Vincent Keymer wins last Titled Tuesday of 2025

by Johannes Fischer
1/6/2026 – Vincent Keymer has enjoyed a very successful 2025. He went from one success to the next and, from January 2025 to January 2026, gained 43 rating points, starting 2026 as the world number four. At the World Blitz Chess Championship in Doha, which concluded on 30 December 2025, he finished only 38th with 12 points from 19 games. On the same day, however, he won the final Chess.com Titled Tuesday of 2025, rounding off his chess year with another success. | Photo: Vincent Keymer at the 2025 World Rapid and Blitz Championships | Photo: Lennart Ootes
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Ending the year on a high note

At the World Blitz Championship, Vincent Keymer entered the event with a blitz rating of 2599 as number 62 on the starting list. From that perspective, a 38th-place finish, a final score of 12 out of 19 and a rating gain of 17.7 points represent a success, although as world number four, Keymer may have hoped for more.

However, the six blitz games scheduled for 30 December at the World Blitz Championship did not seem to provide him with enough chess, as once the preliminary stage of the event had ended after 19 rounds, he immediately went on to play in the renowned Titled Tuesday on Chess.com. Every Tuesday, title-holders and the world's best players compete in an 11-round online blitz tournament.height="1"

The World Blitz Championship proved to be good preparation, and Keymer won the online tournament convincingly. He scored 10 points from 11 games (+9, =2) and finished a full point ahead of Jan-Krzysztof Duda and Alexey Sarana, who shared second and third place with 9 out of 11 each.

He also produced an entertaining game in round two against Luong Vu Nguyen, which remained exciting right to the end.

With this Titled Tuesday victory, Keymer makes a strong start to 2026. His first major tournament of the new year will be played from 16 January to 1 February in Wijk aan Zee.

Titled Tuesday games

Chess.com Titled Tuesday

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Topics: Titled Tuesday, 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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Video

60m The Two Knights

This entry into the 60 minutes series concentrates on the Modern variation of the Italian game where White opens the centre early : 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bc4 Nf6 4 d4 exd4 5 e5!. This line can be reached by various move orders, most frequently from the Scotch 3 d4 exd4 4 Bc4. It's a sharp variation and Grandmasters such as Evgeny Sveshnikov have used it frequently,with very good results. It's a perfect line for club players to adopt which is relatively easy to learn and which contains many traps. All the main responses are covered here, including 5...d5, 5...Ng4 and 5...Ne4 and the conclusion is that is is difficult for Black to equalize in a straightforward way. Problems are being posed, which over the board might prove tough to solve.