Hans Moke Niemann

American GM

“We have no reserves, because one of our reserves couldn’t get a visa — or could have had to stay in France to get his visa. Unfortunately, he dropped out. So, it’s not much work. I ordered delivery food, I put in the lineup, and I guess I sponsor the team.

Usually, you see the sponsors kind of weighing down the team — where a sponsor will pay a lot of money and they’ll be sort of hurting the team. I guess that’s why we have the amateurs, so we have someone to finance us measly chess players.

But in this case, I’m the sponsor, sort of. My company is sponsoring, and they’re actually helping the team. So that’s a rare thing, because usually when you have these pro-am type events, whoever is sponsoring is always really being carried by the sponsoree. So, I suppose this is an exception.

About the amateur player, I had so many applications. So many Twitter DMs. I went through everyone’s online accounts and I found a very talented player from Vietnam who had a 2900 online blitz rating, which is quite impressive.

He’s doing very well so far. He won a great game, so it’s proving to be a good choice. But I think in blitz he’ll be even more dangerous.”