Taher Becomes 9th Player To Win Bullet Brawl

Twitch streamer and IM Yoseph Theolifus Taher became the ninth player to win Bullet Brawl, scoring 72.5/86 and securing the $400 first prize ahead of GM Daniel Naroditsky on International Chess Day. Peru's IM Renato Terry picked up the $150 third prize having outlasted GMs Jose Martinez, Oleksandr Bortnyk, Hikaru Nakamura, and 97 other titled players.

The top women's player of the week was IM Meri Arabidze who earned $100 for her 21st-placed finish overall while the prolific Cesar Frank Talledo Lagos won the community event.

The next Bullet Brawl will take place on Saturday, July 27, 2024, at noon ET/18:00 CEST.

Standings

Speed chess specialist Taher doubled down on his Arena Kings victory from earlier in the week by taking out Bullet Brawl in an equally dominant fashion. Notching 71 wins, three draws, and losing just 12 games in the two-hour arena, the Indonesian IM was uncatchable even for the likes of Naroditsky and Nakamura.

Two early losses to GM Eric Hansen and one to Terry stopped Taher from running away in the first quarter; however, a 13-game win streak would allow him to catch the leaders. The moment when Taher took control was when he racked up five straight miniatures, playing just 83 moves across the five games.

Two of these, which finished in 12 and 17 moves, respectively, demonstrate the venomosity of an open h-file in bullet chess.

The highest-rated win for Taher among these miniatures was against none other than Martinez, who missed a remove-the-defender tactic on move 15. See if you figure out how Taher took advantage of Martinez's error.

A Bullet Brawl victory is rarely complete without a win over the 21-time winner Naroditsky, and Taher found it a little more difficult to dispatch the site's ninth-highest-rated player. Playing the Grand Prix Variation against the Sicilian Defense, Taher created structural weaknesses in Naroditsky's position and slowly ground him down.

Taher will be a name to look out for in September's Brawls when most of the world's top players are playing in the 45th FIDE Chess Olympiad in Budapest— the Indonesian number-three is certainly strong enough to play for his country, though it seems that Indonesia's top players have been swapped out for players with an average rating of 2201.

Unfortunately for Taher, Nakamura has elected not to play for the U.S. (had Nakamura played, the U.S. team could have potentially eclipsed the highest-average rating for a team at an Olympiad), and he will likely be available to play Bullet Brawl in September and add to his tremendous all-time total of 25 wins.

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