MEET the girl with the gold in her hands ¿ Goa's eight-year-old Ivana Maria Furtado (pictured) who won a gold medal in the World Youth Championship in Atalya, Turkey.

Goa, a state on the west coast of India, has just granted the rights to the International Film Festival of India to be held there. The last one was in 2006 which received a large review for its Bollywood style.

Now young Ivana is bringing home the gold. It was only last month that Viswanathan Anand, also from India, won the World Championship. Anand and Ivana had met some time ago at a function in Chennai. It was then that Ivana invited Anand to Goa.

The world champion would have made it had it not been for a fever at the last minute. However, Ivana had called Anand to wish him well and he, in turn, had wished her all the success for her upcoming tournament in Turkey. And his wish came true she was the winner!

A lot of people do not know the history of chess even though they know how to play. Well, it was in India where it all started in 500 AD. It was the Chinese encirclement game of go and the Japanese game of shogi that brought chess about.

The original pieces were far less mobile than their modern counterparts. They represented units of the ancient Indian army, the foot soldiers, cavalry, armed chariots and they also used an elephant, which today is the knight. Ivana had to use all her skills at the start of her first game with 56 moves; and most of her games were hard fought a standard game in each round lasted 30-40 moves. Some of her games are even 50, 60, 68 and 70 moves, which gives you an idea of her struggle before checkmate is called and her opponent resigned.

It is Gunay Mammadzada playing White and Ivana playing Black.

Gunay came up with a queen sacrifice; look at diagram 1 only, and try to see what it is. There it is in diagram 2, Qxe6. The British will say that was a "brilliant" move; I will say so as well, because the pawn cannot capture the queen with fxe6 with Gunay's Bishop on e5, pawn f7 would be checkmate.

If you play the game through you will see that Ivana also sacrificed her queen for a rook. In diagram 3, Gunay came up with a decoy so she could capture the rook on e2 But there is no way to stop the d pawn from becoming a queen and then as in diagram 4, checkmate.

White: Gunay Mammadzada

Black: Ivana Maria Furtado

1. e4 d6 2. d4 Nf6 3. Bd3 e5 4. c3 Be7 5. Ne2 0-0 6. 0-0 Nc6 7. h3 Re8 8. f4 Bf8 9. Qc2 exd4 10. cxd4 Nb4 11. Qc3 Nxd3 12. Qxd3 Nxe4 13. f5 b6 14. Nbc3 Bb7 15. Nxe4 Bxe4 16. Qd1 d5 17. f6 g6 18. Ng3 Re6 19. Bg5 Qd6 20. Bf4 Qd7 21. Be5 c5 22. Rc1 Qb5 23. b3 Qd3 24. Qg4 cxd4 25. Qxe6 Qe3+ 26. Kh2 Qxc1 27. Qxf7+ Kxf7 28. Rxc1 d3 29. Nf1 Ke6 30. Bd4 Bd6+ 31. Kg1 Bf4 32. Be3 Bxe3+ 33. Nxe3 Kxf6 34. Kf2 h5 35. g4 Rf8 36. Rc7 Ke5+ 37. Ke1 Kd4 38. Nf1 Bg2 39. Ng3 h4 40. Nf5+ gxf5 41. g5 Re8+ 42. Kd2 Re2+ 43. Kc1 d2+ 44. Kc2 Be4+ 45. Kd1 Kd3 46. Rc3+ Kxc3 47. Kxe2 Kc2 48. g6 d1Q+ 49. Ke3 Qd3+ 50. Kf4 Qd4 51. Kg5 Qg7 52. Kxh4 Qxg6 53. a4 f4 54. a5 Bf3 55. axb6 Qg3

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