GMs Alireza Firouzja and Arjun Erigaisi advanced to the Winners Final of the 2026 Bullet Chess Championship on Thursday. Firouzja won a close match against GM Nihal Sarin 12.5-9.5, while Arjun blew away GM Andrew Tang 16-6. Just six players are left in the Losers Bracket: GMs Tuan Minh Le, Oleksandr Bortnyk, Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus, and Ediz Gurel, plus the recent additions of Nihal and Tang.
Day three, featuring the Losers Round 3, Losers Quarterfinals, and Winners Final, is on Friday, June 26, starting at 12:00 p.m. ET / 18:00 CEST / 9:30 p.m. IST.
Brackets After Day 2
Arjun’s final score belies the fact that he lost the first four games. His domination in the rest of the match signals that, even against the defending champion, Arjun will be a tough nut to crack.
Winners Bracket
Note that the Winners Semifinals, Winners Final, and Grand Final have a 45-minute match clock, rather than the shorter 30 minutes at other stages.
In the Losers Bracket, the following players were eliminated after two rounds: GM Haowen Xue, IM Yoseph Theolifus Taher, GM Sam Sevian, GM Christopher Yoo, GM Matthias Bluebaum, GM Denis Lazavik, GM David Paravyan, and GM Parham Maghsoodloo.
Losers Bracket
Winners Semifinals: Firouzja Gets By, Arjun Dominates
Nihal came incredibly close to sending Firouzja to the Losers Bracket—or, as commentator GM Aman Hambleton put it, “He had the blueprint to beat Alireza, he just needed the execution.” Firouzja took the lead at the start, but then Nihal took the lead in the middle of the match. It was only at the end that Firouzja regained control to win by three points, 12.5-9.5.
At first, Firouzja consistently led the match, though Nihal refused to let the margin exceed two points. After a draw in game one, Firouzja’s first win came surprisingly quickly in game two when he formed a decisive attack on the f2-square. White never got to castle that game.
Several games later, Nihal came close to evening the score 3.5-3.5 after completely outplaying his opponent. This could have been a turning point, but Firouzja persevered in the time scramble to take a two-point lead.
Nihal completely outplays Alireza in the opening and middlegame, but the French number-one is too fast in the endgame and wins!#NorwayChess pic.twitter.com/Bsb9PAaQdX
— chess24 (@chess24com) June 25, 2026
Two games later, Firouzja found a stunning queen sacrifice and continued to lead 6.5-4.5.
From there, Nihal staged an incredible comeback to even the score at 7.5-7.5. Two games later, he found one of the best combinations of the day to take a 9-8 lead. It started with 27…Bg2!!, leaving both his bishop and rook en prise.
Momentum was on Nihal’s side, but he’d go on to score just a half-point more in the rest of the match. Firouzja went on to win four of the last five games.
The next match, Arjun vs. Tang, started off incredibly one-sided—in Tang’s favor. He won four games in a row, and looked certain to win a fifth, when—with a queen against rook—he mouse-slipped his entire queen.
A rare mouse slip from Andrew Tang loses the entire queen, and Arjun is just two points behind now!#BulletChess pic.twitter.com/p6P917MfZW
— chess24 (@chess24com) June 25, 2026
It’s impossible to claim a direct cause and effect in such cases, but from there Arjun seemed to have the wind back in his sails. In the blink of an eye, he won four games in a row to tie up the match—and then a fifth to take the lead.
Later on, with the match tied 6.5-6.5, Tang blundered his queen a second time, though this one wasn’t a mouse slip. In this case, he missed a backward knight move, when he otherwise had a crushing advantage against Arjun.
It was just tilt for Tang from there on out. He again outplayed Arjun but, in one move, lost his rook to a deadly fork to sink to a three-point deficit. Usually a stoic player, Tang could not help but express emotion after this tough loss.
Tang blunders his rook and he cannot believe it! Arjun takes a three-point lead with just under 14 minutes to go.#BulletChess pic.twitter.com/cZiXAj2E35
— chess24 (@chess24com) June 25, 2026
The worst example was game 21, where Tang fell for a one-move fork as early as move five.
Arjun went on to win in such a crushing manner that it’s easy to forget he was getting blown off the board in the beginning. He’s shown that even if he has a bad start, he can recover quickly and take over the match, even against an experienced bullet specialist like Tang, a two-time runner-up in this event.
Losers Rounds 1 & 2: Turkish Teens Thrive
There were two rounds in the Losers Bracket on Thursday. In round one, Taher (the only IM), Sevian, Erdogmus, and Paravyan advanced after eliminating, respectively, Haowen, Yoo, Bluebaum, and Lazavik.
One of the shockers of the round was 15-year-old Erdogmus’ steamroll over Bluebaum. At one point he amassed a 10.5-1.5 lead, and ultimately finished with 16.5-3.5. Game 15 was one of the sharpest, with a quirky opening we’d only see in bullet chess, and Erdogmus won after the errant 20…Bb4?? forced the white king to walk into a winning double attack.
The closest match in Round 1 was between Paravyan and Lazavik. Game 11 featured an incredible swindle, as Parvyan was a piece down and facing forced checkmate. Rather than lose, however, he marched his king up the board, a la GM Nigel Short (see this game), to land a checkmate himself.
That game took Paravyan to a 6-5 lead, but the match would ultimately end 8.5-8.5 by the end of the 30 minutes. After a professional draw in game one, Paravyan went on to outpace his younger opponent in a flagging frenzy in game two.
After a draw in game three, and another black win in game four of tiebreaks, Paravyan advanced to Losers Round 2.
By the end of the day, only four players won both matches: Le, Bortnyk, Erdogmus, and Gurel. It was a good day for Turkey as its numbers one and two, aged just 15 and 17, triumphed.
Erdogmus continued to win by double-digit margins, this time thrashing Maghsoodloo to win 13.5-3.5. His tactics were simply on point, and his fellow 2700+ grandmaster could not keep up. In game three, he found a combination GMÂ Eric Hansen admitted he’d miss.
The trouncing continued, as Erdogmus gained a 7.5-2.5 lead by trapping Maghsoodloo’s queen in the following position. Though the Iranian is known for sharp, combinative play, Erdogmus just did it better in this match.
While not quite by the same margin, we saw the other Turkish teenager, Gurel, win by a five-point margin. The commentators praised his calculation in game 13—before he landed a long checkmating combination on the board.
On Friday, the Turkish prodigies face each other, and only one of them can advance to the Losers Quarterfinals (where they will face Tang). In addition, the match between bullet specialists Le and Bortnyk (two-time runner-up) looks promising.
By the end of the day on Friday, we will know who advances to the Grand Final: will it be Firouzja again or Nihal for the first time?
The 2026 Bullet Chess Championship takes place on Chess.com from June 25-28, after Play-ins on June 23. It is the strongest online bullet tournament and determines who is the fastest chess player in the world. The time control is 1+0. The total prize fund is $50,000.
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