HomeChess2026 Bullet Chess Championship Day 3: Firouzja Beats Arjun In Tiebreaks, Advances...

2026 Bullet Chess Championship Day 3: Firouzja Beats Arjun In Tiebreaks, Advances To Grand Final

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By sportsarena.pro
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GM Alireza Firouzja is through to the Grand Final of the 2026 Bullet Chess Championship after winning an exhilarating Winners Final against GM Arjun Erigaisi 13-11, including tiebreaks, this Friday. In the Losers Bracket, three players remain. GM Nihal Sarin will play GM Andrew Tang, and the winner of that match will face Arjun for the second spot in the Grand Final.

Day four, featuring the Losers Semifinal, Losers Final, and the Grand Final, is on Saturday, June 27, starting at 12:00 p.m. ET / 18:00 CEST / 9:30 p.m. IST.

Bracket After Day 3

Firouzja, the only player to win all three matches in the Winners Bracket, takes the shorter route to the Grand Final. He’ll play just one match on Saturday, while his opponent will play at least two.

In the Losers Bracket, GMs Tuan Minh Le, Oleksandr Bortnyk, Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus, and Ediz Gurel were eliminated.


Winners Final: Firouzja Wins Closest Match Yet

Though Firouzja led for most of the match, he never ran away with it; and Arjun, usually down, kept clawing back. 

The French number-one took a 2-0 lead to start the match, ending game two with a little queen “sacrifice.” Arjun resigned, without taking the queen.

After a draw and another loss by Arjun, however, the Indian grandmaster won three games in a row to tie the score. The last game in this streak was a clutch victory, considering Arjun was two moves away from getting checkmated when he won on time.

Soon after, Firouzja shot out to a four-point lead, and against most opponents he’d probably run away with it. But not against Arjun. By game 19, Arjun brought the match to a one-point difference, leaving a frazzled Firouzja talking to himself on camera.

One game later, he’d tied the score. With just three minutes on the match clock.

Firouzja broke out to a one-point lead, but Arjun again tied the score by winning an incredibly one-sided game with White in the King’s Indian Defense.

The score was tied 11-11 by the match clock’s end, and in tiebreaks the first player to lead by two points wins. Firouzja won twice, and thus took the match as quickly as possible. The first game featured what might be the most depressing position of the day for Arjun, and he did well to keep it going as long as he did. Firouzja never let the advantage slip.

Despite close matches against Nihal and Arjun, Firouzja has still proven to be the sharpest bullet player in the field so far. In the Grand Final, he will have two lives against whomever he plays.

Losers Round 3 & Quarterfinals: Nihal, Tang Stay Alive

The Losers Bracket featured Round 3 and the Quarterfinals. In the first stage, Bortnyk and Gurel overcame, respectively, Le and Erdogmus.

Bortnyk won the quarterfinal match against Le 9-6. On the board, the players were about evenly matched, but what set Bortnyk apart was his speed. Le achieved several winning positions, but Bortnyk pulled heroics on the clock—it didn’t matter if he was down a pawn, a piece, or a queen.

Le was the first to take the lead. Though he was outplayed in an equal position, Bortnyk hung his queen with a terrible mouse slip.

Le then took a two-point lead, but Bortnyk evened the score right away. Speed was the key factor, as in game five Bortnyk was down a bishop but won the game on time to take the lead for the first time.

Three games later, Bortnyk took a two-point lead by winning the following opposite-color bishop endgame with equal pawns. Shuffling back and forth, he outpaced the Vietnamese GM on the clock once again in what we can say was the most tilting game of the match.

From there, Bortnyk always held a two- or three-point lead. The final game was arguably a microcosm of the entire match; Le, needing to win on demand to reach tiebreaks, trapped his opponent’s queen and then also won a rook. But in a completely winning position, he again could not keep up with Bortnyk’s lightning speed.

The battle of prodigies, in the other Round 3 match, was an unexpected blowout by Turkish number-two Gurel against Turkish number-one Erdogmus. The 17-year-old Gurel scored five straight wins to start the match, and Erdogmus never managed to come close to evening the score.

Erdogmus scored his first win in game six, winning the game “on the board” rather than the clock when he transitioned from a rook endgame to a winning king and pawn endgame.

His best win came in game 12, where neither commentator saw 12.Rxb7!! coming. The game ended with a satisfying checkmate with the two bishops.

It was still too few wins for Erdogmus to really challenge Gurel, and after the following game, the match was virtually over as Gurel picked up a 9-5 lead with five minutes on the match clock.

Moving on to the Losers Quarterfinals, Nihal and Tang defeated, respectively, Bortnyk and Gurel.

Nihal won a blowout against Bortnyk 11.5-3.5, an unbelievable score against a two-time runner-up in previous editions of this tournament. Nihal’s lead never came in danger.

Nihal won the first two games, drew the third, and lost the fourth. In game five, Bortnyk allowed a queen sacrifice for a back-rank checkmate, probably missing that the bishop on d6 covers the h2-square.

Several games later, Nihal had already taken a four-point lead. He outmatched Bortnyk in quality of moves, and he was fast enough that Bortnyk couldn’t rely on flagging either. As GM Eric Hansen pointed out, “Nihal’s not hanging anything, he’s not giving any counterplay!” It was one-way traffic.

The final game of the match was a great example of how frustrating Nihal can be to play against. In a matter of seconds, Bortnyk’s knight found itself trapped in the corner of the board. It looked too easy.

The match between Gurel and Tang was much closer. Though it ended 9.5-5.5 in Tang’s favor, the scores were even for most of the match—until the end, when Tang won the last five games in a row.

Blow for blow, as one player took the lead, the other would recover. Tang won game one, but Gurel struck back. Then when Gurel won game three, Tang scored again with a one-sided attack.

One of Gurel’s most resourceful combinations came in game six, where he won the exchange but Tang produced incredible counterplay with two passed pawns. In a flash, Gurel transformed the position into a pure rook vs. bishop endgame with two pawns each, one that’s easily winning. 

In the last five games, however, Tang just took off, and Gurel could not keep up. Several times—as we’d seen in other matches too—Tang showed that in bullet chess opposite-color bishops can be extremely dangerous. In the following game, Black was left without any counterplay, and at his leisure Tang picked up his opponent’s pawns and, eventually, activated his king for a final incursion.

On Saturday, the next bullet chess champion will be crowned. Will Firouzja secure his fourth title, or will the defending champion be dethroned? Let us know your predictions in the comments below!

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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