World Junior Championship Round 1
On the second board IM Akshayraj, executed a complex sacrifice against the second seed, GM Rodshtein in a typical French-Rubinstein middlegame position (where Black seemed to have a nice position) on f7 as can be seen from the diagram. 22.Nxf7 Kxf7 23.c3 Bc5 24.f5 Kg7 25.Be6 Qc6 26.b4 Be3 27.c4 Qxg2 was played since Black decided that white's play despite his extra material is too much and gave back the pieces despite the fact that Mr.Rybka does not seem to agree. Then the fire on board was extinguished to an equal endgame and draw was the outcome.
On the third board GM Andreikin also started the fire on board with 14.Nf5 but it turned out that the fire was to burn the "sacrificer" himself so the third-seed Russian GM lost to the Georgian youngster FM Benidze. On the fourth board, FM Narmontas gained the initiative early in the middlegame against GM Viktor Lacnicka. In the Scheveningen Sicilian white was the first to demonstrate his usual plan on board and win a nice game against the Czech grandmaster.
But please note that in the 2007 edition of World Junior Championship, Ahmed Adly, the Egpytian grandmaster started with a loss but then went on to win the title as the same occurred back in 1987, where the reigning world chess champion Vishwanathan Anand won the event despite he lost his first round game.
GM Baramidze was one of the survivor top players of the first round and won quickly against Enchev from Bulgaria. Slovenian GM Luka Lenic was also among the top seeds to win a quick game against Kulakov.
Neither side was able to make any progress as you see at the diagram in the left between the game Anton-Zhigalko. Neither side can't make any progress therefore after black gave many versions of check looking for some ideas, parties decided to settle with a draw.
A friendly chatting between two colleagues from the same country:
GM Nguyen and GM Le Quang from Vietnam.
GM David Howell started with a win
IM Sanan Sjugirov conceded a draw against Ashkat Nugin from Kazakhstan
Ali Nihat Yazıcı, the President of the Turkish Chess Federation handling the local media buzz.
Florencio Campomanes, the honoraray President of FIDE executes a ceremonial first move together with Bekir Öztekin the Vice-Mayor of Şehitkamil on the first board of the World Junior Girls Chess Championship. Continental President of Americas Jorge Vega and TCF President, FIDE Vice President Ali Nihat Yazıcı kibitzing...
Time to make the ceremonial first move for World Junior Championship, from left to right Continental President of Americas Jorge Vega, Vice-President of FIDE and President of the Turkish Chess Federation Ali Nihat Yazıcı, Vice-Mayor of the hosting Municipality, Honorary President of FIDE Florencio Campomannes, and the top seed GM Rauf Mamedov.
From left to right: One of the masterminds of the event a decent chess fan Fatih Ekinci, the deputy registrar of Şehitkamil Mayor, Vice-Mayor Bekir Öztekin, a familiar name probably for all of the chess world Ali Nihat Yazıcı, and finally Youth and Sports Director of Gaziantep Nuri Öcal
Fatih Ekinci, Bekir Öztekin, Florencio Campomannes, Jorge Vega and Nuri Öcal,
Japanese player Atsuhiko Kobayashi deeply meditating before the first game of the championship
After the sharp Bishop's opening at the game between So-Djuraev, black should have returned back his knight to f6 in this position but rather preferred 11...Nf2 12.Kg1 c6 and black's knight on f2 was trapped which meant Filipino prodigy made a good start to Gaziantep with a comfortable first round win. Another upset came from the Azerbaijani youngster Abdulov after his win against GM Naranyan Gopal. Venezuelan Grandmaster Iturrizaga played the Ra4 exchange sacrifice in the Sveshnikov not in the usual way after castle but before castle which did not give a good result but white went down quickly.
Among the local players, Aydoğdu(left) had chances to achieve a nice position against IM Boros, but lapsed and quickly lost after Ae7. The top Turkish player in the field IM Can, won in Petroff against Yashkin, where his opponent followed his former game against GM Artur Yussupov but better continuations to the stem game had already been found and played, Can also played the same variation but had to play the early improvement and won his first round game.
In Round 2, IM Sanikidze of Georgia will face top-seed GM Mamedov. FM Nechepurenko will a face GM Baramidze while top Turkish player IM Can will face the Chinese Grandmaster Chao Li.
World Junior Girls Championship Round 1
In women's section the top two seeds, IM Harika and WGM Muzychuk won their games. The Top Russian player WGM Bodnaruk (note that WGM Nebolsina did not show up though the organization expected her arrival to Gaziantep) lost half point despite she could have won an exchange but did not enable her to win her first round game against WFM Klimets. WGM Foiser was another top seed who was not able to breach the defenses of WIM Khamrakulova.
WIM Joanna Majdan taking her opponent's picture before the round ?!....
...and your dedicated reporter takes her picture
In the position which you can see from the diagram left, Polish WIM Majdan played 22...Nb3 against WFM Tjolsen here since it cannot be captured because white would be helpless against the advance of the a pawn also displaying the power of the dark-squared bishop on the long diagonal. Maybe which was lesser evil than what was played in the game.
Black played the simple but effective 29...Ng3 in the game WFM Berke-WFM Severiukina game and after 30. bc5 Nh1 31.Ke2 Qa6 32.Kd2 Rg2 33.Kc3 Nd5 etc, white king's journey ended at c6 in the final position and black won.
Chinese Guo Qi missed a very good chance to win against WFM Paikidze after a nicely conducted game with 47...Rh8 which would have given white the full point.
WGM Mary Ann Gomes of India
WFM Bayrak and WIM Pourkashiyan before the game
Member of the national team WFM Bayrak went down to WIM Pourkashiyan, one of the strongest female players in Iran in a nice position where she had the bishop pair with two vs. one pawn one queen side which should give her some advantage. Highest rated Turkish player in the girls' section WIM Yıldız won her first game against Alavi from Iran as a result of a confident attack. WFM Öztürk won against a local Turkish player who is in the youth national team pool in her age group.
