Ivana and Bhakti start off with wins

Both the Goans - World Under 8 Champion Ivana Furtado
and National Junior Champion Bhakti Kulkarni - started with
victories in the World Youth Chess Championships
which got underway in Antalya, Turkey.

Commonwealth Under 18 Girls Champion Bhakti (ELO 2112),
who is starting as the 19th seed in the Girls
section, defeated unrated Salama Al Khelaifi of Qatar
with the black pieces. She will next be playing Berfu
Dincok (ELO 1945) of Turkey in the second round.

Ivana, who is also the Asian Under 8 Girls Champion,
defeated Samantha Revita Glo of the Philippines
in the first round. She will be playing Melek Helin Saim
in the second round. Ivana will be fancying her chances
now as both the top seed Valentina Fiesco (ELO 2048)
of Colombia and the third seed Agnieszka Dmochowska
(ELO 1463) of Poland lost in the first round.

In other results, in the Girls Under 14 section,
2nd seeded Padmini Rout (ELO 2226) could be
considered lucky to escape with a draw
against Reka Kantor (ELO 1780) of Slovakia.
After the opening, Reka was a pawn up and had a double
Bishop advantage as well, but could not somehow
find the technique to convert her superior
position into a victory.

In the Boys Under 14 Section, topseeded
IM S.P. Sethuraman (ELO 2427) had no
problems whatsoever in disposing off
Jonathan Tordeur (ELO 1988) of Switzerland
in just 29 moves of an English Attack
in a Sicilian Defence Opening. However, in the
Boys Under 12 section, National Under 11 Champion
Fenil Shah (ELO 2124) was shocked by unrated
Iskandar Aripov of Uzbekistan and Asian Under 8
Champion G.V. Revanth Reddy (ELO 1625) went down
to unrated De Li Derek Lim of Singapore in
what could be perceived as major blows to
the Indian contingent's chances!