Mark Kurtzman, aka Brutalis: National Master of the Bullet Bracket
Some players specialize in slow, positional masterpieces. Mark Kurtzman, known online as Brutalis, specialized in pressing the seek button again. A National Master whose chess diet is mostly bullet chess, Mark has played nearly 13,000 bullet games since humble beginnings in June 2010, when his first recorded online game ended in a 20-move loss. Everyone starts somewhere, and his somewhere was a rapid rating of 1069 and a dream.
The Bullet Grind
October 2016 was the glow-up: his bullet rating rocketed from 1344 to 2160 inside a single month, and by December it touched 2299. The peak arrived in February 2021 at 2385, produced by a workload best described as concerning, including 1,550 bullet games in January 2021 and another 1,248 in February. Along the way he put together a 23-game winning streak and, just to show off, posted a blitz peak of 2528 that July. For scale, his entire blitz career is 266 games, fewer than he has played in some individual bullet months.
- 6,654 bullet wins, 5,793 losses, 421 draws
- Peak ratings: 2385 bullet, 2528 blitz
- Longest winning streak: 23 games
- Roughly 77 percent of his games reach an actual endgame, even at bullet speed
d4 Today, d4 Tomorrow, d4 Forever
About 98 percent of Mark's games begin with 1.d4, including 3,225 of his 3,291 games in 2021. The exceptions are rare and possibly typos. When opponents reply 1...e5, they get the Australian Defense, an opening Mark has played nearly 900 times, because nothing says fun like letting the opponent take the center and beating them anyway. His most feared weapon is his answer to the King's Indian Defense: the Four Pawns Attack, played 782 times in bullet with a win rate near 60 percent, proof that pushing every pawn at once is a strategy if you fully commit. As Black he relies on the Benoni Defense across more than 880 games, plus a suspicious number of Amar Gambit appearances he has never publicly explained.
Rivalries, Both Blessed and Cursed
When you play this much online chess, certain faces keep showing up. urban_chess has met Mark 110 times and lost the series 65 to 41. harry000patzer sits at 103 games with a 66-33-4 deficit, and sickboylarry keeps coming back despite trailing 60-46. Every hero needs a nemesis, though, and for Brutalis that is cikera, who leads their head-to-head a merciless 47 wins to 16. Chess giveth, and cikera taketh away.
The Mind of Brutalis
The patterns are clear. Mark's win rate peaks at 2 AM and craters before lunch, so challenge him in the morning at your own risk, or his. His tilt factor is a meditative 11, he resigns early and politely 92 percent of the time, and his comeback rate tops 80 percent, meaning a dropped piece is a minor scheduling inconvenience rather than a tragedy. His first capture usually lands around move 7, and he has delivered 2,097 checkmates against only 1,094 received, favoring the queen, his most trusted checking piece with over 10,900 deployments. The one stain on the resume is clock management: 3,505 losses on time versus 2,493 wins when the opponent's flag fell.
The Final Assessment
Brutalis is a National Master, a bullet volume machine, and a 1.d4 fundamentalist with a flair for odd sidelines. Beat him before noon and you will feel like a champion. Face him at 2 AM and you may learn the Four Pawns Attack in the most painful classroom available.