Barad Yeganegi: FIDE Master of the Bullet Board
Speed Chess Is a Lifestyle
Barad Yeganegi is a FIDE Master who has turned fast chess into a full-time personality. With more than 17,000 rated games on record and a preferred time control of Bullet, Barad treats the bullet queue the way other people treat a gym membership: daily, religiously, and with occasional sighing. Some months have featured over 1,000 blitz games. Sleep reportedly exists somewhere in the schedule, though witnesses are rare.
The Bullet Grind
The numbers are loud. Barad's bullet peak sits at 3119 (2026-05-25), with a blitz best of 3095 (2026-09-23), and the climb was earned one flagged clock at a time: 1,753 wins came from time outs rather than checkmate. There was a 12-game winning streak, a 16-game losing streak that was bravely survived, and a comeback rate near 89 percent, which means writing Barad off early is a rookie mistake. Even after dropping an entire piece, the position still gets saved more than 4 times in 10. Wins average around 88 moves, so opponents should brace for a real endgame, not a quick stab.
- 17,481 rated games and counting
- 1,548 wins by checkmate, plus 115 draws by stalemate
- First capture typically arrives on move 6: development first, greed later
- Stronger as White, winning 46 percent versus 40 percent with Black
The Repertoire: d4 Today, d4 Tomorrow
Barad opens 1.d4 almost every single game. If 1.e4 appears, double-check the board. The old faithful is the Nimzo-Indian Defense, replayed more than 600 times:
The Benoni Defense: Four Pawns Attack is the secret weapon, scoring 56 percent in blitz. Over in bullet, the toolbox gets strange: the London Poisoned Pawn Variation, the Amar Gambit, the Australian Defense, the Amazon Attack, and the magnificently named Colle Rhamphorhynchus Variation, which wins over half its games and sounds like a dinosaur with a plan. Underneath it all sits an 87 percent endgame frequency and a rook as the most-used checking piece. The approach is patient, principled, and then suddenly your rook is gone.
Nemesis Watch
Every grinder has rivals. Radin Yadegar has faced Barad 440 times and leads the series 232 to 160 with 48 draws, which is less a rivalry than a lifestyle. Manu David is certified kryptonite at 32 wins against 107 losses. Behzad Salimiyan is a genuine coin flip at 64 to 61 with 16 draws, and nassaugambit is one of the few accounts Barad gets to bully, 51 to 36.
The 1 A.M. Zone
Peak performance hour: 1 in the morning, with a win rate north of 64 percent. The 3 a.m. slot sits at a flat zero, so nobody should let Barad near a board at that hour. Saturdays deliver the best results, the tilt factor is a remarkably calm 16, and casual games outperform rated ones by about 12 points. In short: the FIDE Master title is taken very seriously, and the rating graph is not taken seriously at all.