Grandmaster Diptayan Ghosh had cut down on playing chess tournaments to pursue studies from 2017.

A Masters degree in economics from the prestigious Delhi School of Economics, popularly referred as “D School”, saw him landing a job at IDFC First Bank in Mumbai as a business analyst.

That was in July 2021. Soon Ghosh started missing the sport he fell in love with at a young age and decided to quit his well-paying job on December 31 last year.

Now back to full-fledged chess playing, Ghosh had that winning feeling after a long time. Last Friday, the 24-yearold won the Rochefort Chess Festival Masters 2023 in France and from Monday he will be playing at the Cannes Open. Then he will be featuring in the Berlin Open from March 4.

“I am enjoying my game once again,” he told The Telegraph on Monday from Cannes.

“I feel pretty good winning the tournament since this was my first over-the-board event after quitting my job. But the end could have been much better, as I had chances of winning the tournament alone. Due to the loss in the last round (to Bulgarian GM Momchil Nikolov), I had to win the tournament on tiebreaks,” he said.

The setback in the last round allowed four more players, along with Ghosh, to finish at seven points out of the maximum nine.

It did not affect Ghosh’s championship chances though. IM Kirk Ghazarian (US), GM Harsha Bharathakoti (India), Nikolov and IM Peio Duboue (France) were placed second to fifth respectively according to tie-breaks.

A South Point alumnus and two-time winner of The Telegraph Schools’ Chess Championship, Ghosh became a Grandmaster in March 2016 when he was 17.

Before the Rochefort Chess Festival started, he had an Elo rating of 2553. This win will give him six or seven points.

The tournament, where compatriot and Grandmaster Krishnan Sasikiran was the top seed, had prize money of €8000 and Ghosh took home a winner’s cheque of €1500.

“I was planning to start playing chess professionally for quite some time. I had to quit the job because I wasn’t entitled to the leaves required for any professional player. I worked for oneand-a-half years as I needed some sort of financial security. As you know playing chess professionally also requires sufficient funds for travel, training and other things,” Ghosh said.

His father Sandip said that when his son decided to take the plunge full-on he was not too worried. “He told me he was not enjoying and wanted to return to chess. I respected his decision,” Sandip said.

Diptayan, however, doesn’t remember when he last won a tournament abroad.

“Long time ago, I think. I played in two tournaments in Italy in August 2022 where I finished second and third respectively. I didn’t play many tournaments abroad between 2017-2022 abroad due to studies and then my job,” he said. Another GM: NR Vignesh became India’s 80th Grandmaster on January 29. His brother NR Visakh is already a GM. The Chennai duo is now India’s only sibling Grandmasters.