GMVincent Keymer

Vincent Keymer was born in Mainz, Germany, in 2004. He grew up surrounded by music: his father was a concert pianist and his mother an orchestral cellist. He took piano lessons himself. His parents taught him chess at five. He helped Germany win European under-18 team titles in 2015 and 2017. Former world-title challenger Peter Leko became his coach. At thirteen, Keymer won the 2018 Grenke Open ahead of forty-nine grandmasters.

He completed his final grandmaster norm at the 2019 Grand Swiss, with the title formally approved in 2020. In 2022, he won the Prague Challengers after a playoff with Hans Niemann. Later that year, he finished runner-up in the World Rapid Championship. He played first board for Germany at the 2024 Olympiad. He also joined Gukesh Dommaraju's preparation team for the 2024 world championship victory. In February 2025, Keymer won the Weissenhaus Freestyle Grand Slam. He defeated Magnus Carlsen in the semifinal and Fabiano Caruana in the final. His first German national championship followed that May.