Who is Oleksandr Bortnyk?
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Peak bullet (chess.com)
Born October 18, 1996 in Oleksandrivka, Mykolaiv Oblast, Ukraine — and he started playing chess at age 3.
2014 World Youth Champion (under-18), and a full Grandmaster at 19 (2015).
One of the strongest bullet and blitz players on the planet — a 2019 Bullet Chess Championship finalist against Hikaru Nakamura, and a permanent menace in every Titled Tuesday time scramble.
The scalp list in this very app: wins over Hikaru Nakamura, Nihal Sarin, and Andrew Tang (penguingm1) — collected in just the last few months.
Moved to the USA in 2018, founded the Bortnik School of Chess, and has lived in Charlotte, North Carolina since 2022 — coaching, streaming on Twitch, and making YouTube content.
Chess runs in the family: his older brother Mykola Bortnyk is an International Master.
Famous for playing openings his opponents have never seen, flagging grandmasters with 0.1 seconds left, and making 1|0 look like classical chess.