2 min readUpdated: Apr 19, 2026 11:31 PM IST
Aronyak Ghosh became India’s 95th GM after 4 years of his first GM norm. The Kolkata chess player achieved his final norm at Bangkok Chess Club Open finishing tied for first place with 7/9.
Known for unleashing new openings, when he is bored and for boggling Hans Niemann once, he has been a mystery in Indian chess.
He had won the bronze at U16s, World Youth, and ChessBase reported that his father, a former chess player (1550), and now a chess arbiter, kept Aronyak’s chess dream alive by selling off family belongings and property. His mother is a lawyer. He has been coached earlier by Bangladeshi coach Zeo Sir and at Elephant academy, while learnt endgames at RB Ramesh and Dejan Bojkoblv. At the second IM normal he had said, “I’m quite bored actually.. the guys come quite prepared…so I say let’s try new openings on the board.”
The 22-year-old had emerged in the news in 2023 when he won bronze at the Pune Nationals when despite being tied with 7 other players, he had nosed ahead on basis of Buchholz rule (numbers of points won by opponent). The Eastern Railway employee had won his second GM norm beating back Karthik Venkataraman and Polina Shuvalova at Annemasse Masters.
For his first GM norm, he had picked a bumper 14.9 Elo ratings on his first European outing in August 2022, finishing 4th in 23rd Sants International Open in Spain four years ago. He had camped at a rented apartment with his mother, chasing GM norms.
He had earlier crossed 2500 at Athens of East meet in Madurai, and his career high ELO was 2555.
He was widely considered as strongest Indian IM to not have the GM title. Now he has achieved his goal. Two months back he had been embroiled in a crazy match with Ethan Vaz both trying to get their third norm., with latter winning
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Earlier this year, Ghosh had won the rapid section of Nationals, with9.5/11, and staying unbeaten at Ranchi.
He is known for wearing cartoon themed hoodies at times.
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