The strongest classical tournament I have won: Keymer

Vincent Keymer was a wunderkind in German chess and was one destined for greatness and the 20-year-old showed why he is rated so highly with a flawless performance in the Quantbox Chennai Grandmasters tournament here.

Keymer drew a topsy-turvy eighth round match against Dutchman Jorden van Foreest on Thursday to claim the title with a game to spare. The icing on the cake was that he broke into the top 10 of the FIDE live ratings for the first time after his seventh-round win over Awonder Liang.

Keymer took up chess at the age of five and was taught the rules by his parents. At 11, he was winning tournaments and was called exceptional by the legendary Garry Kasparov in 2016 and the following year he became a Grandmaster. Keymer hasn’t looked back since.

Keymer provided a glimpse of his capabilities when he won the Weissenhaus Freestyle Chess Grand Slam against a world-class field on home turf early in the year. He scored wins over Alireza Firouzja, Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana in the final three knockout games to achieve a memorable triumph.

Asked where he rated the victory in Chennai, a delighted Keymer said: “It means a lot. Yeah, it’s very important, I think it’s the strongest classical tournament I have ever won, and also winning it with one round to go and quite some distance is really, really nice.”

Yet, he isn’t celebrating already. “I’m just gonna try to not ruin my performance tomorrow, and then I can really call it a very nice tournament, and yeah, that will really leave a good feeling for the upcoming events,” he added.

The encounter against van Foreest was probably his sternest test in the tournament here and he managed to come through unscathed and is happy about it. Having broken into the top 10, Keymer wants to stay put.