Vincent Keymer with Indian grandmaster Pentala Harikrishna and the Polish grandmaster Radosław Wojtaszek in Manilva, Spain. (Vincent Keymer/instagram and FIDE)
Gukesh D’s opening gambits and match strategies that ended dethroned Ding Liren and crowned him as the youngest-ever chess world champion were prepared at a hotel room in Spain’s coastal town of Manilva.
The work behind the scenes often went late into night and was exhaustive, Vincent Keymer, one of Gukesh’s seconds for his World Championship match against Ding Liren, revealed in an interview with German publication Der Spiegel.
After he was crowned the world champion on Thursday, Gukesh named Keymer, the German sensation, as one of the players who was a part of his back-room team. “Gukesh asked me during the Grand Chess Tour in Warsaw in June to be part of his team for the World Championship,” Vincent was quoted as saying.
It is rare for a young player with his own ambitions to become a world champion someday to be a part of his direct rival’s team. But Keymer couldn’t refuse Gukesh when the Indian teenager approached him after sealing his place in the World Championship tie by winning the Candidates tournament in April.
“I myself saw it as an opportunity to gain experience with work at the absolute highest level… Among other things, with a view to qualification for the candidate tournament 2026,” ,” Keymer told Spiegel.
At the Candidates tournament, the player who would challenge Gukesh for the world crown will be determined.
Keymer said that in the months leading up to the World Championship, multiple training camps were held. After Gukesh beat Ding in Game 14 to dethrone the Chinese and become the new champion, Keymer posted a photo of him from Manilva with Indian grandmaster Pentala Harikrishna and the Polish grandmaster Radosław Wojtaszek.
“During the World Championship itself, I was in Manilva, Spain, together with Pentala Harikrishna and Radoslaw Wojtaszek, from where we supported Gukesh’s opening preparation,” Keymer told the German daily. “The work itself was intensive and exhausting, especially during the match we often worked late into the night. I was all the more pleased that the efforts of everyone involved were ultimately crowned with success.”
Keymer has been considered to be the greatest German chess talent since Emanuel Lasker, the only German chess world champion to this day. Lasker held the title 1894 to 1921.
Grzegorz Gajewski, another integral member of Team Gukesh, told The Indian Express they were taking a ‘risk’ by including Keymer but it ‘paid off because he brought a lot of interesting ideas.’
“With Vincent, we knew that he is a very nice person, a very strong player. But we didn’t know how he works. We didn’t know what he would actually bring to the team. We were kind of taking some kind of a risk. It paid off because he brought a lot of interesting ideas and a lot of just willingness to work hard. But that’s something we were hoping for,” Gajewski said.
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