ICF wins 30th All India Railway Team Championships 2017

by Sagar Shah - 25/06/2017

One of the most prestigious chess events on Indian soil - the Inter Railway meet was held in Vadodara, Gujarat from the 17th to the 22nd of June. Some of the strongest grandmasters and International Masters employed with Indian Railways participated in the event. The winner was the team from Integral Coach Factory (ICF). Silver went to South Western Railways and bronze to Western Railways. The indvidual event was won by GM Swapnil Dhopade who has sent us his nice win against IM Arghyadip Das.

Photos from the Facebook page of National Academy of Indian Railways

One of the reasons why chess in India is booming is Indian Railways. This company, which is owned by the Government of India, has recruited thousands of chess players in the past. The sheer fact that one could earn a job in Railways thanks to chess playing skill has prevented people from quitting the game for sustaining a livelihood. Today many of the top grandmasters and International Masters are employed with the Indian Railways. They get a decent salary and often they do not even have to go to work. Now this is some really high class support.

Did you know the first passenger trains ran from Bombay to Thane in 1853! That's 164 years of existence! Truly the lifeline of India.

Bholu the elephant is the official mascot of the Indian Railways

30th National Inter-Railway Meet

The 30th National Inter Railway team and individual tournament was held from the 17th to 22nd of June 2017 in Vadodra, Gujarat. This is one of the most important events for all the players employed in Railways. Sometimes the fact that they would get half day or full day offs for working on chess depends on their performance in this tournament. The teams that finish in top three usually get privileges of not attending work and playing more tournaments throughout the year.

The entire Indian Railway chess family met in Vadodara, Gujarat for the 30th All India Railway

The team event was won by Integral Coach Factory (ICF). The team is represented by GM R.R. Laxman, IM C. Praveen Kumar, IM Shyaam Nikhil, GM Deepan Chakravarthy, IM P. Karthikeyan and coach T.J. Suresh Kumar

Team ICF scored four wins and two draws in the six matches that they played

Each and every player contributed in the team's excellent performance. Deepan did quite a bit of the scoring, by making 5.0/6.

The team winning the champion's trophy and the gold medal

Second place went to the team of South Western Railway. The team was represented by IM C.R.G. Krishna, IM Abhishek Das, IM M.S. Thejkumar, IM Himanshu Sharma and FM Joydeep Dutta

The performance of South Western Railway players

Recently minted GM Himanshu Sharma makes the inaugural move against the dignitaries

Western Railway team in action

Western Railway won the bronze medal. The team was represented by coach Pankaj Joshi, IM Rahul Sangma, IM Ravi Teja, recently minted IM Hemant Sharma, IM Vikramaditya Kulkarni, IM Akshat Khamparia (missing in the picture) and Arjun Tiwari

Final Ranking after 6 Rounds:

Rk.	SNo	Team	Games	+	=	-	TB1	TB2	TB3
1	1	I.C.F	6	4	2	0	10	17,0	0
2	2	South Westren Railway	6	4	2	0	10	16,0	0
3	3	Western Railway	6	3	2	1	8	16,0	0
4	5	Southern Railway	6	4	0	2	8	15,0	0
5	6	Eastern Railway	6	3	1	2	7	15,5	0
6	7	South Central Railway	6	2	3	1	7	13,5	0
7	11	Northern Railway	6	3	0	3	6	13,0	0
8	12	North West Railway	6	3	0	3	6	11,5	0
9	8	S.E.Railway	6	3	0	3	6	10,0	0
10	10	West Central Railway	6	2	1	3	5	11,5	0
11	4	Central Railway	6	2	0	4	4	9,5	0
12	9	Kolkatta Metro	6	0	3	3	3	9,0	0
13	13	South East Central Railway	6	1	1	4	3	7,0	0
14	14	R.C.F.Kapurthala	6	0	1	5	1	3,5	0

Go to chess-results

Southern Railway represented by IM S.Nitin, Mari Arul, IM Ratnakaran, IM B.T. Muralikrishna, A. Shankar and coach V. Ravichandran finished fourth

IM K. Rathnakaran was the highest scorer of the event. He made 5.5/6.

The playing hall

It was good to see IM P.D.S. Girinath on the chess board after quite some time

Central Railway's Feroze Mulla is a huge chess lover. His team, however, didn't do well and they finished 11th.

The team of Eastern Railway that finished fifth

Individual event:

After the team tournament, the individual event was held. It was a eight round tournament that was won by GM Swapnil Dhopade with score of 6.0/8. In fact Ratnakaran also had the same score and also the first two tiebreaks were also the same. On third tiebreak, it was Swapnil who picked up the bronze medal.

After a dismal show in the team championship where he scored just 2.0/5, Swapnil Dhopade picked himself up and won the individual tournament 2017

Swapnil's scorecard

We spoke to Swapnil after the tournament. He was clearly happy at having beaten strong players like Arghyadip Das, Somak Palit, Arindham Mukherjee and others. He sent us his favourite game from the event with some light annotations. Enjoy the grandmaster analysis:

[Event "Inter-Railways, Vadodara 2017"]
[Site "Vadodara"]
[Date "2017.05.28"]
[Round "7.2"]
[White "Das, Arghyadip"]
[Black "Dhopade, Swapnil"]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "B13"]
[WhiteElo "2416"]
[BlackElo "2533"]
[Annotator "Swapnil Dhopade"]
[PlyCount "110"]
[EventDate "2017.??.??"]

{Arghyadip is very strong in openings. In the team championship I came
straight into his preparation and was crushed. This time I was aware not to
fall into his preparation again.} 1. e4 c6 2. c4 d5 3. exd5 Nf6 $5 {An
interesting move order!} (3... cxd5 4. cxd5 Nf6 5. Qa4+ {is what my opponent
intended. But now he can't enter this line anymore.}) 4. d4 cxd5 5. Nc3 Nc6 6.
Bg5 Be6 7. Be2 h6 8. Bxf6 exf6 9. c5 {A draw offer.} g5 (9... g6 $144) 10. Bb5
Bg7 11. Nge2 O-O 12. Bxc6 $6 {This seems a bit premature.} bxc6 13. O-O f5 14.
f4 {Here I wanted to relocate the e6 bishop to f1-a6 diagonal, but White can
reply with someting like Qa4. So I waited one move for white to commit his
queen's position.} Re8 15. Qd2 Bc8 $1 {The bishop belongs to f1-a6 diagonal
from where it exerts pressure on White's position.} 16. Ng3 Qf6 17. Rad1 Qg6 {
The queen is well placed on g6 and can be helpful in future kingside action.}
18. Qd3 {Preventing ...Ba6 and putting pressure on f5.} a5 19. Rfe1 $2 {
A mistake based on miscalculation.} Rxe1+ 20. Rxe1 gxf4 $1 21. Nge2 (21. Re8+
$2 Kh7 22. Nge2 Ba6) 21... Ba6 22. Qf3 Re8 {All Black's pieces are ideally
placed. Both Black's bishops are just too strong!} 23. Qxf4 h5 24. Qf2 {
Supporting e1 and preparing to remove the e2 knight.} Qe6 25. Rf1 Bxe2 26. Re1
Qe3 $1 27. Qxe3 Rxe3 28. Nxe2 Bxd4 29. Kf1 Bxb2 {Black is two pawns up and
simply winning now.} (29... Bxc5 $2 30. Rc1 $1 $11) 30. Rb1 Be5 31. Rb6 d4 32.
Ng1 d3 33. Nf3 Bc3 34. Rb8+ Kg7 35. Rd8 Bb4 36. Rd7 f4 37. Rd8 Bxc5 38. Ne1 Re2
39. Nxd3 Rd2 40. Rd7 Be3 41. g3 fxg3 42. hxg3 Kf6 43. a4 Kg5 44. Ke1 f6 45.
Rg7+ Kf5 46. Nc5 Rc2 47. Nd7 Ke4 48. Rf7 f5 49. Kd1 Rd2+ 50. Ke1 Rc2 51. Kd1
Rd2+ 52. Ke1 Ra2 53. Re7+ Kf3 54. Ne5+ Kxg3 55. Nxc6 f4 0-1

Final Ranking after 8 Rounds

Rk.	SNo		Name	FED	Rtg	Club/City	Pts.	TB1	TB2	TB3
1	1	GM	Swapnil S. Dhopade	IND	2533	CR	6,0	0,5	36,0	40,0
2	12	IM	Rathnakaran K.	IND	2378	SR	6,0	0,5	36,0	39,0
3	9	IM	Das Arghyadip	IND	2416	ER	5,5	0,0	38,0	42,5
4	11	IM	Ravi Teja S.	IND	2379	WR	5,5	0,0	37,5	41,0
5	5	GM	Deepan Chakkravarthy J.	IND	2480	ICF	5,5	0,0	36,5	40,0
6	7	IM	Nitin S.	IND	2427	SR	5,5	0,0	35,5	40,0
7	19	GM	Roy Chowdhury Saptarshi	IND	2326	METRO	5,5	0,0	35,0	37,5
8	10	IM	Krishna C R G	IND	2382	SWR	5,5	0,0	34,5	38,5
9	13		Hemant Sharma (del)	IND	2374	WR	5,5	0,0	34,5	38,5
10	36		Arindam Mukherjee	IND	2134	ER	5,5	0,0	33,5	37,0
11	6	IM	Shyaamnikhil P	IND	2456	ICF	5,5	0,0	33,5	37,0
12	2	IM	Karthikeyan P.	IND	2502	ICF	5,5	0,0	33,0	37,0
13	18	IM	Sangma Rahul	IND	2337	WR	5,5	0,0	31,5	34,5
14	4	IM	Thejkumar M. S.	IND	2484	SWR	5,5	0,0	31,5	34,5
15	3	IM	Himanshu Sharma	IND	2498	SWR	5,0	0,0	33,5	37,5
16	20	IM	Kulkarni Vikramaditya	IND	2325	WR	5,0	0,0	33,0	36,5
17	14	IM	Palit Somak	IND	2359	METRO	5,0	0,0	32,5	36,0
18	25		Tiwari Arjun	IND	2251	WR	5,0	0,0	32,0	34,5
19	16	IM	Akshat Khamparia	IND	2342	WR	5,0	0,0	29,0	32,0
20	31		Singh S. Vikramjit	IND	2181	SCR	4,5	0,0	34,5	37,5

Complete list of rankings