Integral Coach Factory dominates All India Railway Team Championship for the third time in three consecutive years

by Shahid Ahmed - 10/08/2024

Integral Coach Factory scored an unbeaten 11/12 to win 36th All India Inter Railway Team Chess Championship 2024. ICF defeated Southern Railway convincingly 0.5-3.5 in the final round to become a clear champion. Eastern Railway scored sole 10/12 to secure second place. Metro and South Eastern Railway scored 8/12 each. However, Metro edged past SER on tie-breaks to finish third. Top two teams remained undefeated. GM Visakh N R was the top scorer for his team ICF. He scored an unbeaten 5/6. India's latest GM P Shyam Nikhil and GM Laxman R R also remained undefeated. They made 4/6 and 2.5/3 each. GM Deepan Chakkravarthy scored a crucial 4/6. This is ICF's third triumph in three consecutive years and second victory in-a-row. Photo: FT FA Sureshkumar Janardhanan

An encore of the 35th edition

For the third time in the last three years, Integral Coach Factory has won the All India Inter-Railway Team Championship. They remained undefeated in all three of those triumphs. Only this time, they improved their score by making one match point more. If someone goes through the team event standings of the 36th edition, they will find that the top three finishers are exactly the same as the 33rd and 35th edition. Integral Coach Factory is the champion, Eastern Railway runner-up and Metro Railway Kolkata second runner-up. Eastern Railway also scored one match point more than the previous two occasions. Speaking of third time in the last three years, the venue, Railway Stadium in Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh also falls in that statistics. IM Aronyak Ghosh won the individual event. That report will be published separately.

Champion - Integral Coach Factory 11/12 | Photo: FT FA Sureshkumar Janardhanan

Integral Coach Factory was the only all-GM team in the field. L to R: GM Laxman R R, GM Deepan Chakkravarthy, GM P Shyam Nikhil, GM P Karthikeyan, FT FA Sureshkumar Janardhanan (Manager) and GM Visakh N R.

Runner-up - Eastern Railway 10/12 | Photo: Arindam Mukherjee

L to R - IM Aronyak Ghosh, IM Sidhant Mohapatra, Officials, IM Arghyadip Das, Pradip Ghosh and GM Diptayan Ghosh.

Second Runner-up - Metro Railways 8/12

L to R - GM Mitrabha Guha, IM Somak Palit, Officials, GM Saptarshi RoyChowdhury, GM Sayantan Das and Arpan Das.

Integral Coach Factory's performance

Eastern Railway (L to R): GM Saptarshi Roy, Arindam Mukherjee, GM Diptayan Ghosh, IM Sidhant Mohapatra, Pradip Ghosh, IM Aronyak Ghosh, IM Arghyadip Das and IM Suvrajit Saha | Photo: Arindam Mukherjee

Metro (L to R): FM Joydeep Dutta, GM Mitrabha Guha, GM Saptarshi RoyChowdhury, Manager, IM Somak Palit, GM Sayantan Das and Arpan Das

Eastern Railway team seen relaxing near Dhuandhar Falls | Photo: Arindam Mukherjee

A total of 15 teams including 11 GMs and 16 IMs represented various railway divisions of Indian Railways across the country in this three-day nine-round Swiss League non-rating team tournament. The event was organized by WCR Sports Association at Railway Stadium Basketball Court in Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh from 22nd to 24th Jul 2024. The time control of the event was 90 minutes + 30 seconds increment from move no.1.

Final standings

Rk.	SNo	Team	Games	+	=	-	TB1	TB2	TB3	TB4	TB5
1	2	Integral Coach Factory	6	5	1	0	11	0	16,5	240,3	43,5
2	1	Eastern Railway	6	4	2	0	10	0	16	232,5	41
3	3	METRO	6	3	2	1	8	0	16	215,5	41,5
4	7	South Eastern Railway	6	4	0	2	8	0	15,5	144,3	36,5
5	6	Western Railway	6	3	1	2	7	0	14	162,8	32
6	4	Southern Railway	6	3	0	3	6	0	15,5	180,3	38
7	5	South Central Railway	6	3	0	3	6	0	12,5	153,3	33,5
8	9	South Western Railway	6	2	1	3	5	0	12	133,5	26,5
9	8	Northern Railway	6	2	1	3	5	0	11,5	121,3	27,5
10	10	East Coast Railway	5	2	0	3	5	0	10,5	91,8	22
11	11	West Central Railway	5	2	0	3	5	0	10,5	87,8	21,5
12	12	North Western Railway	5	2	0	3	5	0	10	80,3	22
13	13	Banaras Locomotive Works	5	1	1	3	4	1	8	55	14
14	15	Rail Wheel Factory	5	1	1	3	4	1	7,5	48,3	12,5
15	14	North Central Railway	5	0	0	5	1	0	4	23,5	8