in Goa, finishing 13th and 16th with 116 and 111 points respectively.

Sarin recovers from shaky start with victories over Carlsen and Nakamura

Sarin, who had also competed at the Esports World Cup in Riyadh in July where he lost to eventual champion Carlsen in the quarter-finals, was off to a shaky start on Saturday with defeats against GMs Haowen Xue and Ngoc Truong Son Nguyen as well as Dutch FM Gachatur Kazarjan.

The 21-year-old, however, bounced back in style with a 21-game unbeaten streak in which he defeated Carlsen and Nakamura as well as other top players such as GMs Oleksandr Bortnyk and Ediz Gurel. Sarin, who had recently crossed the 2700 Elo rating, played 65 games in the two-hour duration, winning 45 of them and losing and drawing 10 each.

Sarin had earlier been knocked out of the FIDE World Cup by Greek GM Stamatis Kourkoulos-Arditis in the second round tie-breaks after being given a bye for Round 1. It was the second consecutive victory over an Indian GM for Kourkoulos-Arditis, who had defeated wildcard entrant Divya Deshmukh – the lone female competitor at the event – 2-0 in the opening round.