Diptayan pulls off a stunner in Chess World Cup

IMAGE: Indian Grandmaster Diptayan Ghosh stunned former world championship challenger Ian Nepomniachtchi in the World Chess Cup, in Panjim, on Wednesday. Photograph: Michal Walusza/FIDE

Grandmaster Diptayan Ghosh caused the biggest upset of the World Chess Cup, ousting former world championship challenger Ian Nepomniachtchi of Russia after winning the second game of the second round, in Panjim, on Wednesday.

In what was simply a one-sided affair, Ghosh did not give any chance to Nepomniachtchi who was rather erratic with his white pieces. The opening gave Ghosh an unclear position early and Nepomniachtchi missed a simple tactics early in the middle game which cost him a pawn.

Once the technicalities arrived, Ghosh was at the top of his game and kept increasing pressure by exchanging pieces at regular intervals. Soon, it was a rook and pawns endgame on board in no time.

“This is certainly the biggest victory of my chess career, beating Nepo in a match,” said Ghosh after his win.

Earlier, Grandmaster P Harikrishna became the first Indian to advance to the third round after crushing Arseniy Nesterov, also of Russia, while world junior champion V Pranav suffered a huge defeat against Aryan Tari of Norway.

A leader with the benefit of winning with black, Pranav blew his chances away and his loss to Tari means that both will now play the tie-break games to determine the way ahead.

Indian Results (Round 2 game 2):

Nogerbek Kazybek (Kaz) D Gukesh; Arjun Erigaisi beat Martin Petrov (Bul); Temur Kuybokarov (Aus) drew with R Praggnanandhaa; Surya Shekhar Ganguly Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (Fra); Ian Nepomniachtchi (Fid) lost to Diptayan Ghosh 0.5-1.5; Aronyak Ghosh Levon Aronian (Usa); Oro Faustino (Arg) Vidit Santosh Gujrathi; Aravindh Chithambaram Karthik Venkataraman; Nihal Sarin Kourkoulos-Arditis Stamatis (Gre); P Harikrishna beat Arseniy Nesterov (Fid) 1.5-0.5; Pa Iniyan Nguyen Thai Dai Van (Cze); Murali Karthikeyan Idani Pouya (Iri); Nikita Vituigov (Eng) drew with S L Narayanan 1-1, goes to tiebreak; Dmitrij Kollars (Ger) drew with M Pranesh; V Pranav lost to Aryan Tari (Nor) 1-1 goes to tiebreak; Raunak Sadhwani drew with Robert Hovhannisyan (Arm) 1-1 goes to tiebreak.