5 min readApr 8, 2026 10:37 PM IST On a day when the attention of Indian chess fans was fixated on Cyprus to see the fate of the three Indians in action at the twin Candidates tournaments, Aarit Kapil, a 10-year-old boy from New Delhi’s Mayur Vihar, was causing rumbles on the chessboard at the Menorca International Chess Open. Aarit, who had shot into limelight in June last year as a nine-year-old for almost defeating Magnus Carlsen in an online blitz game, defeated Kazakh grandmaster Kazybek Nogerbek in an over-the-board classical game on Wednesday on the Spanish island. Unlike many other tales of young up-and-comers taking down grandmasters who are past their prime, in this case, Aarit took down a grandmaster whose star is on the rise. Nogerbek was crowned the World Junior Champion in 2024 (the same edition where Divya Deshmukh became a Women’s World Junior Champion). Playing with white pieces, Aarit defied a rating deficit of 233 points to beat the Kazakh GM, who is two rungs above the FIDE Master title which …