Richard Rapport vs Vincent Keymer, Queen’s Gambit Declined, Modern Variation D50
2018 Grenke Chess Open, Round 9, Karlsruhe, Germany, 04/03/18
The young German IM Vinced Keymer stirred up the chess world in recent days! He won the Grenke Open! Despite being the 99th seed, this little genius managed to outperform the competition with brilliant, precise, aggressive and imaginative chess. In a field dominated by strong grandmasters and superstars such ac Alexey Shirov, Ettiene Bacrot and Wang Hao, this inexperienced talent came in 1st place! An unbelievable achievement!
He scored 8/9, with seven wins and two draws, and in round 9 he played against Richard Rapport, who is over 2700, with the black pieces. They played a Queen’s Gambit Declined position in a Karlsbad pawn structure and it was equal until Rapport provoked Vincent Keymer into advancing his kingside pawns to close down white’s pieces. This resulted in Rapport sacrificing a piece for two pawns and a major attack. But, young Keymer defended at almost engine strength and managed to survive the onslaught. In the end, the tables turned and he was the one attacking. He finished the game with a nice tactic after which Rapport resigned.
Vincent Keymer is 2403 ELO at the moment, and he is being coached by Peter Leko, so he will most probably improve rapidly in the coming years. He played the Grenke Open in 2016., when he finished 90th, and in 2017, when he finished 69th. This year he won! And there is an elite portion of the event, The Grenke Classic, in which the only players that play are super grandmasters and starts such as Carlsen or Caruana, and the rules are that the winner of the open portion plays in the classic next year! So Vincent Keymer will face superstars in 2019.!