Vincent Keymer has played dozens of games against Magnus Carlsen. At times he was close to victory, even in their very first encounter in Karlsruhe when Keymer was 14 years old. But the world number one has always eluded him in all formats, whether blitz, rapid or classic chess. At the World Cup in Baku, however, Carlsen had to admit defeat to the 18-year-old professional from Saulheim in Rhenish Hesse for the first time.
Keymer had the white stones. According to his description, there was little going on on the board, “then I got a chance and took it. It was a one-time blunder, otherwise the game would have been drawn, which I would have been fine with.” What he meant was Carlsen’s incomprehensible withdrawal of his knight on move 36, which immediately cost him a pawn and the game twenty moves later. To reach the round of 16, Keymer still needs to go unbeaten in Thursday’s second leg or otherwise compete in a shortened play-off this Friday.
German number one even as a student
Keymer was number one in Germany when he was still a student. At least since he won one of the strongest open tournaments in the world in Karlsruhe at the age of 13, he has been under massive observation. Hopeful players from India like Dommaraju Gukesh and Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa or the Uzbek Nodirbek Abdusattorow had the more impressive results recently. It will be difficult to get into the top five in the world, Keymer recently said, as usual, modestly. He didn’t even want to start with the world championship title.
His performance in Wijk aan Zee at the beginning of the year probably also grounded him, where he learned a lesson from Carlsen and, despite a number of promising positions, was unable to beat a single one of his 13 opponents.
But now he is in good shape. He recently proved that with his second place in Biel. At the tournament in Switzerland he improved to 2701 Elo points and ranked 34th in the world. At the World Cup, which was played in knockout format, he was one of the strongest of the 206 participants in round two and started with convincing victories against 17-year-old Belgian Daniel Dardha and Iranian Amin Tabatabaei. Rasmus Svane from Lübeck is also in the running. In addition to the equivalent of 1.67 million euros, three places in the next World Cup Candidates Tournament are at stake.
Stefan Löffler Published/Updated: , Recommendations: 4 Stefan Löffler Published/Updated: Recommendations: 4 Christoph Becker Published/Updated: Recommendations: 21
For Carlsen, who decided not to defend his world championship title in classical chess this year, the prize money and the qualification are rather unimportant. The World Cup is the only important competition, apart from the World Championship in Fischer’s Chess, that he has never won. Despite this, he approached his task against Keymer in a particularly nonchalant, or rather careless manner.
There was no play the day before, and he took first place in the blitz titled Tuesday tournament on Chess.com, which acquired his Play Magnus group last year and in which he now has a financial stake. Before that, the Norwegian was looking for variety on the golf course. That proved to be a little too much variety against Keymer.
