Who is Vincent Keymer?
1. IM Vincent Keymer GER 2403, 8.0/9
2-4. GM Anton Korobov UKR 2664, GM Dmitry Gordievsky RUS 2630, GM Alexei Shirov LAT 2651, 7.5/9
5- 26. GM Maxime Lagarde FRA 2587, GM Falko Bindrich GER 2602, GM Daniel Sadzikowski POL 2583, GM Burak Firat TUR 2453, GM Gergely Antal HUN 2540, IM Alessio Valsecchi ITA 2510, GM Dmitry Andreikin RUS 2712, IM Jaime Santos Larasa ESP 2549, GM Dmitrij Kollars GER 2534, IM Eyal Grimberg ISR 2448, GM Wang Hao CHN 2713, GM Andreas Heimann GER 2574, GM Vadim Malakhatko BEL 2536, GM Konstantin Landa RUS 2613, GM Etienne Bacrot FRA 2718, IM Jonas Lampert GER 2532, IM Christopher Noe GER 2494, IM Michael Fedorovsky GER 2471, GM Alberto David ITA 2566, GM Vladimir Burmarkin RUS 2522, GM Victor Mikhalevski ISR 2557, FM Fabian Baenziger SUI 2356, 7.0/9 Total Participants: 787 players Time Control: Players receive 2 hours for 40 moves and 30 minutes for the rest of the game. There is no increment.
Two weeks ago I reported on the category- 20 superGM tournament GRENKE Chess Classic which was won by Fabiano Caruana ahead of Magnus Carlsen, Viswanathan Anand, Levon Aronian, and several other very strong grandmasters.
What I didn’t tell you yet was that alongside this event the same people organized a giant open tournament called the GRENKE Chess Open. This nine rounds Swiss system tournament had a first prize of € 15,000 ( around P950,000), attracted 787 participants including more than a hundred titled players and 49 international grandmasters. Famous names like Dmitry Andreikin, Etienne Bacrot, Anton Korobov, Richard Rapport, Alexei Shirov, Wang Hao, Rustam Kasimdzhanov, Love Van Wely, Victor Mikhalevski, etc. were vying for the top prizes but a 13-year-old international master by the name of Vincent Keymer, seeded 99th at the start of the event, score 8/9 to win first place. 8/9, by the way, surpasses the required score for a GM norm by 1.5 points and is equivalent to a performance rating of almost 2800!
Keymer previously was the youngest player ever to score an IM norm, at 10 years three months, and even drew praised from Garry Kasparov as a “truly extraordinary talent,” but nothing prepared us for such a great accomplishment. In fact, a few months ago Vincente participated in the World Junior (Under-20) Championship held in Tarvisio, Italy and finished in 61st place. For goodness sake he is not even in the Under-16 Top 100 player list!
I believe Keymer’s success is a success of the project of the GRENKE Leasing Group which created a Bundesliga (German League) team in Deizisau that, first and foremost, gives German players the chance to prove themselves. Matthias Blübaum, Andreas Heimann and Vincent Keymer are the young talents which they are developing. They are assisted by current and former members of the German national team such as Georg Meier, Alexander Graf, and Rustem Dautov. Last November the former world championship candidate Peter Leko jointed the fold and took charge of Keymer’s training.
Vincent Keymer’s fantastic victory entitles him to play in the superGM tournament GRENKE Chess Classic next year where the Top 10 of the world regularly play. He is a bit hesitant to take up on that offer because of the huge disparity in their ELO ratings, but anyway he has an entire year to prepare for that.
It is now time to take a look at his games, more specifically the last 4 games which he all won. First the Italian IM Valsecchi did not survive the opening.
The main line is 7.Nb3 Ne5 8.e4 Bb4 9.Qe2 d6 but Keymer’s opening strategy in this tournament is a conservative one — avoid all sharp lines and just go for development.
Black avoids 10... Bxc3 11. Be3 Qa5 12.Rc1 0–0 13.Qb3 Bf6 14.Rfd1 when it is White who has the initiative. This might be the best course of action though as after the text move White still gets the initiative at no material investment.
The idea is 22.dxe6 fxe6 (of course not 22...Qxe6? 23.Qxe6 fxe6 24.Rxd6) 23.Bxb7 Rxb7 24.Rc6 White is winning material. For example there is 24...Rd7 25.Rd2! h6 26.Qd1 Rfd8 27.Bb6 etc.
The threat now is 23. Bxb7 Rxb7 24.Bg5! Qe6 25.Rc6 winning a piece.
Black is not out of the woods. His rook and bishop are both attacked and 30...Re8 is met by 31.Qxe7— the queen is immune because of the back rank mate.
Better is 31...Qd8 but even then after 32.Rc7 Bf6 33.Rd7 Qc8 34.Rxf7 Kh8 35.e4 White is winning.
The queen has to abandon her defense of the b8 rook.
The German GM Buhmann, known as an attacking fanatic, had a hallucination in mid-attack and was defeated easily. Vincent’s opponent in the penultimate round was the 31-year-old Hungarian GM Gabor Papp.
[As BW readers know the main line here is 7.0–0 e5 8.e4 c6 9.h3 Qb6 and so on and so forth. When going over the statistics I was surprised to know that the text move is a rarity but scores 85% in tournament play. Obviously the idea is to prevent Black’s ...e7–e5.]
7...e5 [Nevertheless! This new move gives up a pawn for the initiative. It is also interesting that both Stockfish 8 and Komodo 11, both chess engines which treasure their pawns, recommend this move.] ...Nxd3.]
[17...Bxa1 18. Qxa1 White may be down the exchange but the Q+N attack along the long diagonal is fatal for Black. The immediate threat is 18...— 19.Nf6+ Kh8 20.Nd7+ Kg8 21.Nxf8 Kxf8 (21...Bf5 22.Qd4) 22.Qh8+ Ke7 23.Rd1 the black king cannot survive in the center] [25...Nb2 is correct]
[Threatening
26. Nxb7! Rxb7 27. Bxc6! Bxc6 28.Rxd8+ Bf8 29.Rc8 Bd7 30.Ra8
The pawn on c5 now becomes a monster. White removes the bishop keeping an eye on c8.
The rest is a matter of technique.
The following is the attack Keymer had to endure from Richard Rapport in the last round.
Rapport, Richard (2715) — Keymer, Vincent (2403) [D54] 3rd GRENKE Chess Open 2018 Karlsruhe (9), 02.04.2018 1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 Be7 5.e3 h6 6.Bh4 0–0 7.Rc1 Nbd7 8. cxd5 exd5 9. Bd3 c6 10. Bg3 Re8 11.h3 Bb4 12.Nf3 Ne4 13.Bf4 c5 14.0– 0 Bxc3 15.bxc3 Nb6 16.Ne5 f6 17.Ng4 c4 18.Bb1 Next move for White is f3, which is why Black must respond vigorously.
This is where White goes wrong. A better way to continue is 28. e4! Kd6 29.exf5 Rf7 30.Qxf4+ Kc6 31.Re5 and White is doing well with 4 connected passed pawns on the kingside.
28... Kd7 29. Qxf5+ Kc6 30. Qxf4 Be6 31.e4 Qg8 32.Qh6 Kc7 33.Kh1 Rf8 34. Re2 Rh7 35. Qd2 Kb8 36. Rce1 dxe4 37. fxe4 Bd7 38. Rf2 Re8 39. Qf4+ Ka8 40. Nf3 Rf8 41. Qh2 Na4 42. Re3 a6! 43. Qe5 Bxh3! 44.Kg1
[44.gxh3 Rxh3+ 45.Rh2 Rg3! threatening Rfxf3 followed by mate on g1]
Vincent Keymer was a bit fortunate that, because of his low rating, his GM opponents were all trying to beat him. In the year to come we will see how he grows — will he be able to defeat GMs who are content with a draw against him?