The Heights of Vincent Keymer and Zhu Jiner
The two hottest players in chess are 20-year-old Vincent Keymer, and 22-year-old Zhu Jiner.
Keymer had a great first half of the month in the European Team Championship, which he has backed up with another outstanding performance in the European Club Cup. Scoring 5/6, the only blemish was a loss against Arjun Erigaisi, with whom he was flip-flopping for fourth place in the live world rankings. Following the tournament, though, it is indeed Keymer who has the edge, at 2772.6 on 2700chess to Erigaisi’s 2768.9, with Anish Giri squished in between. Currently, he has gained 51.6 points in the last 12 months, which is notable at any level but truly remarkable for a 2700+ player.
While the top three spots in the world rankings have held firm, with Magnus Carlsen ahead of Hikaru Nakamura and Fabiano Caruana, there has been consistent jostling for the spots behind them, and this is as competitive as it has ever been with 7 players ranked 4th to 10th all within 10 points of each other. Keymer’s recent form bodes well for him heading into the World Cup, as he remains an outsider for the next Candidates; it would be a shame if he were not able to secure a place, but given that he now out-rates all the other participants, he can fairly be argued the favourite in next month’s event.
Zhu, meanwhile, is doing something even more impressive on the Women’s side. She also had a sparkling European Club Cup, scoring 5/6 with a couple wins over her top rivals, and stands to gain 9-10 points in October. On the live rankings, she is at 2578.8, with roughly 10- and 20-point gaps on her nearest competitors, Lei Tingjie and Women’s World Champion Ju Wenjun, and nearly 40 points on 5th-place Aleksandra Goryachkina.
Most notably, when the ratings become official on November 1st, Zhu will have moved into the top 10 all-time highest-rated Women’s players, jumping over Susan Polgar into 9th place.
Having climbed almost 80 points in the last year, she can begin to cast a thought at chasing 2600, just as Keymer may find 2800 to have become a realistic goal. Undoubtedly, both will be focused on extending their current form for as long as they can.
Photo by ECU / Mark Livshitz
