World chess champion Carlsen is highest earning esports player of 2020 Tuesday, 19 January 2021
Norway’s world chess champion Magnus Carlsen has been named as the world’s highest-earning esports player of 2020 after successfully turning his hand at gaming during the coronavirus pandemic.
The 30-year-old grandmaster registered $510,587 (£375,795/€422,559) in prize money from
Chess24.
Carlsen, who first reached the top of the International Chess Federation world rankings in 2010, goes by the name of DrNykterstein on the computer game.
He was joined in the top 10 by American grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura, whose winnings totalled $325,000 (£239,183/€268,968) for the year.
The top 50 also featured two more
Chess 24 players, demonstrating the sport’s rise in the gaming world.
Airthings Masters | chess24
The second event on the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour is also the first Major, with a $200,000 prize fund. The winner gets $60,000 and a guaranteed place in the Grand Final. Magnus Carlsen, Hikaru Nakamura and Skilling Open winner Wesley So are among the 12-player field, which will be reduced to 8 players by a 3-day preliminary stage. The remaining players will battle it out in a knockout that takes us into 2021.
January 16 – 31 |
Tata Steel Masters | Wijk aan Zee, Netherlands
This year’s 83rd edition of the Tata Steel Chess Tournament has been cut to just the main event due to COVID-19, but if everything goes as planned that will still mean a 14-player round-robin featuring Magnus Carlsen, Fabiano Caruana, Ian Nepomniachtchi and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave from the world’s Top 5 and a host of young talents that include 17-year-old Alireza Firouzja.