After FIDE World Cup heartbreak, Nihal Sarin takes down Magnus Carlsen, Nakamura, Praggnanandhaa to win Bullet Brawl

Nihal defeated the likes of Magnus Carlsen, Hikaru Nakamura and compatriot R. Praggnanandhaa for his third Bullet Brawl.

Indian Grandmaster Nihal Sarin in action. (FILE IMAGE: Anna Shtourman/Qatar Masters)

Following a rather upsetting second-round exit from the FIDE Chess World Cup 2025 that is taking place in Goa, Indian speed chess demon, Nihal Sarin, is back to his usual online grind where he took down some of the biggest names in the fraternity to win chess.com’s Bullet Brawl on Saturday. Nihal defeated the likes of Magnus Carlsen, Hikaru Nakamura and compatriot R. Praggnanandhaa for his third Bullet Brawl.

Bullet Brawl is a weekly two-hour arena game with 1+0 time control, where the player continues to stack points for each win and the winner is decided based on the highest points collected in that duration.

Nihal scored 151 points and was ahead of American Grandmasters Nakamura and Andrew Tang, both of whom tied for second place with 145 points each. Nihal played 65 games in the duration, won 45 of them, lost 10 and ended up drawing 10 as well.

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Earlier, the expectations were high for the Kerala Grandmaster in the Chess World Cup. However, his event in Goa had a nighmarish end when he lost to a much lower-rated Greek Grandmaster Stamatis Kourkoulos-Arditis in the second round and in his first match-up after receiving a bye in the opening round. Stamatis also knocked out the lone female representative in the event, India’s Divya Deshmukh, in the first round.

Divya had received a wild card by FIDE after her phenomenal Women’s FIDE World Cup event, where the Nagpur prodigy beat compatriot Koneru Humpy in the final to clinch the title.

Nihal, meanwhile, recently crossed the 2700 Elo rating mark in Classical chess but is yet to prove his mettle in the long-form game. His dominance in online chess, however, is not hidden from anyone as he continues to throw surprises and beat big names here.

Bullet Brawl All-Time Winners

Player	All-Time Wins	2025 wins	2024 wins	2023 wins
GM Hikaru Nakamura	48	14	19	15
GM Daniel Naroditsky	32	8	14	10
GM Andrew Tang	14	10	4	0
GM Oleksandr Bortnyk	13	3	7	3
GM Ediz Gurel	6	4	2	0
GM Jose Martinez	4	0	1	3
GM Nihal Sarin	3	1	0	2
GM Sam Sevian	2	1	1	0
GM Yagiz Erdogmus	2	1	1	0
GM Alireza Firouzja	2	1	1	0
GM Tuan Minh Le	1	0	1	0
IM Yoseph Taher	1	0	1	0
IM Reza Mahdavi	1	1	0	0
GM Jeffery Xiong	1	1	0	0
GM Javokhir Sindarov	1	1	0	0