In a revealing and articulate interview last year with New in Chess, widely considered the world’s best chess magazine, Keymer said that he aims to combine a classical style with computer influenced exact play.
Vincent Keymer made a career breakthrough this week when the 20-year-old German knocked out Magnus Carlsen at the Weissenhaus Grand Slam in the classical Freestyle format which the world No 1 now prefers.
He and Carlsen are the only players who do not analyse the starting position for each game as a pair, in Gukesh’s case apparently because last year he took advice on the best move and lost quickly.
The 20-year-old scored a career-best result by defeating the World No 1 in the Norwegian’s favourite format, and leads 1-0 against the US champion, Fabiano Caruana, in the final.
The difficulty with watching Freestyle is that the opening stages, which for the participants are of major importance and define what follows, are hard to understand for the casual spectator, although the later play often transposes into familiar structures and patterns.
