Niemann Secures Funds For $1 Million Buy-In Tournament
GM Hans Niemann said on X that he has secured the necessary funds to play in the $1 million buy-in tournament alongside GMs Nodirbek Abdusattorov, Fabiano Caruana, and Ian Nepomniachtchi. Organizer Wadim Rosenstein confirmed to Chess.com that funds of all four players have been secured and that he received Niemann's signed contract, so the $4 million tournament looks more likely to take place.
Alongside the launch of his personal website, Niemann's tweet provided an update on the situation around the $1 million buy-in tournament that was announced almost a month ago. Due to its unusual format, which involves rather high stakes, the likelihood of the tournament actually taking place in November seemed uncertain, but it's become just a bit more likely.
"Contracts have been signed, I’ll be playing in the 1m Buyin High Roller tournaments, all funds have been secured," Niemann wrote on X.
Minor updates:
— Hans Niemann (@HansMokeNiemann) June 11, 2024
Contracts have been signed, I’ll be playing in the 1m Buyin High Roller tournaments, all funds have been secured.
Also I’ve launched https://t.co/ZwqbWJogwE .
I’ve provided unique insight into my chess career and development, outlined exactly how chess changed my… pic.twitter.com/EomKPsoMo4
Chess.com reached out to event organizer Rosenstein, who confirmed that funds are secured for all four players. We received confirmations from Abdusattorov and Caruana and asked Nepomniachtchi for comment.
The buy-in tournament is scheduled for November 21, 2024, in Dusseldorf, Germany. The format is a double round-robin among four players with six rounds of rapid (15+0) games. All four players are required to bring $1 million to the table; the winner will walk away with $2 million. The second-placed player gets $1.5 million, third gets $0.4 million (losing $0.6 million on the deal) and the fourth player gets $0, losing a full million. $100,000 will go to the organizer.
This remarkable event sprung out of a conversation last month on social media platform X between Niemann and Rosenstein, a businessman and owner of a conglomerate of companies called WR Group. Rosenstein also organized last year's WR Masters in Dusseldorf (February 2023) and the World Rapid Team Championship (August 2023). He will do a second edition of the latter event August 1-6 in Astana, Kazakhstan, and also two brand new tournaments October 31-November 3 in Dubai and October 14-18 in London.
When Niemann inquired about the London event, Rosenstein came up with the buy-in format and invited the American GM to it, also on X. A week later, he confirmed the event and the players to Chess.com. As it stands now, the tournament seems on, coinciding with the world championship match between GMs Ding Liren and Gukesh Dommaraju that is provisionally scheduled between November 20 and December 15, 2024.
Previous coverage:
Peter Doggers joined a chess club a month before turning 15 and still plays for it. He used to be an active tournament player and holds two IM norms. Peter has a Master of Arts degree in Dutch Language & Literature. He briefly worked at New in Chess, then as a Dutch teacher and then in a project for improving safety and security in Amsterdam schools. Between 2007 and 2013 Peter was running ChessVibes, a major source for chess news and videos acquired by Chess.com in October 2013. As our Director News & Events, Peter writes many of our news reports. In the summer of 2022, The Guardian’s Leonard Barden described him as “widely regarded as the world’s best chess journalist.”
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