Vincent Keymer emerges victorious at grenke Freestyle Chess Open

by Johannes Fischer
4/7/2026 – Vincent Keymer has done it! With a quick draw against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in the ninth and final round of the grenke Freestyle Chess Open in Karlsruhe, he secured overall victory and qualified for the 2027 Freestyle Chess World Championship. The draw left both Keymer and Vachier-Lagrave tied for first place with 7½ points each, but Keymer won thanks to his superior tiebreak score. Seven players finished half a point behind on 7/9. This group included Magnus Carlsen, who finished third on tiebreaks. | Photo: Nils Rohde / ChessBase
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Keymer edges MVL on tiebreaks

Vincent Keymer began the grenke Freestyle Open with 6 out of 6, and after this impressive start, three draws in the final rounds were enough to secure first place. Keymer's six wins at the start of the tournament also gave him a strong tiebreak score, and thus he was content with a quick draw against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in the final round. Vachier-Lagrave secured a substantial prize with the cautious draw.height="1"

Vincent Keymer and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave at the start of their game | Photo: Nils Rohde

Magnus Carlsen, the world number one and reigning Freestyle Chess world champion, could still have caught up with Keymer and Vachier-Lagrave with a win in the final round against the Indian grandmaster Aryan Chopra, but he had to settle for a draw. In 2025, Carlsen had won the grenke Freestyle Open convincingly with a perfect 9 out of 9 - this year he finished third. As the reigning world champion, he has already qualified for the Freestyle Chess World Championship 2027.

Aryan Chopra (right, with Black) held Carlsen to a draw in the final round | Photo: Nils Rohde

Ian Nepomniachtchi (right, with white) defeated Indian grandmaster Pranav Venkatesh in the final round and thereby moved up to fourth place overall | Photo: Nils Rohde

Carlsen takes a look at the competition | Photo: Nils Rohde

Some like it, others do not: in Freestyle Chess, the starting position is drawn at random | Photo: Nils Rohde

The top three places in the women's standings went to Harika Dronavalli of India, Alua Nurman of Kazakhstan and Dinara Wagner of Germany. All three have qualified for the first official FIDE Women's Freestyle Chess World Championship, which is scheduled to take place later this year.

Final standings - Freestyle Chess

Rk. Name Pts.  TB1 
1 Keymer, Vincent 7,5 57
2 Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime 7,5 54
3 Carlsen, Magnus 7 58
4 Nepomniachtchi, Ian 7 57
5 Sarana, Alexey 7 54,5
6 Duda, Jan-Krzysztof 7 54
7 Mendonca, Leon Luke 7 53
8 Abdusattorov, Nodirbek 7 52
9 Aryan Chopra, 7 51,5
10 Niemann, Hans Moke 6,5 58
11 Yakubboev, Nodirbek 6,5 53,5
12 Saric, Ivan 6,5 52
13 Maghsoodloo, Parham 6,5 51,5
Bortnyk, Olexandr 6,5 51,5
15 Murzin, Volodar 6,5 51
16 Gokerkan, Cem Kaan 6,5 50,5
17 Aronian, Levon 6,5 50
18 Fedoseev, Vladimir 6,5 49
Liang, Awonder 6,5 49
20 Mamedov, Rauf 6,5 48
Vokhidov, Shamsiddin 6,5 48
22 Tabatabaei, M. Amin 6,5 47
Meier, Georg 6,5 47
Wagner, Dennis 6,5 47
25 Karthikeyan, Murali 6,5 46
Kamsky, Gata 6,5 46
27 Pranav, V 6 52,5
Jobava, Baadur 6 52,5
29 Aravindh, Chithambaram VR. 6 52
30 Van Wely, Loek 6 51,5

...310 players

All available games - Freestyle Chess

The world elite competed in Karlsruhe in the grenke Freestyle Open, but alongside the main event, there was also an open tournament in classical chess, which was likewise strongly contested. IM Mukhammadzokhid Suyarov of Uzbekistan won the event with 8 points from 9 games on tiebreaks. Second and third places went to Dominik Horvath of Austria and Chongsheng Zeng of China, who also scored 8 points.

Final standings - Classical Chess

Rk. Name Pts.  TB1 
1 Suyarov, Mukhammadzokhid 8 57,5
2 Horvath, Dominik 8 52,5
3 Zeng, Chongsheng 8 50,5
4 Hong, Andrew 7,5 56,5
5 Koellner, Ruben Gideon 7,5 55,5
6 Moussard, Jules 7,5 54
7 Eljanov, Pavel 7,5 53
8 Kunin, Vitaly 7,5 50
9 Amar, Elham 7,5 46,5
10 Xiao, Tong(QD) 7 57,5
11 Prraneeth Vuppala, 7 54,5
12 Gupta, Abhijeet 7 53,5
Pajeken, Jakob Leon 7 53,5
Degraeve, Remy 7 53,5
15 Karthik Venkataraman, 7 53
16 Schmidek, Emil 7 50,5
Schneider, Ilja 7 50,5
Kalogridis, Antonios 7 50,5
19 Brodsky, David 7 50
20 Engel, Luis 7 49,5
21 Jin, Yueheng 7 49
22 Rozen, Eytan 7 48,5
23 Haug, Havard 7 48
Richter, Leonard 7 48
25 Brunke, Pascal 7 46,5
26 Sydykov, Bayastan 7 45
27 Barria, Jose 7 44,5
28 Kundianok, Vladislav 7 43,5
Koutlas, Nikolaos 7 43,5
30 Abdurakhmonov, Mukhammadali 6,5 56

...998 players

All available games - Classical Chess

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Topics: grenke Open 2026, Vincent Keymer
Johannes Fischer was born in 1963 in Hamburg and studied English and German literature in Frankfurt. He now lives as a writer and translator in Nürnberg. He is a FIDE-Master and regularly writes for KARL, a German chess magazine focusing on the links between culture and chess. On his own blog he regularly publishes notes on "Film, Literature and Chess".
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