FIDE World Cup: Diptayan stuns Nepomniachtchi

Diptayan Ghosh became a GM at 17. At one point in the next decade, the now 27-year-old chose to deviate from his path of chess on to a corporate career.

- Rutvick Mehta

Two years down that road, he switched lanes again, largely out of boredom but also after watching his friends continue to make their moves on the board.

Amidst those friends and a large 206-player field at the FIDE World Cup in Goa, Ghosh produced the most standout result of the tournament thus far by taking down 12th seed Ian Nepomniachtchi in the second round on Wednesday.

Seeded 117th and rated 2573, the Indian drew with white in Game 1 on Tuesday and went better with black in Game 2, leaving the Russian, rated 2732, shaking his head as an impending defeat loomed.

Nepomniachtchi - or Nepo as he is popularly known - shares the current world blitz championship title with Magnus Carlsen, is a back-to-back Candidates winner of 2021 and 2022, and a two-time World Championship runner-up.

"This is the biggest win of my career," Ghosh told HT. "Defeating Nepo in a match is truly special, and that too in a World Cup. So, I'm quite happy with the result."