$1 Million Buy-In Tournament Planned For November With Abdusattorov, Caruana, Nepomniachtchi, Niemann

A one-day, $1 million, poker-style buy-in chess tournament is on the agenda for November 21, to be battled out among GMs Nodirbek Abdusattorov, Fabiano Caruana, Ian Nepomniachtchi, and Hans Niemann. The whole thing sprung out of a conversation this week between Niemann and organizer Wadim Rosenstein on social media platform X.

Forget the world championship, forget the Champions Chess Tour. On Thursday, November 21 of this year, one chess player might be earning the biggest pay-out for a single day of chess in the history of the game – if everything works out as planned and announced on X (formerly Twitter). That player would walk away with $2 million after playing just six games of rapid chess against three participants, with all four players chipping in $1 million.

This wild concept, taken from the poker world where up-front payments are quite common, was conceived by Rosenstein, a German businessman and owner of a conglomerate of companies called WR Group. The chess world knows Rosenstein as the organizer of last year's WR Masters in Dusseldorf (February 2023) and the World Rapid Team Championship (August 2023), where the format demanded an under-2000 player in the line-up, which made it possible for him to be part of the winning team. A second edition will be held August 1-6 in Astana, Kazakhstan.

Where did the buy-in tournament come from? Well, it all started on May 4, when the official WR Masters account on X announced a brand new tournament to be held October 31-November 3 in Dubai with a new time control. Four days later, Rosenstein announced a similar event from his personal account to be held October 14-18 in London. 

Exciting news! 🌟
Get ready for an epic showdown in Dubai from October 31st to November 3rd, featuring 8 of the world's top players!

Today, we unveil the first batch of participants: Giri🇳🇱, Vidit🇮🇳, Vachier-Lagrave🇫🇷 and Yu🇨🇳!

Tournament format:
⏱️ Time control: 60 min for… pic.twitter.com/akyfNvgOoX

— WR_Chess_Masters (@wr_chess) May 4, 2024

🇬🇧 Stay tuned for updates on the WR Chess Masters Cup, taking place from October 14th to 18th at one of London's most exclusive venues!

It will be an intense elimination tournament with a K.O. System of best-of-two games 🏆

Time control:
⏱️ 60 min for the first 30 moves, 30 min… pic.twitter.com/Rj5dKXguWT

— Wadim Rosenstein (@WadimRosenstein) May 8, 2024

That London event caught the interest of Niemann, who asked on May 9 on X: "Would you like to invite America’s brightest talent? I would be honored with the opportunity to participate."

Rosenstein quickly replied: "I'm pleased to invite you to participate in a RR 15+0, featuring a $1 million buy-in. The tournament will include 4 players, with the prize distribution as follows: 1st place $2 million, 2nd place $1.5 million, 3rd place $0.4 million, and 4th place $0. Venue: Weissenhaus Private Nature Luxury Resort. Would the first week of December work well for you?"

@HansMokeNiemann I'm pleased to invite you to participate in a RR 15+0, featuring a $1 million buy-in. The tournament will include 4 players, with the prize distribution as follows: 1st place $2 million, 2nd place $1.5 million, 3rd place $0.4 million, and 4th place $0. Venue:… https://t.co/lU32ARYjhn

— Wadim Rosenstein (@WadimRosenstein) May 9, 2024

Note that one of the replies to this tweet came from Abdusattorov, who said that he was "ready to join the show." Niemann also replied, writing: "Who are the other players? The only potential candidates are afraid of losing to me."

The only potential candidates are afraid of losing to me. 

—Hans Niemann

The conversation continued on X, open for everyone to see, as Rosenstein wrote: "I will invite 3 players from the top 10 rankings, and I'll ensure that each of them contributes $1 million buy-in. This has already been confirmed, by the way. Everyone is eager to showcase their talent. If you're serious, would you like me to arrange airplane tickets for the event at Weissenhaus on December 1st?"

Weissenhaus was the venue for the inaugural G.O.A.T. Challenge in February of this year, funded by the German businessman Jan Henric Buettner. 

After that tweet, things were quiet for a week, but earlier today Rosenstein confirmed the whole thing, again on X, with a changed location and date in order to avoid a clash with the Bundesliga: "Guess what? We've secured $3M, the venue is booked, the tournament is officially registered and [Nepomniachtchi] and [Abdusattorov] are ready to take you on in Düsseldorf at the [Hyatt hotel] on November 21st. We kick off at 3 pm CET. And of course, we've invited America’s brightest talent, [Caruana], to join in the fun. Always at your service, Hans!

Rosenstein then also tagged IM Levy Rozman, who had asked to be a commentator, and even Elon Musk (suggesting a live broadcast on his platform X) in the same tweet, saying: "[Rozman] Score a retweet, and you've got yourself a front-row seat to be our official commentator! A huge shoutout for making this tournament happen through @X! Thanks to a single reply, we're making history with the largest prize fund ever seen in a chess competition. To show our gratitude, we'll be streaming it right on @X and expecting over 10M views! P.S.: [Musk] we'll be on the lookout for anyone using those sneaky Stockfish butt vibes! If things get noisy, don't blame us!"

@HansMokeNiemann Guess what?

We've secured $3M, the venue is booked, the tournament is officially registered and @lachesisq and @NodirbekGM are ready to take you on in Düsseldorf at the @Hyatt on November 21st. We kick off at 3 pm CET.

And of course, we've invited America’s… pic.twitter.com/3ut5u9Kt69

— Wadim Rosenstein (@WadimRosenstein) May 15, 2024

In a phone call, Rosenstein confirmed to Chess.com that all the messages on X were authentic and that the tournaments in Dubai, London, and Dusseldorf are all scheduled indeed. As for the third, "poker-style" buy-in tournament, he said the idea came to him when Niemann asked to be invited to London.

"That was a critical moment," Rosenstein said. "I invite people based on rating and Hans' rating is not high enough. He says he is the brightest talent but his rating is low [currently 2688 classical - PD] so that is a lot of talk!" With a format inspired by poker, Rosenstein seems to be calling Niemann's bluff: "Hans wants to sell himself as a good player, so then, let’s play for the big money, and the world will know."

As to the format of rapid chess, Rosenstein said: "I think this is the future. Fast time controls are a way of adjusting to our time. We know classical, it is in the past. For viewers, chess should be a show."

For viewers, chess should be a show. 

—Wadim Rosenstein

A $2 million first prize for a one-day event has never been seen before in chess – nor has a pay-out of zero dollars to the player in last place. Rosenstein: "Chess is more interesting than poker but it's not usual that people earn a lot of money. Also in tennis, people earn much more. Why not in chess?"

The large sums involved, together with commentary by Rozman, the biggest chess YouTuber with close to five million subscribers, seems to guarantee quite the spectacle. How the chess world will react to this remarkable, very high-stakes event, remains to be seen.

According to Rosenstein, Abdusattorov, Caruana, and Nepomniachtchi have all found backers, secured their $1 million, and are ready to play. However, at the time of writing, Chess.com could only confirm this is the case for Caruana. Rosenstein noted that Niemann, who is currently in the leading group in the Sharjah Masters, has confirmed his participation as well, and has until October 21 to transfer his million dollars. All in all, the likelihood of this event actually happening – it would coincide with the world championship match between GMs Ding Liren and Gukesh Dommaraju – is unclear at the moment.