Nemo Qiyu Zhou Wins All-Stars Bullet Chess Championship 2021 Presented By SIG

WGM Nemo Qiyu Zhou won the All-Star event of the 2021 Bullet Chess Championship presented by SIG. The Chinese-Canadian woman grandmaster defeated the American NM Sean Senft in the final.

The live broadcast of the All-Star event.

The All-Star event was the final part of the 2021 Bullet Chess Championship presented by SIG. Eight celebrity players competed in a knockout format with 15-minute matches of 1|0 games, while streaming themselves, for a $7,000 prize fund.

WFM Anna Cramling-WGM Nemo Qiyu Zhou

The event took off with the clash between the two young streamers Nemo (Twitch.tv/akaNemsko) and WFM Anna Cramling Bellon (Twitch.tv/annacramling), who had prepared rather differently. While Cramling played quite a bit of bullet in the days before the event, Nemo said she needed a break after having played 250 bullet games on March 31st! 

Despite her week without chess (which was filled with attempts at the violin and flute instead) Nemo was too strong in this match and ended up winning 6-2. One of those was a helpmate because Black could have escaped with a perpetual playing the king back to g7:

♔ @AnnaCramling checkmates @akaNemsko and gets on the board!

Tune in to the #BulletChess Championship presented by SIG happening live on https://t.co/kaTA3dFcqn! pic.twitter.com/eRUmNJGyGs

— Chess.com (@chesscom) April 8, 2021

GM Maurice Ashley-IM Tania Sachdev

This match started before the first move was made, with both GM Maurice Ashley (himself streaming on Twitch.tv/gmashley) and IM Tania Sachdev providing some good trash-talk. When Sachdev pointed out it was 1 a.m. in India, Ashley suggested she was starting to make excuses. "I'm just saying I'm going do this half asleep!" countered Sachdev.

In what was a very close match, Ashley ended up winning 4.5-3.5.

WFM Alexandra Botez - Bartosz Rudecki

The third battle also took off early, in the form of a fashion contest if you will, with WFM Alexandra Botez (Twitch.tv/botezlive) in a red dress and Bartosz Rudecki (Twitch.tv/xntentacion) sporting a suit and a red bowtie. "We like to dress for success; nothing wrong with some well-dressed chess players!" noted Botez.

Although she even put up a Polish flag as her background in her own stream (ready to take over the Polish fans after her win, as she put it!) Botez ended up losing 3.5-5.5.

WFM Alessia Santeramo - NM Sean Senft

WFM Alessia Santeramo came ready for battle as she was wearing a medieval helmet, an attribute that had given her good results in the past. Her opponent Senft was optimistic before the match, saying: "I am feeling like the bullet is in the good spot today." 

That turned out to be a correct feeling as he narrowly defeated Santeramo, who did come back from a 0-3 deficit and was close to reaching a playoff.

WGM Nemo Qiyu Zhou - Bartosz Rudecki

Although Botez was eliminated, Nemo didn't hesitate to take over the fashion honors as she quickly chanced and appeared in a red dress as well against Bartosz "Bowtie" Rudecki.

"Did you not get the memo that this is going to be a bullet championship with the theme of going to prom?" Nemo quipped, before beating Rudecki 7-3.

GM Maurice Ashley - NM Sean Senft

Before this match, Senft came up with pretty decent advice for himself for bullet: "I'm gonna blunder either way, might as well do it faster!" His grandmaster opponent clearly lacked the bullet experience as he ended up blundering more and doing it slower.

WGM Nemo Zhou-NM Sean Senft

Nemo's 6-3 win in the final was convincing and also memorable for her queen sacrifice in game five, which was just fantastic. Both commentators missed this beautiful checkmate: 

Nemo's fans were obviously thrilled, although perhaps less about what's upcoming on the channel. "I promised my chat that I will do an eight-part concert for them if I won," she said. "Now they're all going to hate me because I'm going play the violin and the flute for them and they don't want to hear that!"

Explaining her success, Nemo said she had been doing a lot of puzzles recently which definitely helped, as we can see from the given example. Also, she said she was using her "just-win strategy" which, well, is always is a good idea.

The 2021 Bullet Chess Championship was presented by Susquehanna International Group, LLP (SIG). SIG is a global quantitative trading firm founded with a growth mindset and an analytical approach to decision-making. As one of the largest proprietary trading firms in the world, SIG benefits the financial markets by providing liquidity and ensuring competitive prices for buyers and sellers. SIG brings together the brightest minds, the best technology, and an expansive library of industry data to design and implement qualitative trading strategies that make it leaders in the financial markets. Beyond trading, SIG is active in global private equity, structured capital, and institutional brokerage.

See also:

• Firouzja Wins 2021 Bullet Chess Championship Presented By SIG‎
• Firouzja, Nakamura, Naroditsky, Tang In Semis 2021 Bullet Chess Championship Presented By SIG
• 2021 Bullet Chess Championship Presented By SIG: Erigaisi, Artemiev, Hansen, Nihal Through
• Andreikin, Le Tuan Minh Qualify For 2021 Bullet Chess Championship Presented By SIG
• Erigaisi, Sadhwani Qualify For 2021 Bullet Chess Championship Presented By SIG
• Info article