FIDE World Cup – Under – 8 -10-12: Round 1 

As FIDE celebrates its centenary anniversary this year and as part of the FIDE100 celebration a New Approach, New System has been initiated which is the FIDE World Cup for Under – 8 -10-12, the best 48 players will participate in each group: under 8 girls, under 8 open, under 10 girls, under 10 open, under 12 girls, under 12 open.

First ever world cup for the young talents started yesterday at Batumi, Georgia. 288 players from 37 countries are participating in this tournament with 144 players in the Open section and 144 players in the Girls section.

And the competition will be organized in 2 stages.

Stage 1: will be a 7 round Swiss System with 2 groups, each 24 players. Stage 2: players who finish in the same position in each group will play against each other.

Indian team have 23 players in total , the coaches are Mr. IM Neeraj Kumar Mishra and Ms.WFM J.E.Kavitha , and Mr.Prasanta Kundu as Head of Delegation

In the girls section, 1^st round was a smooth sailing for the higher rated Indians. And in the boy’s section few of our top players like Mani, Sarbartho , Safin Safarullakhan  and Shayan faced defeat in the first round, and others had a comfortable win.

Pavithra RV ( U-12 Group B )with black pieces played an interesting game, she sacrificed a pawn on b6 to put pressure on the c5 square, and to  get a hook on the major pieces placed on d4 and b4, further her sequential moves were extraordinary which troubled her Nigerian opponent who is the top seed of Group B , Deborah Ebimobo-Ere .

Towards the end, Pavithra made an error which halted to a draw variation but was over looked by her opponent , this made Pavithra RV score a full point with a major upset on board 1!

One more upset of the day , was the game of  Leah R Joseph( U-10 Group B) who drew against 2^nd seed Tselmuun,Ider from Mongolia . It was a long game with Rook and minor piece ending , were young Leah played well with her Knight  and the two players split their point at move 77