The second round of the Losers Bracket of the 2022 Bullet Chess Championship presented by DigitalOcean ended with four decisive winners: GMs Oleksandr Bortnyk, Arjun Erigaisi, Brandon Jacobson, and Jose Martinez. Notably, the less established 18-year-old Jacobson defeated GM Fabiano Caruana, although in truth, judging by his past performance in bullet, he was not a real underdog in this format.
The tournament will continue with both the Losers Top-8 and Winners Semifinals on March 14 at 10 a.m. PT/19:00 CET.
The 2022 Bullet Chess Championship presented by Digital Ocean is a double-elimination bracket knockout held by Chess.com and featuring $100,000 in prizes. All games are 1+0, and matches are 30 minutes long with a break at the 15-minute mark. In the event of a tie, players continue to play, alternating colors, until a player wins a game.
Each hard-fought match was ultimately decided by at least a two-point gap in final score. While every victory was earned rightfully, there were some opportunities for comebacks that ultimately did not pan out. The most inspiring of them was by GM Raunak Sadhwani who, facing a nearly-debilitating six-point deficit by game 11, went on to win four in a row—only to see the match clock run out of time. The dominating story, nevertheless, is that one player in each match took the lead and was able to maintain it, even despite a few hiccups along the way.