On November 21, GMs Nodirbek Abdusattorov, Fabiano Caruana, Ian Nepomniachtchi, and Hans Niemann will compete in a one-day, $4 million chess tournament with a poker-style buy-in. The entire thing began with a conversation between Niemann and organizer Wadim Rosenstein on social networking site X this week. Forget the world championship and the Champions Chess Tour. On Thursday, November 21, this year, one chess player might earn the highest payout for a single day of chess in the game’s history if all goes as planned and published on X (previously Twitter).
That person would walk away with $2 million after playing only six games of quick chess versus three participants, and all four players chipped in $1 million.
Rosenstein, a German billionaire and owner of the WR Group conglomerate of companies, came up with this wacky idea inspired by the poker industry, where up-front payments are widespread. Rosenstein is well-known in the chess world for organizing last year’s WR Masters in Dusseldorf (February 2023) and the World Rapid Team Championship (August 2023), where the format required an under-2000 player in the lineup, allowing him to be a member of the winning team. The second edition will be place in Astana, Kazakhstan, from August 1 to 6.
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.
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?”
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 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!”
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