The event was co-organized by Chess.com and financed by the family of Igal Mark Scheinberg, an Israeli businessman and resident of the Isle of Man.

[a] The rest of the top eight, Grigoriy Oparin, Yu Yangyi, Vincent Keymer, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Alexandr Predke and Alexei Shirov, qualified for the FIDE Grand Prix 2022.

[3] However, due to complications arising from the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom, FIDE announced it would change the venue.

[9] A number of players declined invitations, including 12 of the top 20 qualifiers: Magnus Carlsen and Ian Nepomniachtchi (playing the World Chess Championship 2021); Teimour Radjabov, Sergey Karjakin and Jan-Krzysztof Duda (already qualified for the Candidates); Wang Hao (retired); and Ding Liren, Wesley So, Anish Giri, Leinier Domínguez, Viswanathan Anand and Veselin Topalov.

This included 5 of top 10 seeds: Alexander Grischuk, Richárd Rapport, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Hikaru Nakamura, Vidit Gujrathi;[11][12][13][14][15] as well as Lê Quang Liêm, Salem Saleh, Bassem Amin, Gadir Guseinov, Arkadij Naiditsch, Étienne Bacrot, Maxime Lagarde, Sandro Mareco, Alexander Motylev, Ilya Smirin, Aravindh Chithambaram and Robert Hess.