Indian Railways Wins National Chess Team Championship

Indian Railways has won The National Chess team Championship for the first time. The 36th Championship was held at Bhubaneswar from 8th to 14th February, 2016. This Championship was conducted on pool basis. During championship, Indian Railway team beat its counterparts, viz. Odisha, Gujrat, Air-India, Petroleum Sports Promotion Board, Airport Authority of India, Tamil Nadu, Delhi. Lastly, Indian Railway ousted Life Insurance Corporation.

Indian Railway team consisted of the following Chess players from different Zonal Railways which are shown against their names:

1. Shri Karthikayan/ICF,
2. Shri Deepan Chakkravarthy/ICF,
3. Shri Rathnakaran/SR,
4. Shri Arghyadip Das/ER and
5. Shri Swapni Dhopade/CR.

Did You Know???

  1. Chess was in fact invented in India. It is believed to originate out of India during the Gupta empire.
  2. Chess made its way to the West in the 9 th century.
  3. The oldest recorded chess game in history is from the 900s, between a historian from Baghdad and his student.
  4. Chess is called the game of kings, because for many centuries it was played primarily by nobility and the upper classes.
  5. The longest official chess game ever was I.Nikolic – Arsovic, Belgrade 1989, which ended in a draw after 269 moves (20 hours, 15 minutes).
  6. A computer called Deep Thought became the first computer to beat an international grandmaster in November 1988, Long Beach, California.
  7. The computer Deep Blue was the first machine to overcome a reigning World Chess Champion in a match, when it defeated Garry Kasparov in 1997.