GM Vincent Keymer won the ALREH GM tournament of the Rubinstein Memorial 2024 on Sunday, despite suffering two losses in the end. With an excellent starting result of six points from seven games, the 19-year-old German grandmaster had already secured the title on Saturday with one round to go.
To mark the 60th edition of the memorial tournament for GM Akiba Rubinstein – one of the strongest players in history who never won the world championship title – a strong 10-player round-robin tournament was part of the annual festival. The tournament, which saw an average Elo rating of 2687, took place from August 17 to 25, 2024 at the Spa Theater in Polanica-Zdroj in southern Poland, just north of the Czech border.
Final score
You could say that Keymer’s tournament lasted two rounds too long. After round seven with five wins and two draws, the German player, who we could still call a teenager for a few months, was really on his game – and the live ratings showed it. He had entered the top 20 at full steam and finished 15th with a rating gain of 22 points. Rather unexpectedly, he suffered his first loss and then another, ending up in (still a very good) 19th place with an Elo gain of 11 points.
Keymer’s victory against GM Andrei Volokitin in round six was quite entertaining. With a score of 4.5/5, the young German must have been brimming with confidence and attacked his Ukrainian opponent’s king like a caveman – and it worked! Volokitin, who had previously sacrificed his b-pawn, was a little too eager to win it back and his monarch was simply too weak afterward:
The next day, Keymer again played the white pieces, starting again with his h-pawn, but GM Sam Shankland responded better and eventually wore down his opponent deep in a rook endgame.
In the final round, number one seed GM Jan-Krzysztof Duda, who had a disappointing 50 percent record, decided to push for victory. He moved both his h- and g-pawns towards Keymer’s kingside, but decided the game on the queenside:
Apart from GM Radoslaw Wojtaszek, who drew all his games (while keeping in mind that his wife won the Tbilisi Grand Prix), GM David Navara was the only other player to remain undefeated. The Czech grandmaster drew eight times and won once, against Duda in the penultimate round, which secured Keymer the tournament victory:
How can I watch it again?
The games can be viewed on our special ALREH Akiba Rubinstein Grandmaster Tournament 2024 event page.
The 2024 ALREH Akiba Rubinstein Grandmaster Tournament was held in Polanica-Zdroj, Poland, from August 17 to 25, 2024. It was a single round robin tournament with 10 players. The time control was 90 minutes for each player, with a bonus of 15 minutes after the 40th move and an additional 30 seconds from the first move.
