Rainer Buhmann vs Vincent Keymer, Reti Opening, A06
2018 Grenke Chess Open, Round 7, 04/01/18
Young Vincent Keymer, who is only 13 years old won the Grenke Open tournament. In a field with tens of strong grandmasters he managed to come ahead of the competition (and he was the 99th seed). This is his game from round 7 against a German GM Reiner Buhmann, who is rated 2588 FIDE (Vincent is 2403), a formidable opponent.
They went into a Reti opening, but as it often is, the game transposed to a variation of the Queen’s Gambit Declined, and soon turn out to be a weird Slav/Catalan/QGD hybrid. Vincent Keymer played a novelty in a sort-of theoretical position (with 11 games played) and it got him a slightly favorable position with white having an isolated queen’s pawn. The position was still almost equal and it could have gone either way had Buhmann not gone all in with a bishop sacrifice. After he sacked the piece he had a forced draw and a repetition but he decided to go for a win (a piece down?!) and Keymer punished him swiftly. The position was easily defendable and Buhmann, being a GM, must have known that. The fact that he still risked shows how much he had underestimated his young opponent. I’m sure he’d have gone for a draw if it were Magnus sitting opposite.
Vincent Keymer won the last four rounds of the Grenke Open and thus secured victory with an incredible score of 8/9. This means that he gets to play in the elite portion of the event next year – the Grenke Chess Classic.