At his first start on the Champions Chess Tour, the German chess teenager Vincent Keymer managed to qualify for the quarterfinals out of 16 participants.
In the preliminary round, which was played according to the principle of "everyone against everyone", the 17-year-old won against top ten players such as the Dutchman Anish Giri and Shakhrijar Mamejarov from Azerbaijan.
On Wednesday evening, in his quarter-final match over four 15-minute games, he meets the Russian Jan Nepomnjaschtschi, who failed as a World Cup challenger to Magnus Carlsen in December and has now finished the preliminary round at the "Airthings Masters" as the best.
Keymer, who finished eighth in the knockout stages, has also secured participation in the second tournament of the tour in March.
"The result is fantastic for me, even though I could have scored a lot more points with the way the games were," said the high school graduate from Saulheim.
Keymer had six wins and four draws out of 15 games in the preliminary round, just one win less than Carlsen.
The world champion from Norway had contracted Covid-19 shortly before the tournament.
Carlsen, who is not feeling fit yet, can still be there because the games will be played online.
After the preliminary round, the 31-year-old finished second, although he had lost to the 16-year-old Indian Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa, among others.
Praggnanandhaa had previously attracted attention for his prowess in chess, but the win over Carlsen was his biggest to date, Indian media wrote.
Despite the respectable success, the young man missed the quarter-finals as twelfth in the preliminary round.
The Airthings Masters kicks off Season 3 of the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour, which he initiated at the start of the pandemic.