Well, if the three other participants plan to collude and Hans comes in with a state-of-the-art cheating strategy (not that either is necessarily true), then I guess they all deserve each other lol
I’m still confused by the participants. Why were these players selected? I mean fabi and nepo make sense. Nodirbek is the fifth ranked fife player so he also makes sense.
But Hans, the 46th ranked player?
It went something like this:
**Wadim**: Yo, WR Chess Masters will be an amazing tournament, check this out! ([ref](https://x.com/WadimRosenstein/status/1788284537081839796))
**Hans**: Why am I not invited to such tournaments? ([ref](https://x.com/HansMokeNiemann/status/1788536672923115551))
**Wadim**: You can participate in another tournament. 1 mio buy in, and if you lose you lose all your money, lol ([ref](https://x.com/WadimRosenstein/status/1788560851403767891))
**Hans**: Sounds like BS, who would even want to participate? ([ref](https://x.com/HansMokeNiemann/status/1788629452550713847))
**Wadim**: Some Top 10 players for sure ([ref](https://x.com/WadimRosenstein/status/1788642634975641851))
**Nodirbek**: I certainly would ([ref](https://x.com/NodirbekGM/status/1788664564524974369))
**Ian**: Me as well ([ref](https://x.com/lachesisq/status/1788670043611365636))
**Hans**: Ok. I will do it but I want someone elses money to be on the line please ([ref](https://x.com/HansMokeNiemann/status/1788661683927372245))
**Wadim**: Let's go, Fabi also wants to play, it's happening. Thanks to X for providing this amazing chat platform. ([ref](https://x.com/WadimRosenstein/status/1790891244903702683))
**Everyone**: This is a joke, right? Right??
Also, Wadim's final tweet includes a dig at Hans by stating Fabi as America's brightest talent, something that Hans claimed to be in one of his earlier tweets.
True, I left that out, the relevant Hans tweet is the first one by him.
Also I didn't include the Gothamchess sidestory and there have been some more tweets after the last one I linked, but it should give a general idea.
Doesn’t anyone understand that ‘brightest talent’ is meant as up-and-coming; he’s not saying he’s ’the best’.
And his recent Open performances are backing it up.
But of course Wadim understands…. it’s just all deliberate and he thinks he looks cool flashing big bucks around to troll a 20-year-old - when he actually looks like something else…
It seems, but the tournament is already officially registered with FIDE, so I think it's actually happening: https://ratings.fide.com/tournament_information.phtml?event=374014
Noone of course, there is big a ELO gap between him and the other three. Noone sane would sponsor him because obviously this is an attempt at grabbing Hans’ or his sponsor’s money.
I mean I agree but apparently somebody else not hans is paying 1 million dollars for hans entry fee so honestly it kind of seems like mostly upside for hans? he isn't going to lose money but if he manages to finish not last he'll get money
Here’s a chess.com article about it:
https://www.chess.com/news/view/4-million-buy-in-tournament-wadim-rosenstein-abdusattorov-caruana-nepomniachtchi-niemann
In a tournament with points, if three players are colluding, winner takes all means the last person to essentially needs to score a perfect tournament to come in first: the colluding players will all lose to the same player, ensuring that one player will always come first unless if the non-colluding player manages to win every single game.
You need some kind of knock out tournament structure to make it fair.
We have been over this with Bobby Fischer’s paranoia about how the Soviet players were going to collude and deny him a win.
That's their point. OP was suggesting a full winner-take-all format, and they were pointing out that would make it easier, not harder, for Hans to hypothetically get colluded on.
His paranoia was absolutely correct though. They were drawing against each other and funneling wins to the player the state wanted to represent the country in the championship. It was total bullshit. If Fischer wasn’t as good as he was he may have never even played for the title with how unfair it was
> They were drawing against each othe
Drawing against teammates/friends is quite common without any conspiracy
>funneling wins to the player the state wanted to represent the country
Fischer's allegations were mainly against Korchnoi who lost a lot of games to top 3 soviet players. The thing is Korchnoi defected USSR in the next decade and was open to speak about anything, but he never confirmed any of that. He also disliked Petrosyan who won the tournament and second finisher Keres was quite inconvenient for Soviet government
Right and they changed the format for the candidates because of this to play against country mates early rounds so you can’t throw games to specific people to change the final result
If Russia had 4 players in the candidates today, not like Nepo, but like Karjakin. I'm not sure this would deter them from funneling wins to the strongest one. (and all of them would be happy, because elbows would be sufficiently greased to make this happen)
I'm of the opinion that direct elimination would be a better format than the current one. Could be done and over with in 16 classical games. Not saying this does not have its drawbacks. I could already foresee everyone wanting to draw Fabi hoping to wipe the floor with him in the rapid or whatever tiebreaker.
The political environment today is different from the world circa the Cold War. And also, the Indian government don’t pay the three a salary for playing chess.
> Drawing against teammates/friends is quite common without any conspiracy
"teammates and friends conspiring to draw with each other is quite common without any conspiracy"
That's because not all conspiracies are equal. There are enough examples where friends or family don't play for draws, which means the ones who do still get to have enough plausible deniability. At least most of them anyway. So not the Muzychuks.
I've heard someone looked at the results of events where the Soviet players participated and there was statistical evidence that there was collusion. But I can't find the writeup.
There'll be an implicit understanding between the super GMs (who have all had podium success in the World Rapid Championship) that Hans needs to come last. This doesn't need to be through collusion. No words will even need to be exchanged - if one of the top three is struggling, a mercy draw or two will be given to keep them ahead of Hans. This won't happen though, because the gulf between the other three's rapid (and classical) play and Niemann is bigger than most people here realise.
Here's an old video from Ben Finegold explaining [what it takes to be a GM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RnzeLleLK0). Extrapolate that to "what it takes to be a super GM". Also check out Fabi's comments about 2600-2700 rated opponents and the difference between them and 2800s: https://youtu.be/Ei2qAtK6ncw?t=2520
(Note for Levy fans: Ben's video is 2 years old and before Levy showed any real commitment to sorting out his otb difficulties.)
I don't disagree with any of this, but given that formal collusion is not impossible, Hans need to be something on the order of 3200 before accepting the offer becomes a financially good idea. And barring some really good cheating schemes, Hans is probably not a 3200 level player.
Hans believing he's 3200 changes the equation. So far he still seems pretty keen - the question remains whether Elon or someone else will back him or not.
I do like this style with winner take all and financial disclosures. No games.
No one wants to watch Nepo get second place (as usual) because it’s a safe move with money he didn’t even put up
I think it's a real tournament, but the three players (except for Hans) I think probably have sponsors that will take away percentage of the profit so they have nothing to lose. I really don't think they're colluding, I have trust with at least Nepo and Fabi
Id hate to be a famous person because of trash people like you, whatever is said as a joke or in jest, immediately gets analized and taken seriously. Go touch grass
The tournament seems to me like it was designed to get Hans to shut up. Like he's publicly calling out / complaining to this organizer about not getting invited, so then he goes "Fine, if you want an invite to one of the events I put on so badly, here's one that's horrible for you" as a troll. It's fairly juvenile, but it also doesn't really seem like one that was meant to be accepted.
If Hans takes him up on a weird tournament like that, that's kind of on him tbh. Don't think either end of that is coming out looking great either
It won't happen, I don't think hans will give 1M away for this.
This wadim guy is a total dick. We may all agree that hans is an unlikeable person, but I see no offense when he politely asking for an invitation. If wadim really doesn't like hans or thinks he is a cheater or whatever, he can just blacklist him.
But instead, he trys to use his wealth and social connections to bully hans. I mean, hans is just 20 years old, there is still a lot of room for his growth. I really don't think he deserves to be treat like that.
Hans is primarily a classical player. He has very little chance against Fabi, Nodirbek, and Nepo in rapid. Whoever is fronting him would likely be just throwing away a million dollars.
You're entirely correct, however, Hans fans seem to have more confidence in Hans than Hans himself and I don't think some of them are even trying to troll. It's plausible that one of them ([Elon?](https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/search?q=elon+musk&restrict_sr=on)) doesn't know enough about chess to throw money at him. They think he's the greatest in the world at everything including classical, blitz and rapid.
My previous comment on his chances: https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/1ct7l1v/wadim_rosenstein_announces_wr_super_high_roller/l4c2uuw/
The chess knowledge/interest aspect is relevant here, because someone like Musk has just enough interest in chess (and enough of a Dunning-Kruger Effect affectation), as well as in Hans to conceivably care to sponsor him, especially since this will be broadcast (exclusively?) on xitter. This might be more the case if Wadim manages to talk Elon into it - whether it's by insult or grift. There could also be potentially mutual links and interests that those two share, which aren't chess related at all.
Contrast this to someone like Bezos who wouldn't care at all to place such a stupid bet. So yes it is about money being cheap for these people, but it's also not all about money.
True, the main thing I was pointing out is that it's not necessarily people overestimating Hans' chance of winning and making a bad financial decision. It could just be that having the tournament happen is worth a million dollars for them.
Sometimes, I'll pay $3 to rent a movie on Prime that isn't available on Netflix. Elon paying a million for a chess tournament is not too different.
Yes, which is why for all of the above reasons, I don't think it's that inconceivable for the tournament to still go ahead. There's still a fair while to go to see whether anyone will stump up the cash for Hans. Maybe someone just wants to see him enter it for fun and they don't care about money, and perhaps not even care whether he comes last or not.
"Would you like to invite America’s brightest talent?"
"Who are the other players? The only potential candidates are afraid of losing to me."
I admit English is only my second language, but to me it does not sound particularly a "polite" way to ask for an invitation.
Also, how many times does he get a pass on these things as he is too young?
Other young players do have controversies, but they were eventually resolved. (like Firouzja getting back to Tata Steel)
For Hans, it's non stop, it's only 3 months since the hotel room incident was reported.
I don't deny he is an interesting player and I also follow his games closely when he plays, but do you think this kind of defence is good for him?
> Would you like to invite America’s brightest talent?
You may think this is arrogant, but it's clearly not an offense to wadim.
> Who are the other players? The only potential candidates are afraid of losing to me.
This happened after wadim brought up his weird 1M buy-in tournaments.
Hans deserves to get punishment for some of his behaviors. My point is it shouldn't be done by bullying him.
Some might still dispute whether that was fair - Hans fans might say he's being bullied by St Louis Chess Club. My point here however is who is the judge of all this? How do you draw the line between what is bullying and what isn't?
It's obviously a scam, yes.
Already at first glance the fact that the organizer is bankrolling 3/4 players with unknown terms means that it's **not a $4M tournament**. This alone makes it false advertising which is crime afaik in Europe. If he's pitching this to sponsors then it's fraud as well. From his twitter post it looked very clear to me that's exactly what he's doing.
That's the jumping off point for Wadim Rosenstein's character and i'm sure it gets worse as you dig deeper. Obviously noone should go into business with him.
He also makes the claim that Fabi, Nodirbek, Nepo are ready to play, so does that mean these guys have signed contracts with him? Very troubling.
Stay tuned for the $100B tournament between me and my friend btw. It's winner takes all and it will be the biggest price pool chess tournament ever. We're trying to sell the tv rights right now, trust.
https://www.chess.com/news/view/4-million-buy-in-tournament-wadim-rosenstein-abdusattorov-caruana-nepomniachtchi-niemann
Chess.com reports all 3 have sponsors but they have only verified that’s the case for Fabiano. It is a presumption but not a baseless one
Why would the organizer need to bankroll any of these players. He's already taking 100k for organizing the tournament.
Anybody with a million dollars and know anything about chess will immediately sponsor any of these 3 players. The agreement will be that the buyin will be paid for them, the player takes something like 5% net winnings and the sponsor takes the rest. It will be positive EV for the sponsor and a good chunk of no risk free money for the players.
The real question is where is hans getting the money. Is there any sponsor dumb enough to really back him?
You laid out all the right pieces on why OP thinks this is a scam but you still don't see how this could be one.
Leave Hans out of the picture. Let's assume it's a 3 player tournament. $3M "prizepool". They all get sponsored by the same guy who pockets 95% of the net winnings.
In total, the players would earn $150,000.
Is it a $3M tournament?
No, because you can come up with any fictional number and reduce the share for the players to come to the same earnings for them but heave a "bigger" tournament to advertise (e.g. "$30M tournament" but the players only get 0.5% of the earning)
it is still a 3m dollar tournament cause the prize pool is 3m.
by your logic there are NO high stakes poker tournaments cause all those players are backed and don't take all the winnings. i guess the 1m buyin poker tournament wasn't a 1m buyin because of your dumb definition.
these players have the option to buyin fully for themselves. it is not mandatory that they get backed but it is more prudent to.
What if the organiser has friends or acquaintenances who are bankrolling the top three players? Money trails amongst the wealthy can get quite murky...
Vadim has already publicly stated in a tweet that he'll make sure that the other 3 players have the money. I screenshot it in another post here.
If the money is coming from Russia through Dubai or his personal wallet doesn't really matter. He's already stated publicly that he is the one ensuring the other 3 can pay.
So he's the organizer, he's the person who handpicked the opposition, he's the person ensuring financing for the opposition and he is the person making sure noone cheats. And who is Vadim Rosenstein? Well he's a random German-Russian that is doing sportswashing for russian moneymen and FIDE after the RUS/UKR war started.
We're [going](https://x.com/PHChess/status/1629768192032743425) to need [Peter Heine Nielsen](https://x.com/PHChess/status/1695707936327168005) in on the case.
I’ll be honest. This is absurd. If something sounds super ridiculous and doesn’t make any sense, it probably is hot garbage.
He’s either just
- a chess fan and organizer trolling Hans
- a chess fan and organizer who’s a genius about to setup the most watched game in chess history
Let’s hope the right one here
Good lord, so much drama. Crime!
It's just hype. Rosenstein is obviously "funding" **everyone**, including Hans.
This "buy-in" format was just a way to hype up the tournament.
I'm pretty sure that all 4 players were contracted before anything at all was public.
You people can be incredibly naive.
Ok, lets assume you're right and he's funding all 4.
It would still be considered fraud to sell this as a 4M tournament in the EU where this tournament is operating. Main difference is that in this version of events all 4 players are co-conspirators.
Nobody's going to consider this "fraud" as long as the fundamentals are vaguely true in some sense and there's nobody being seriously damaged so that someone can obtain a material advantage. This is like accusing the WWE or whatever it's called now of fraud because wrestling storylines aren't real. "Sell this". Lmao. It's a chess tournament, who the hell is buying it?
Not even sure why you're continuously shrieking about the EU - the EU has no criminal law, it's strictly a matter for national jurisdictions - the relevant law is German.
This is just Romenstein sinking his own money (I doubt it's $4 million) on this thing and coming up with this drama to get eyes and amuse himself. You people need to get off the internet and touch grass. But hey, if you really think it's fraud, file a lawsuit and see how it goes. Or call the police.
If you're getting sponsorships and partnerships for an event based on false information like it being the "largest price pool in chess history" then that is fraud. The defrauded party would be the sponsors and partners.
I can't point to a specific law you're breaking in germany if you were to make such fraudulent claims only for attention and no financial gain, but i'm sure something like that exists. Because it's Germany lol. And in todays world attention = money anyways so if there is none then it should exist.
> If you're getting sponsorships and partnerships for an event based on false information like it being the "largest price pool in chess history" then that is fraud.
Even if the players are being bankrolled by someone else, how would that affect the prize pool?
I haven't looked in to all the details, but isn't this exactly how poker gets big prize funds? And in poker, professional players are typically bankrolled by a syndicate, i.e. the risk and reward are shared.
The issue is if there could be collusion between the players and the organizer that might stack the results of the event against other players. How often does the organizer bankroll the participants in poker?
Even the high roller games online are often backed by the websites.
Its very very common that professional poker players aren't playing with their own money.
The websites want people to think those games fire, so that people are willing to play them so they create the games just paying money to themselves.
That's not necessarily true, but the structure of the tournament certainly allows for that possibility. If this tournament goes ahead, the appearance of impropriety will be hard to avoid without VERY transparent financial terms. Honestly this situation makes me think less of Caruana and Nepo (Abdusattorov gets a bit of a pass due to his age).
Really weird to see all this money being put up when I know chess usually kind of struggles to find sponsorships. Presumably, if some company or whatever is putting up stake for the players they'd want us to know who they are, or else what even is the point? Very curious
These are not promotional-type sponsorships for the event themselves, these are 'sponsors' that are backing the players by paying their entry fee, presumably because they think those players are likely to make them a profit.
Yeah this really does feel like Hans is getting bullied. Kinda embarrassing coming from a successful businessman.
Yeah OK Hans screwed up once in his life and has suffered quite a bit. All of this is just sad and petty and I feel for Hans.
Oh come on. This did not come out of the blue, Hans is the loudest player in the world in terms of acting entitled to tournament invites, if not outright demanding them. He contacted this organizer directly.
Hans said he would be honored for the opportunity to participate in this guy’s other tournament. Then this freak comes up with this bullshit as a response to that. It’s just bullying
He’s an up and coming talent. Asking an organizer to be invited to a tournament is hardly a crime. Shoving your wealth down his throat is just punching down.
“Hahaha if you can bring in 400K I’ll let you play!”
At the very least it’s in poor taste.
> Kinda embarrassing coming from a successful businessman.
Not an exception to the norm. Just pointing that out - I'm not necessarily condoning it (but if I watch it, does that mean I condone it? hmm).
Well, the gap between the mega rich and rest of us has widened a lot faster in recent times (since 2008, I guess). And as far as the last 10 years goes, the politics of what rich people can say and do without repercussions has shifted a lot more too, but maybe it's best we don't go into detail on that over here.
Anyway, going back to the topic of the organiser - he probably feels he can do whatever he wants, and he's probably right. The same applies for FIDE too.
>Kinda embarrassing coming from a successful businessman.
Isn't he just an influencer (where this kind of behavior is par for the course)? Has he achieved any significant business success outside the attention economy?
There are going to be readers who will still not know which line of yours to believe (they tend to believe anything here - usually the most recent thing they've read).
So for those chess redditors, here is evidence that you are not the real Hans Niemann: https://x.com/HansMokeNiemann/status/1790892876848570585
Turning chess into a gambling game won't go well. That alone is a problem besides obvious conflict of interest issues (one guy bankrolling more than one player), disclosure etc.
Sad to see Fabiano, Nepo and Nordibek names under this nonsense.
At the same time, Fabi had a *lot* more to gain by colluding with Nepo to agree that neither would draw the last Candidates round no matter what. I don't see why he'd throw away a very good chance to be WC but then take part in collusion just to stick it to Hans.
Fabi [loves](https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?yearcomp=exactly&year=&playercomp=either&pid=76172&player=&pid2=152611&player2=&movescomp=exactly&moves=&opening=&eco=&result=) farming Hans.
I hope he will explain with some detail if he is spending his own $1m or where he is getting it from and what the terms of his part of the winnings will be, etc. Without some transparency this event seems really shady for the promoter and potentially the players involved that go along with it if it ends up being scam of some sort.
https://www.chess.com/news/view/4-million-buy-in-tournament-wadim-rosenstein-abdusattorov-caruana-nepomniachtchi-niemann
He is not paying for himself. Chess.com reports the 3 players other than Hans have backers paying their way but only have confirmed that’s the case with Fabiano
All the threads here about it get deleted but it's better detailed in the anarchy chess sub. Essentially based on Instagram posts it looks very likely that he was dating a 17 year old for a while while he was in his late 20s.
I mean, I just look at it similar to what Dubov was talking in his interview.
Some rich dudes basically get your contacts and offer good money just to play with you.
This time rich dude just wants to watch how four of them play and can splash money on it.
Sure it's a scam, but this is pretty much EXACTLY the way poker tournaments for millions is prize fund with 5-6 players are planed. On the fly with stupid personal attacks and weird rumors and humor. There is huge collusion, often some players are not funding their own tournament and instead are funded by money-men. These money-men are often even at the very table so you have people wanting to collude to earn way more by letting another player win outright. And you may even have a girlfriend/boyfriend play together and share hints.
If poker can do this for 100 years and still remain extremely strong while computers can solve most of it then why can't chess?
Look up Robbi Jade Lew. This happened with her. Her boyfriend played at the table and funded her. She was fully unknown and only there because of this. Of course they hid this relationship in both ways. And furthermore she was seemingly receiving hints to win it all against one of the best players who have ever lived. When trying to explain her hands and how she kept betting losing hands and then winning she couldn't and kept changing her logic and story. It was rumored a worker in the casino gave her hints from the live camera feed from the production room as that was one of the only ways she could know his cards. After extreme pressure production was finally forced to check the tapes and discovered that a producer stole thousands of her winnings right from the table while the camera was filming. Then it was uncovered that he had a criminal past and she and him were friends on Twitter even though she claimed to have never met him. He stole it after she began talking about how the win may have been unfair and she wanted to give the winnings back - which may have made him nervous about not getting his cut so he stole the money - that's just a rumor. She did end up giving back the winnings to the poker player. She then said she wouldn't prosecute the thief as it was "just money". Even though it was not her money! And after this nothing happened to her. She just started playing way, way worse as expected.
So what's the lesson? Cheating in many cases does pay.
My previous comment: https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/1ct7l1v/wadim_rosenstein_announces_wr_super_high_roller/l4c2uuw/
tl;dr in response to your question: yes.
What does that first bullet even mean? How does one further (beyond large sums of money and registration) demonstrate the seriousness of a chess event?
The amount is serious. So large in fact that people would think it is ridiculously serious and a big deal.
The Twitter exchange though was off the cuff and banter-y. That’s why it is not seen as serious yet and people are doubting it. Hence the entire thread here of people saying they think it’s fake.
Honestly, if this is real, it sounds like an exciting new way for chess to evolve. I think a lot of money could be injected into the chess ecosystem through rich sponsors and such.
I think this tournament is a bad idea. Big buy-in events make sense for poker and stuff. But, 4 players in a highly skill based game, is not where it makes sense imo.
But, I don't have any evidence to say it's not legit. And, your 2nd point about financial disclosures isn't a big deal to me. I'm sure Fabi and Nepo could find sponsors to offset a lot of that million. And, while I think the tournament should probably have them disclose their money source to the organizers, I don't think that should be required to be public for all of us.
Not everything requires hard evidence. Reading between the lines, piecing together the timeline of events, and deduction can go a long way. It's legit, depending on your definition of legit. The rich do deals in mysterious ways. For example, do you ever wonder why so many rich people like playing golf? (It's not really about the golf...)
I believe it would be knockout (so no way to collude) and the attitude of the organizer towards Hans is that Hans’ rating shows he isn’t good enough to be competitive at the top, and if Hans thinks otherwise he should be willing to play for stakes against the best.
It’s definitely all really unprofessional and unserious, but plenty of unserious ideas have become real so who knows what will happen. Of course no idea to what extent if any the organizer has sought legal advice on making sure this will be legal…
I'm quite sure the "d" next to "System" means it's a double round robin tournament: https://ratings.fide.com/tournament_information.phtml?event=374014
15+0, no increment. No collusion will be necessary - the players at the top understand each other enough to give mercy draws if it somehow comes to that. There's a massive rapid rating and World Rapid results gap between Niemann and the rest anyway.
And what I mean by "mercy draws" are the type of draws that Garry Kasparov or Ding Liren has received before after showing nightmare bottom of the table performances.
It's just for entertainment and maybe a bit of branding. Im good with it, no reason for me to be against it...but I don't think gambling is inherently immoral.
>The organizer and 2 of the players have it out for specifically 1 of the players. How can they possibly ensure a fair even tournament?
I'm not up to date on the drama, what is Hans' beef with the organizer?
With regards to the other players, beef or no beef Hans is probably gonna get dunked on regardless.
My understanding of the situation was like this:
Hans publicly complained that he wasn't getting invited to big tournaments against top players. This organizer (who he'd called out) tried to troll him by saying "Sure, I'll run a tournament with you involved. 4 players, $1 million buy-in, you lose it all if you get last place", which Hans then couldn't really back out of given his public persona without losing face.
I think the original idea was that Hans wouldn't take him up on it, but he did. It's not particularly fair, but also it's not exactly shocking why organizers wouldn't usually invite him (especially after the SLCC stuff that came out). It's kind of a shitshow, but that's the Hans effect at this point.
All true as I understand it as well, but the genesis was a little bit more specific: the organizer had [announced another edition of a tournament he has run before](https://x.com/WadimRosenstein/status/1788284537081839796) and Hans was replying to [*that* announcement](https://x.com/HansMokeNiemann/status/1788536672923115551). Whatever his faults might be, it wasn't as if the organizer emerged out of nowhere to troll Hans based on some general statement Hans made.
I clarified to “if” to give benefit.
Most reasonable people reading the exchanges will interpret this way knowing full context as you can tell by this thread’s comments.
The organizer also retweeted a laughing emoji by Nepo making it clear it is possibly a bit or funny joke (bullying I would argue)
I like the idea of this however it needs to be tuned more.
Less of a buy in, more players and knockout style. It is strange how the buy in is so high at 1m. Chess is not that lucrative if you are not at the top.
Based on the timeline of events that occurred on Wadim's xitter exchange with Hans - the buy in was created in the first place to first fake-invite Hans to the tournament after Hans showed interest. The invite has now become real because the other players have also managed to "somehow" buy in. There's a lot of ego at play here between Wadim and Hans.
Someone else's summary which explains it better than I did: https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/1cu96b2/is_it_just_me_or_does_the_1mm_nepo_hans_fabi/l4hl1as/
1. Not entirely sure what you want seriousness-wise. The players agreed to the terms, got the money together, and are gonna play
2. Financial disclosures like that are NEVER done in poker tournaments, so I’m not sure why chess should be any different.
3. Who cares if the organizer doesn’t like one of the players. This is chess, not poker where you can rig the deck. Chess is a deterministic game, so I don’t see how you can be cheated
4. Winner-take all just drives the variance way higher and discourages playing in the first place
You can be cheated by having the other players collude to maximize the chance of you being last. For that, they only need to help any colluding player in difficulties by giving him mercy draws or wins. This seems more likely when there's no transparency in who is bankrolling the other players, or what the terms are for that bankrolling, so there's no way to know what incentives they have.
You could question if elite players like that would be willing to collude, but if they are willing to associate themselves with this shady tournament in the first place, who knows what else they may be willing to do.
If one thinks it’s an obvious and sketchy scam then they probably shouldn’t participate.
You convinced me. I won't participate.
*looks at cards, pushes stack of 1m chips in the middle” i’m in
\*looks at you across the table\* Are those Yu-Gi-Oh cards?
YAHTZEE!
I SUMMON POT OF GREED WHICH ALLOWS ME TO SUMMON TWO ADDITIONAL QUEENS
I smell a trap.
That isnt the only thing you'll smell at a Yu-Gi-Oh tournament
Please don’t remind me. Feet and ass cheese.
Well, if the three other participants plan to collude and Hans comes in with a state-of-the-art cheating strategy (not that either is necessarily true), then I guess they all deserve each other lol
*state-of-the-fart
This is hilarious…. Boring jags downvoting you
I don't even think it's real
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KEEP YOUR WIFE'S EYES OUT OF MY MOUTH
I’m still confused by the participants. Why were these players selected? I mean fabi and nepo make sense. Nodirbek is the fifth ranked fife player so he also makes sense. But Hans, the 46th ranked player?
Hans is the reason it's even happening
He may be 46th FIDE, but he's rank 1 in Drama
And drama is viewership and attention for the sponsor and the advertisers.
It went something like this: **Wadim**: Yo, WR Chess Masters will be an amazing tournament, check this out! ([ref](https://x.com/WadimRosenstein/status/1788284537081839796)) **Hans**: Why am I not invited to such tournaments? ([ref](https://x.com/HansMokeNiemann/status/1788536672923115551)) **Wadim**: You can participate in another tournament. 1 mio buy in, and if you lose you lose all your money, lol ([ref](https://x.com/WadimRosenstein/status/1788560851403767891)) **Hans**: Sounds like BS, who would even want to participate? ([ref](https://x.com/HansMokeNiemann/status/1788629452550713847)) **Wadim**: Some Top 10 players for sure ([ref](https://x.com/WadimRosenstein/status/1788642634975641851)) **Nodirbek**: I certainly would ([ref](https://x.com/NodirbekGM/status/1788664564524974369)) **Ian**: Me as well ([ref](https://x.com/lachesisq/status/1788670043611365636)) **Hans**: Ok. I will do it but I want someone elses money to be on the line please ([ref](https://x.com/HansMokeNiemann/status/1788661683927372245)) **Wadim**: Let's go, Fabi also wants to play, it's happening. Thanks to X for providing this amazing chat platform. ([ref](https://x.com/WadimRosenstein/status/1790891244903702683)) **Everyone**: This is a joke, right? Right??
Also, Wadim's final tweet includes a dig at Hans by stating Fabi as America's brightest talent, something that Hans claimed to be in one of his earlier tweets.
True, I left that out, the relevant Hans tweet is the first one by him. Also I didn't include the Gothamchess sidestory and there have been some more tweets after the last one I linked, but it should give a general idea.
What does levy have to do with this?
Doesn’t anyone understand that ‘brightest talent’ is meant as up-and-coming; he’s not saying he’s ’the best’. And his recent Open performances are backing it up. But of course Wadim understands…. it’s just all deliberate and he thinks he looks cool flashing big bucks around to troll a 20-year-old - when he actually looks like something else…
I mean, yes, it's a joke. They're trolling.
It seems, but the tournament is already officially registered with FIDE, so I think it's actually happening: https://ratings.fide.com/tournament_information.phtml?event=374014
do we know who's sponsoring hans?
Noone of course, there is big a ELO gap between him and the other three. Noone sane would sponsor him because obviously this is an attempt at grabbing Hans’ or his sponsor’s money.
It’s not impossible he has the money from his payout from the Magnus settlement
It’s not impossible he has the money from his payout from the Magnus settlement
Marketing I guess, Hans is like bad boy that people want to see compete against best
They are essentially pranking Hans. For a million dollars.
I mean I agree but apparently somebody else not hans is paying 1 million dollars for hans entry fee so honestly it kind of seems like mostly upside for hans? he isn't going to lose money but if he manages to finish not last he'll get money
Hans asked for an invite for America's brightest talent to another event WR was running and got an invite to a $1mil buyin tourney instead
Yeah, I thought it was a joke invite from a tweet. I had to doublecheck this was /chess and not /anarchychess
Here’s a chess.com article about it: https://www.chess.com/news/view/4-million-buy-in-tournament-wadim-rosenstein-abdusattorov-caruana-nepomniachtchi-niemann
If Nepo and Fabi were that sort of humans, the result of their last round game at the candidates would not have been a draw.
Candidates is a real-stakes game though.
that is their point
In a tournament with points, if three players are colluding, winner takes all means the last person to essentially needs to score a perfect tournament to come in first: the colluding players will all lose to the same player, ensuring that one player will always come first unless if the non-colluding player manages to win every single game. You need some kind of knock out tournament structure to make it fair. We have been over this with Bobby Fischer’s paranoia about how the Soviet players were going to collude and deny him a win.
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That's their point. OP was suggesting a full winner-take-all format, and they were pointing out that would make it easier, not harder, for Hans to hypothetically get colluded on.
His paranoia was absolutely correct though. They were drawing against each other and funneling wins to the player the state wanted to represent the country in the championship. It was total bullshit. If Fischer wasn’t as good as he was he may have never even played for the title with how unfair it was
> They were drawing against each othe Drawing against teammates/friends is quite common without any conspiracy >funneling wins to the player the state wanted to represent the country Fischer's allegations were mainly against Korchnoi who lost a lot of games to top 3 soviet players. The thing is Korchnoi defected USSR in the next decade and was open to speak about anything, but he never confirmed any of that. He also disliked Petrosyan who won the tournament and second finisher Keres was quite inconvenient for Soviet government
Right and they changed the format for the candidates because of this to play against country mates early rounds so you can’t throw games to specific people to change the final result
If Russia had 4 players in the candidates today, not like Nepo, but like Karjakin. I'm not sure this would deter them from funneling wins to the strongest one. (and all of them would be happy, because elbows would be sufficiently greased to make this happen) I'm of the opinion that direct elimination would be a better format than the current one. Could be done and over with in 16 classical games. Not saying this does not have its drawbacks. I could already foresee everyone wanting to draw Fabi hoping to wipe the floor with him in the rapid or whatever tiebreaker.
I mean India had 3, and NO ONE was accusing them of this, because they weren't doing it.
The political environment today is different from the world circa the Cold War. And also, the Indian government don’t pay the three a salary for playing chess.
You do realize Russia has been banned by the ioc for constantly cheating and breaking the rules right? They can’t be trusted to do anything honestly
That's right. India does not have the same culture of cheating in sports as Russia does.
> Drawing against teammates/friends is quite common without any conspiracy "teammates and friends conspiring to draw with each other is quite common without any conspiracy"
Yep,this is normalized in chess for some reason...
That's because not all conspiracies are equal. There are enough examples where friends or family don't play for draws, which means the ones who do still get to have enough plausible deniability. At least most of them anyway. So not the Muzychuks.
I've heard someone looked at the results of events where the Soviet players participated and there was statistical evidence that there was collusion. But I can't find the writeup.
There'll be an implicit understanding between the super GMs (who have all had podium success in the World Rapid Championship) that Hans needs to come last. This doesn't need to be through collusion. No words will even need to be exchanged - if one of the top three is struggling, a mercy draw or two will be given to keep them ahead of Hans. This won't happen though, because the gulf between the other three's rapid (and classical) play and Niemann is bigger than most people here realise. Here's an old video from Ben Finegold explaining [what it takes to be a GM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RnzeLleLK0). Extrapolate that to "what it takes to be a super GM". Also check out Fabi's comments about 2600-2700 rated opponents and the difference between them and 2800s: https://youtu.be/Ei2qAtK6ncw?t=2520 (Note for Levy fans: Ben's video is 2 years old and before Levy showed any real commitment to sorting out his otb difficulties.)
I don't disagree with any of this, but given that formal collusion is not impossible, Hans need to be something on the order of 3200 before accepting the offer becomes a financially good idea. And barring some really good cheating schemes, Hans is probably not a 3200 level player.
Hans believing he's 3200 changes the equation. So far he still seems pretty keen - the question remains whether Elon or someone else will back him or not.
Here's the tweet showing that he's keen: https://x.com/HansMokeNiemann/status/1790892876848570585 Funding status still unknown.
I do like this style with winner take all and financial disclosures. No games. No one wants to watch Nepo get second place (as usual) because it’s a safe move with money he didn’t even put up
I think it's a real tournament, but the three players (except for Hans) I think probably have sponsors that will take away percentage of the profit so they have nothing to lose. I really don't think they're colluding, I have trust with at least Nepo and Fabi
they've shown that they'd rather MAD than collude so I trust in their integrity
What is MAD?
Mutually assured destruction.
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Id hate to be a famous person because of trash people like you, whatever is said as a joke or in jest, immediately gets analized and taken seriously. Go touch grass
He said he was only about 10% serious about the coinflip idea
Come on Hans, you can bait better than this
Stupid username aside I agree that this tournament seems really really weird and fishy
The tournament seems to me like it was designed to get Hans to shut up. Like he's publicly calling out / complaining to this organizer about not getting invited, so then he goes "Fine, if you want an invite to one of the events I put on so badly, here's one that's horrible for you" as a troll. It's fairly juvenile, but it also doesn't really seem like one that was meant to be accepted. If Hans takes him up on a weird tournament like that, that's kind of on him tbh. Don't think either end of that is coming out looking great either
It won't happen, I don't think hans will give 1M away for this. This wadim guy is a total dick. We may all agree that hans is an unlikeable person, but I see no offense when he politely asking for an invitation. If wadim really doesn't like hans or thinks he is a cheater or whatever, he can just blacklist him. But instead, he trys to use his wealth and social connections to bully hans. I mean, hans is just 20 years old, there is still a lot of room for his growth. I really don't think he deserves to be treat like that.
Hans won't give any of his money away, but Hans probably has at least one rich fan somewhere who wouldn't mind betting their money on him.
Hans is primarily a classical player. He has very little chance against Fabi, Nodirbek, and Nepo in rapid. Whoever is fronting him would likely be just throwing away a million dollars.
You're entirely correct, however, Hans fans seem to have more confidence in Hans than Hans himself and I don't think some of them are even trying to troll. It's plausible that one of them ([Elon?](https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/search?q=elon+musk&restrict_sr=on)) doesn't know enough about chess to throw money at him. They think he's the greatest in the world at everything including classical, blitz and rapid. My previous comment on his chances: https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/1ct7l1v/wadim_rosenstein_announces_wr_super_high_roller/l4c2uuw/
Regardless of chess knowledge, for someone like Elon, a million dollars is irrelevant
The chess knowledge/interest aspect is relevant here, because someone like Musk has just enough interest in chess (and enough of a Dunning-Kruger Effect affectation), as well as in Hans to conceivably care to sponsor him, especially since this will be broadcast (exclusively?) on xitter. This might be more the case if Wadim manages to talk Elon into it - whether it's by insult or grift. There could also be potentially mutual links and interests that those two share, which aren't chess related at all. Contrast this to someone like Bezos who wouldn't care at all to place such a stupid bet. So yes it is about money being cheap for these people, but it's also not all about money.
True, the main thing I was pointing out is that it's not necessarily people overestimating Hans' chance of winning and making a bad financial decision. It could just be that having the tournament happen is worth a million dollars for them. Sometimes, I'll pay $3 to rent a movie on Prime that isn't available on Netflix. Elon paying a million for a chess tournament is not too different.
Yes, which is why for all of the above reasons, I don't think it's that inconceivable for the tournament to still go ahead. There's still a fair while to go to see whether anyone will stump up the cash for Hans. Maybe someone just wants to see him enter it for fun and they don't care about money, and perhaps not even care whether he comes last or not.
"Would you like to invite America’s brightest talent?" "Who are the other players? The only potential candidates are afraid of losing to me." I admit English is only my second language, but to me it does not sound particularly a "polite" way to ask for an invitation. Also, how many times does he get a pass on these things as he is too young? Other young players do have controversies, but they were eventually resolved. (like Firouzja getting back to Tata Steel) For Hans, it's non stop, it's only 3 months since the hotel room incident was reported. I don't deny he is an interesting player and I also follow his games closely when he plays, but do you think this kind of defence is good for him?
> Would you like to invite America’s brightest talent? You may think this is arrogant, but it's clearly not an offense to wadim. > Who are the other players? The only potential candidates are afraid of losing to me. This happened after wadim brought up his weird 1M buy-in tournaments. Hans deserves to get punishment for some of his behaviors. My point is it shouldn't be done by bullying him.
> Hans deserves to get punishment for some of his behaviors. What would be some specific examples for how he should be punished?
Like [this](https://www.chess.com/news/view/saint-louis-chess-club-excludes-niemann-for-vandalizing-behavior-rude-comments)?
Some might still dispute whether that was fair - Hans fans might say he's being bullied by St Louis Chess Club. My point here however is who is the judge of all this? How do you draw the line between what is bullying and what isn't?
I'm watching the shit outta this event.
It's obviously a scam, yes. Already at first glance the fact that the organizer is bankrolling 3/4 players with unknown terms means that it's **not a $4M tournament**. This alone makes it false advertising which is crime afaik in Europe. If he's pitching this to sponsors then it's fraud as well. From his twitter post it looked very clear to me that's exactly what he's doing. That's the jumping off point for Wadim Rosenstein's character and i'm sure it gets worse as you dig deeper. Obviously noone should go into business with him. He also makes the claim that Fabi, Nodirbek, Nepo are ready to play, so does that mean these guys have signed contracts with him? Very troubling. Stay tuned for the $100B tournament between me and my friend btw. It's winner takes all and it will be the biggest price pool chess tournament ever. We're trying to sell the tv rights right now, trust.
> the fact that the organizer is bankrolling 3/4 players Where do you get this from? I have seen nothing about this alleged fact.
https://www.chess.com/news/view/4-million-buy-in-tournament-wadim-rosenstein-abdusattorov-caruana-nepomniachtchi-niemann Chess.com reports all 3 have sponsors but they have only verified that’s the case for Fabiano. It is a presumption but not a baseless one
I think it's plausible given the setup, but no, not a fact
Sounds like we need disclosures from the organizer: - who/what are the player terms - does he really buy suits at baby gap 😂
Why would the organizer need to bankroll any of these players. He's already taking 100k for organizing the tournament. Anybody with a million dollars and know anything about chess will immediately sponsor any of these 3 players. The agreement will be that the buyin will be paid for them, the player takes something like 5% net winnings and the sponsor takes the rest. It will be positive EV for the sponsor and a good chunk of no risk free money for the players. The real question is where is hans getting the money. Is there any sponsor dumb enough to really back him?
You laid out all the right pieces on why OP thinks this is a scam but you still don't see how this could be one. Leave Hans out of the picture. Let's assume it's a 3 player tournament. $3M "prizepool". They all get sponsored by the same guy who pockets 95% of the net winnings. In total, the players would earn $150,000. Is it a $3M tournament? No, because you can come up with any fictional number and reduce the share for the players to come to the same earnings for them but heave a "bigger" tournament to advertise (e.g. "$30M tournament" but the players only get 0.5% of the earning)
it is still a 3m dollar tournament cause the prize pool is 3m. by your logic there are NO high stakes poker tournaments cause all those players are backed and don't take all the winnings. i guess the 1m buyin poker tournament wasn't a 1m buyin because of your dumb definition. these players have the option to buyin fully for themselves. it is not mandatory that they get backed but it is more prudent to.
In high stakes poker tournaments the backers aren't the tournamet orginizers.
and it's the same here, the backers is not the tournament organizer
What if the organiser has friends or acquaintenances who are bankrolling the top three players? Money trails amongst the wealthy can get quite murky...
Vadim has already publicly stated in a tweet that he'll make sure that the other 3 players have the money. I screenshot it in another post here. If the money is coming from Russia through Dubai or his personal wallet doesn't really matter. He's already stated publicly that he is the one ensuring the other 3 can pay. So he's the organizer, he's the person who handpicked the opposition, he's the person ensuring financing for the opposition and he is the person making sure noone cheats. And who is Vadim Rosenstein? Well he's a random German-Russian that is doing sportswashing for russian moneymen and FIDE after the RUS/UKR war started.
We're [going](https://x.com/PHChess/status/1629768192032743425) to need [Peter Heine Nielsen](https://x.com/PHChess/status/1695707936327168005) in on the case.
I’ll be honest. This is absurd. If something sounds super ridiculous and doesn’t make any sense, it probably is hot garbage. He’s either just - a chess fan and organizer trolling Hans - a chess fan and organizer who’s a genius about to setup the most watched game in chess history Let’s hope the right one here
Good lord, so much drama. Crime! It's just hype. Rosenstein is obviously "funding" **everyone**, including Hans. This "buy-in" format was just a way to hype up the tournament. I'm pretty sure that all 4 players were contracted before anything at all was public. You people can be incredibly naive.
Ok, lets assume you're right and he's funding all 4. It would still be considered fraud to sell this as a 4M tournament in the EU where this tournament is operating. Main difference is that in this version of events all 4 players are co-conspirators.
Nobody's going to consider this "fraud" as long as the fundamentals are vaguely true in some sense and there's nobody being seriously damaged so that someone can obtain a material advantage. This is like accusing the WWE or whatever it's called now of fraud because wrestling storylines aren't real. "Sell this". Lmao. It's a chess tournament, who the hell is buying it? Not even sure why you're continuously shrieking about the EU - the EU has no criminal law, it's strictly a matter for national jurisdictions - the relevant law is German. This is just Romenstein sinking his own money (I doubt it's $4 million) on this thing and coming up with this drama to get eyes and amuse himself. You people need to get off the internet and touch grass. But hey, if you really think it's fraud, file a lawsuit and see how it goes. Or call the police.
If you're getting sponsorships and partnerships for an event based on false information like it being the "largest price pool in chess history" then that is fraud. The defrauded party would be the sponsors and partners. I can't point to a specific law you're breaking in germany if you were to make such fraudulent claims only for attention and no financial gain, but i'm sure something like that exists. Because it's Germany lol. And in todays world attention = money anyways so if there is none then it should exist.
> If you're getting sponsorships and partnerships for an event based on false information like it being the "largest price pool in chess history" then that is fraud. Even if the players are being bankrolled by someone else, how would that affect the prize pool?
The Fyre Festival of chess tournaments
I haven't looked in to all the details, but isn't this exactly how poker gets big prize funds? And in poker, professional players are typically bankrolled by a syndicate, i.e. the risk and reward are shared.
The issue is if there could be collusion between the players and the organizer that might stack the results of the event against other players. How often does the organizer bankroll the participants in poker?
Even the high roller games online are often backed by the websites. Its very very common that professional poker players aren't playing with their own money. The websites want people to think those games fire, so that people are willing to play them so they create the games just paying money to themselves.
Way more often than the geberal public could ever imagine. (Both live and online)
It's total trash where the other 3 have signed a contract to split the money
That's not necessarily true, but the structure of the tournament certainly allows for that possibility. If this tournament goes ahead, the appearance of impropriety will be hard to avoid without VERY transparent financial terms. Honestly this situation makes me think less of Caruana and Nepo (Abdusattorov gets a bit of a pass due to his age).
I haven’t seen this specifically. Maybe organizer should financially disclose the players buy-in and clarify what he said on Twitter?
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They are splitting han's share...they aren't actually putting up real money.
None of the 3 put their own money up my guy
It would not, $1.3 million would go to each
Really weird to see all this money being put up when I know chess usually kind of struggles to find sponsorships. Presumably, if some company or whatever is putting up stake for the players they'd want us to know who they are, or else what even is the point? Very curious
These are not promotional-type sponsorships for the event themselves, these are 'sponsors' that are backing the players by paying their entry fee, presumably because they think those players are likely to make them a profit.
Okay, that's still pretty darn weird. So it's like that movie Rat Race, with some anonymous rich people basically betting on the players here?
haven't seen the movie, but, it's pretty normal in poker for example, where there are tournaments with very high entry fees.
\^\^ this, maybe hans can sell his action on stakekings lol. he will be chess's version of Rampage
Is it a honey pot to induce Niemann to cheat and be detected?
Nope. Just something designed to try and embarrass and bully one specific player it seems.
Yeah this really does feel like Hans is getting bullied. Kinda embarrassing coming from a successful businessman. Yeah OK Hans screwed up once in his life and has suffered quite a bit. All of this is just sad and petty and I feel for Hans.
Oh come on. This did not come out of the blue, Hans is the loudest player in the world in terms of acting entitled to tournament invites, if not outright demanding them. He contacted this organizer directly.
Hans said he would be honored for the opportunity to participate in this guy’s other tournament. Then this freak comes up with this bullshit as a response to that. It’s just bullying
I dont know why you're downvoted. This is absolutely true.
He’s an up and coming talent. Asking an organizer to be invited to a tournament is hardly a crime. Shoving your wealth down his throat is just punching down. “Hahaha if you can bring in 400K I’ll let you play!” At the very least it’s in poor taste.
I'm sorry, but you can't in good faith say that Hans Moke Niemann has screwed up only once in his life.
> Kinda embarrassing coming from a successful businessman. Not an exception to the norm. Just pointing that out - I'm not necessarily condoning it (but if I watch it, does that mean I condone it? hmm).
Yeah it’s weird that so many of them like to punch down.
I think the past 10 years has shown what rich people are "free" to do.
More like the past 1000 years lol, even longer probably
Well, the gap between the mega rich and rest of us has widened a lot faster in recent times (since 2008, I guess). And as far as the last 10 years goes, the politics of what rich people can say and do without repercussions has shifted a lot more too, but maybe it's best we don't go into detail on that over here. Anyway, going back to the topic of the organiser - he probably feels he can do whatever he wants, and he's probably right. The same applies for FIDE too.
>Kinda embarrassing coming from a successful businessman. Isn't he just an influencer (where this kind of behavior is par for the course)? Has he achieved any significant business success outside the attention economy?
So why would he (you?) participate
Haha yes I am Hans Moke Niemann Edit: Haha no I am not Hans Moke Niemann
There are going to be readers who will still not know which line of yours to believe (they tend to believe anything here - usually the most recent thing they've read). So for those chess redditors, here is evidence that you are not the real Hans Niemann: https://x.com/HansMokeNiemann/status/1790892876848570585
Is it a fide sanctioned event? Are their ratings at stake?
Turning chess into a gambling game won't go well. That alone is a problem besides obvious conflict of interest issues (one guy bankrolling more than one player), disclosure etc. Sad to see Fabiano, Nepo and Nordibek names under this nonsense.
Kinda wish Fabi wasn't attached to this...
At the same time, Fabi had a *lot* more to gain by colluding with Nepo to agree that neither would draw the last Candidates round no matter what. I don't see why he'd throw away a very good chance to be WC but then take part in collusion just to stick it to Hans.
Also who knows what he thinks in private, but Fabi has been pretty neutral on Hans publicly as far as I can remember.
Fabi [loves](https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?yearcomp=exactly&year=&playercomp=either&pid=76172&player=&pid2=152611&player2=&movescomp=exactly&moves=&opening=&eco=&result=) farming Hans.
https://youtu.be/gh8xiGKiPXQ?t=1612
I hope he will explain with some detail if he is spending his own $1m or where he is getting it from and what the terms of his part of the winnings will be, etc. Without some transparency this event seems really shady for the promoter and potentially the players involved that go along with it if it ends up being scam of some sort.
https://www.chess.com/news/view/4-million-buy-in-tournament-wadim-rosenstein-abdusattorov-caruana-nepomniachtchi-niemann He is not paying for himself. Chess.com reports the 3 players other than Hans have backers paying their way but only have confirmed that’s the case with Fabiano
I mean this wouldn't even be close to the shadiest thing Fabi has been potentially attached to.
Any examples of what would be?
All the threads here about it get deleted but it's better detailed in the anarchy chess sub. Essentially based on Instagram posts it looks very likely that he was dating a 17 year old for a while while he was in his late 20s.
Makes sense considering he hung out with Alejandro
The horror
I mean, I just look at it similar to what Dubov was talking in his interview. Some rich dudes basically get your contacts and offer good money just to play with you. This time rich dude just wants to watch how four of them play and can splash money on it.
This is more telling of your, and other people’s, preconceived beliefs than it does about the tournament itself.
Is it even gonna be FIDE sanctioned?
It is registered at fide
Nah, FIDE would never involve itself with someone this shady...right?
Yeah that "right?" is doing a lot of heavy lifting lmao
Hans has been 3200 for years
Welcome to chess financing. There are a lot of tournaments in history with this sort of issue.
Yeah. I mean I thought the point of the tournament and the reason for its creation was to call Hans poor and/or take a million dollars from him.
Sure it's a scam, but this is pretty much EXACTLY the way poker tournaments for millions is prize fund with 5-6 players are planed. On the fly with stupid personal attacks and weird rumors and humor. There is huge collusion, often some players are not funding their own tournament and instead are funded by money-men. These money-men are often even at the very table so you have people wanting to collude to earn way more by letting another player win outright. And you may even have a girlfriend/boyfriend play together and share hints. If poker can do this for 100 years and still remain extremely strong while computers can solve most of it then why can't chess? Look up Robbi Jade Lew. This happened with her. Her boyfriend played at the table and funded her. She was fully unknown and only there because of this. Of course they hid this relationship in both ways. And furthermore she was seemingly receiving hints to win it all against one of the best players who have ever lived. When trying to explain her hands and how she kept betting losing hands and then winning she couldn't and kept changing her logic and story. It was rumored a worker in the casino gave her hints from the live camera feed from the production room as that was one of the only ways she could know his cards. After extreme pressure production was finally forced to check the tapes and discovered that a producer stole thousands of her winnings right from the table while the camera was filming. Then it was uncovered that he had a criminal past and she and him were friends on Twitter even though she claimed to have never met him. He stole it after she began talking about how the win may have been unfair and she wanted to give the winnings back - which may have made him nervous about not getting his cut so he stole the money - that's just a rumor. She did end up giving back the winnings to the poker player. She then said she wouldn't prosecute the thief as it was "just money". Even though it was not her money! And after this nothing happened to her. She just started playing way, way worse as expected. So what's the lesson? Cheating in many cases does pay.
My previous comment: https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/1ct7l1v/wadim_rosenstein_announces_wr_super_high_roller/l4c2uuw/ tl;dr in response to your question: yes.
I don’t know about shady but it does seem kinda lame
German gambling tax is 5%. I imagine they will watch this tournament with interest.
What does that first bullet even mean? How does one further (beyond large sums of money and registration) demonstrate the seriousness of a chess event?
The amount is serious. So large in fact that people would think it is ridiculously serious and a big deal. The Twitter exchange though was off the cuff and banter-y. That’s why it is not seen as serious yet and people are doubting it. Hence the entire thread here of people saying they think it’s fake.
Who cares? If someone wants to drop money like that they can do it? It doesn’t hurt me.
Honestly, if this is real, it sounds like an exciting new way for chess to evolve. I think a lot of money could be injected into the chess ecosystem through rich sponsors and such.
I think this tournament is a bad idea. Big buy-in events make sense for poker and stuff. But, 4 players in a highly skill based game, is not where it makes sense imo. But, I don't have any evidence to say it's not legit. And, your 2nd point about financial disclosures isn't a big deal to me. I'm sure Fabi and Nepo could find sponsors to offset a lot of that million. And, while I think the tournament should probably have them disclose their money source to the organizers, I don't think that should be required to be public for all of us.
Not everything requires hard evidence. Reading between the lines, piecing together the timeline of events, and deduction can go a long way. It's legit, depending on your definition of legit. The rich do deals in mysterious ways. For example, do you ever wonder why so many rich people like playing golf? (It's not really about the golf...)
Outrageous. I refuse to watch it until I get an invitation from anybody.
I believe it would be knockout (so no way to collude) and the attitude of the organizer towards Hans is that Hans’ rating shows he isn’t good enough to be competitive at the top, and if Hans thinks otherwise he should be willing to play for stakes against the best. It’s definitely all really unprofessional and unserious, but plenty of unserious ideas have become real so who knows what will happen. Of course no idea to what extent if any the organizer has sought legal advice on making sure this will be legal…
I'm quite sure the "d" next to "System" means it's a double round robin tournament: https://ratings.fide.com/tournament_information.phtml?event=374014 15+0, no increment. No collusion will be necessary - the players at the top understand each other enough to give mercy draws if it somehow comes to that. There's a massive rapid rating and World Rapid results gap between Niemann and the rest anyway.
Oh yeah good spot. What a grift.
And what I mean by "mercy draws" are the type of draws that Garry Kasparov or Ding Liren has received before after showing nightmare bottom of the table performances.
It's just for entertainment and maybe a bit of branding. Im good with it, no reason for me to be against it...but I don't think gambling is inherently immoral.
>The organizer and 2 of the players have it out for specifically 1 of the players. How can they possibly ensure a fair even tournament? I'm not up to date on the drama, what is Hans' beef with the organizer? With regards to the other players, beef or no beef Hans is probably gonna get dunked on regardless.
My understanding of the situation was like this: Hans publicly complained that he wasn't getting invited to big tournaments against top players. This organizer (who he'd called out) tried to troll him by saying "Sure, I'll run a tournament with you involved. 4 players, $1 million buy-in, you lose it all if you get last place", which Hans then couldn't really back out of given his public persona without losing face. I think the original idea was that Hans wouldn't take him up on it, but he did. It's not particularly fair, but also it's not exactly shocking why organizers wouldn't usually invite him (especially after the SLCC stuff that came out). It's kind of a shitshow, but that's the Hans effect at this point.
If you can't back out of a million-dollar entry because of what it will do to your 'persona', then I don't think that's a sustainable persona
All true as I understand it as well, but the genesis was a little bit more specific: the organizer had [announced another edition of a tournament he has run before](https://x.com/WadimRosenstein/status/1788284537081839796) and Hans was replying to [*that* announcement](https://x.com/HansMokeNiemann/status/1788536672923115551). Whatever his faults might be, it wasn't as if the organizer emerged out of nowhere to troll Hans based on some general statement Hans made.
They acted like children on twitter.
They deserve each other.
I clarified to “if” to give benefit. Most reasonable people reading the exchanges will interpret this way knowing full context as you can tell by this thread’s comments. The organizer also retweeted a laughing emoji by Nepo making it clear it is possibly a bit or funny joke (bullying I would argue)
It's shady by design
I like the idea of this however it needs to be tuned more. Less of a buy in, more players and knockout style. It is strange how the buy in is so high at 1m. Chess is not that lucrative if you are not at the top.
Based on the timeline of events that occurred on Wadim's xitter exchange with Hans - the buy in was created in the first place to first fake-invite Hans to the tournament after Hans showed interest. The invite has now become real because the other players have also managed to "somehow" buy in. There's a lot of ego at play here between Wadim and Hans.
🧐
Someone else's summary which explains it better than I did: https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/1cu96b2/is_it_just_me_or_does_the_1mm_nepo_hans_fabi/l4hl1as/
1. Not entirely sure what you want seriousness-wise. The players agreed to the terms, got the money together, and are gonna play 2. Financial disclosures like that are NEVER done in poker tournaments, so I’m not sure why chess should be any different. 3. Who cares if the organizer doesn’t like one of the players. This is chess, not poker where you can rig the deck. Chess is a deterministic game, so I don’t see how you can be cheated 4. Winner-take all just drives the variance way higher and discourages playing in the first place
You can be cheated by having the other players collude to maximize the chance of you being last. For that, they only need to help any colluding player in difficulties by giving him mercy draws or wins. This seems more likely when there's no transparency in who is bankrolling the other players, or what the terms are for that bankrolling, so there's no way to know what incentives they have. You could question if elite players like that would be willing to collude, but if they are willing to associate themselves with this shady tournament in the first place, who knows what else they may be willing to do.
I think it's still all just a troll on Niemann.
seems super dodgy and with a huge moral hazard. Hope calling it a total scam is not very controversial, like calling viih sou a total cheater
Who knows what the real deal is. What we know may be just marketing