Keymer Sole Leader Going Into Final Day At Grenke

Easter Sunday was another good day on home soil for GM Vincent Keymer, who beat GM Hans Niemann and drew with GM Magnus Carlsen to emerge as the sole leader of the Grenke Chess Freestyle Open with two rounds to go. Three players are trailing Keymer by half a point: GMs Alexey Sarana, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, and Pranav Venkatesh.

Round eight will be on Monday, April 6, starting at 4 a.m. ET / 10:00 CEST / 1:30 p.m. IST, followed by the final round on the same day at 10 a.m. ET / 16:00 CEST / 7:30 p.m. IST.

Round 7 Standings (Top 15)

Round 6 Results (Top 10 Boards)

The position for the sixth round was #131.

The starting position for the morning round wasn't exactly a good one for securing exciting chess. With those four bishops looking at each other, almost everyone went for a double fianchetto, obviously, and eventually this led to a lot of trades on many boards.

Keymer noted: “The starting position, I have to admit, wasn’t too difficult for White. It’s very difficult to break the symmetry. Most games were quite symmetrical, and it was very difficult for White to create anything.” As a result, uneventful draws were seen in Carlsen-Sarana, Nepomniachtchi-Vachier-Lagrave, and Murzin-Dominguez.

On the top board, the same scenario would have played out in Niemann-Keymer if the American grandmaster didn't fall for a nasty trick. Since it was a knight check that was kind of hanging in the air, it was surprising to see such a strong player falling for it, but Keymer had an explanation.

“It was always there, also with the queen on d2,” he said. “I think the whole point of why he missed it is that he played 14.Qd3 just to avoid all kinds of Nf3s. With the queen on d2 [they are there] much more often. I guess that was kind of the psychological issue, that once the queen was on d3, he somewhat forgot that this still might be a problem.”

Board three also ended in a draw, but this one was far from boring. GM Daniel Hausrath continued his excellent run by drawing this year's Tata Steel Chess winner, GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov. The latter took a bit of a risk in the end, and Hausrath could even have played on, but taking the draw was understandable and simply another great result.

GM Jan-Krzysztof Duda moved to 5/6 with a good win against GM Ivan Saric, who somehow failed to get his light-squared bishop in the game in what was a Benoni kind of middlegame. Duda's play looked quite impressive here.

After a long maneuvering game, GM Nihal Sarin managed to take down GM Maksim Chigaev. The Spanish GM was doing fine, but without realizing it, he created chances for his opponent when he pushed his d-pawn. Finding 44.Rg2! quickly was a big step to a full point for the Indian GM. 

Harika scored another excellent result in her quest to finish among the top-three female players who will qualify for the women's world championship in this freestyle format, to be held later this year. On Saturday night she drew with GM Parham Maghsoodloo, and on Sunday morning she split the point with GM Levon Aronian and could have played for more:

On a final note regarding this sixth round, there were some interesting tactics on board 27:

Round 7 Results (Top 10 Boards)

The position for round seven was #549.

With all those draws in the sixth round, Keymer was already leading by a full point at this point. His next opponent was a familiar one for him in freestyle and one that he had beaten before: Carlsen! (The position might have felt familiar as well: he had beaten GM Levon Aronian in a game in Las Vegas last year with this one.)

The game was a great fight for the spectators but less enjoyable for the players. Apparently, the playing conditions weren't ideal (as in: quite hot), which surely affected the quality at the end.

Commenting to the Norwegian channel TV2, Carlsen said after the players had agreed to a draw: “Now it's sunny outside, and it’s f*****g one million degrees in the playing hall. It didn’t feel like there was any oxygen getting to my head at all. I’m insanely lucky I didn’t lose the game. At one point, I even considered just resigning because I was so damn fed up.”

At one point, I even considered just resigning because I was so damn fed up.
—Magnus Carlsen

GMs Nodirbek Abdusattorov and Ian Nepomniachtchi, also a point behind Keymer with both on five points, drew their game which helped neither of them. The three players on five points that did win their games were Vachier-Lagrave, Sarana, and Pranav.

Niemann saw his perfect 5/5 turn into 5/7. First there was that blunder in the morning, and against Vachier-Lagrave he tragically missed the draw just when it was there for the taking, after having defended a pawn-down endgame very well for a long time. A very tough day for the American grandmaster, who was just very unfortunate twice.

In an all-Indian clash on board five, underdog Pranav (19) managed to beat Nihal (21). The game saw a very interesting opening phase that left the younger of the two on top, and Pranav continued strongly as well.

GM Rafael Leitao has provided an analysis of the Game of the Day below:

Speaking of underdogs, the fun was over for Hausrath, who lost quickly against Sarana in this round. The German player had some chances in what was a very complicated opening, but eventually ended up in a position being two pawns down for nothing.

Below are the pairings for round eight:

Round 8 Pairings | Top 10

(See all pairings here.)

How to watch?

The Grenke Freestyle Chess Open is a classical tournament in the Freestyle Chess (Chess960) format that serves as a qualifier for the FIDE Freestyle Women's Chess World Championship 2026 and the FIDE Freestyle Chess World Championship 2027. The event takes place alongside a regular classical tournament, the Grenke Chess Open. The Freestyle Chess event is a nine-round Swiss with a time control of 90+30 for the entire game, with a prize fund of over 200,000 euros.

See also:

• Day 3: Keymer, Niemann Still Perfect, To Clash On Easter Morning
• Day 2: Carlsen, Nepomniachtchi, Niemann, Keymer Among 19 Players On 3/3 At Grenke
• Day 1: Carlsen On 10/10 As Grenke Chess Festival Takes Off In Karlsruhe
• Carlsen, Keymer, Abdusattorov Headline Massive Grenke Chess Field