Vincent Keymer’s story is one of results that made the whole chess world sit up — a 13-year-old outscoring grandmasters, and a 20-year-old knocking out Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana in the same week. Because so much of that story lives in who he beat and when, we’ll walk through his most important games and matches in prose — the verified results and what made each one special — rather than reconstructing move-by-move scores we can’t confirm. To replay the actual moves, the best sources are his Chess.com player page and public game databases.
1. The 2018 Grenke Open — a 13-year-old outscores an army of grandmasters
Every great career has an “arrival” moment. Keymer’s came in 2018 at the Grenke Chess Open, one of the biggest and strongest open tournaments in the world. He was 13 years old. He scored 8 out of 9 and finished ahead of 49 grandmasters — four of them rated above 2700 — for clear first place.
The number that made experts gasp was his performance rating of 2798, the highest ever recorded by an under-14 player. Longtime chess columnist Leonard Barden described it as “one of the most sensational results of all time.” A teenager beating the odd grandmaster is remarkable; a teenager winning an entire elite open is the sort of thing that happens once a generation. This was the result that told the world Keymer was for real.
2. The 2022 World Rapid Championship — runner-up to Carlsen
Fast-forward four years and Keymer was mixing it with the very best at speed chess. At the 2022 World Rapid Championship, he finished runner-up — second only to Magnus Carlsen, the best rapid player of the era. Rapid is a wild, high-variance format where a single blunder can end your day, so out-scoring almost the entire field over a two-day scramble is a real statement of both nerve and quality. It was the first sign that Keymer wasn’t just a strong grandmaster — he was knocking on the door of the world’s elite.
3. Weissenhaus 2025 — the Freestyle run that beat Carlsen and Caruana
This is the masterpiece of Keymer’s career so far. In February 2025 he won the inaugural Weissenhaus Freestyle Chess Grand Slam — the first event of the new Freestyle (Chess960) tour, where the pieces start in a randomized order and memorized theory is useless. The field was a murderer’s row of the world’s best, and Keymer went through it undefeated.
In the knockout stage he beat Alireza Firouzja, then Magnus Carlsen in the semifinal, and finally Fabiano Caruana in the final, clinching the match 1½–½. Remarkably, not one of his matches went to tiebreaks — he closed out each opponent with a win and a draw — and his overall accuracy across the event was an eye-watering 96.4%. The win was worth $200,000.
Beating Carlsen at anything is hard; beating him at Freestyle, where Carlsen’s own creativity is supposed to be a huge edge, was a genuine shock — Keymer himself noted that beating Carlsen usually invites a fierce counterpunch, and this time it never came. Taking down Carlsen and Caruana in the same week, from randomized starting positions where there’s nowhere to hide, is about as pure a demonstration of chess strength as exists.
4. Paris 2025 — a Freestyle podium finish
Keymer proved Weissenhaus was no fluke by fighting deep into the Paris leg of the 2025 Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour. He again battled through the rapid stage into the knockout, and although he was stopped by Hikaru Nakamura in the semifinals (the final was ultimately won by Carlsen), Keymer’s consistency at the very top of the Freestyle circuit confirmed that he’s one of the format’s premier players, not a one-tournament wonder.
5. Super Chess Classic Romania 2026 — a classical breakthrough
In May 2026, on his debut as a full player on the Grand Chess Tour, Keymer won the Super Chess Classic Romania in Bucharest. In a ten-player round-robin against elite classical opposition, he took the sole lead late and then sealed the title with a final-round win over Jorden van Foreest — the only decisive game of the round — to avoid a playoff, finishing on 6/9.
Keymer called it his “biggest classical tournament victory ever,” and it’s easy to see why: winning a super-tournament at slow time controls, where preparation and technique are everything, is the surest sign that his Freestyle heroics rest on a rock-solid classical foundation.
Why these games matter
Step back and a theme emerges. Keymer’s biggest results aren’t lucky one-offs — they’re big-stage wins against the strongest opponents alive, in every format there is: a sensational open at 13, a World Rapid silver medal, a Freestyle Grand Slam over Carlsen and Caruana, and a classical super-tournament crown. Few players in the world can say they’ve beaten the best at classical, rapid, and Chess960. That range is exactly what makes him such a difficult opponent.
Want to understand how he does it? See Vincent Keymer’s playing style for the strengths behind the scoreboard, or dig into his openings to see the lines he trusts under pressure. The numbers side of the story lives in his rating history.
FAQ
What is Vincent Keymer’s most famous game or result? Two stand out: his 2018 Grenke Open win at age 13 (with a record-breaking 2798 performance), and his run to win the 2025 Weissenhaus Freestyle Chess Grand Slam, where he beat Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana.
Did Vincent Keymer beat Carlsen? Yes — most famously in the semifinals of the 2025 Weissenhaus Freestyle Chess Grand Slam, en route to winning the whole event undefeated.
Has Keymer won a classical super-tournament? Yes — the 2026 Super Chess Classic Romania in Bucharest, on his Grand Chess Tour debut, which he called his biggest classical win.
What is Freestyle Chess? Also known as Chess960, it’s a variant where the back-rank pieces start in one of 960 randomized orders, so opening theory barely applies and players must think for themselves from move one. Keymer is one of its standout performers.
Keep exploring
Back to the Vincent Keymer profile · his playing style · his openings · his rating history · or browse all chess players.
Written and fact-checked by the Chess Lab Academy Editorial Team · Facts verified against Wikipedia, his FIDE profile, and Chess.com, as of July 2026 · Last verified 2026-07-10 · How we verify content.