DAY 2 of the XIX Pan-American Youth Chess Championships being played in Villa Carlos Paz, Cordoba, Argentina, saw a complete reversal in the English-speaking Caribbean's fortunes yesterday.

Ten-year-old Javanna Smith of Trinidad and Tobago suffered losses in Rounds 3 and 4 and Barbados' Justin Blackman faired a little better managing a draw in his 4th round game.

Smith, who is playing in the Girls' Under-12 section, attempted to complicate matters in Round 3 with top seed Yurani Loaiza of Colombian, who has a FIDE rating of 2139.

Unfortunately for the young Trinidadian lass, Loaiza was more than capable of seeing through the tactics and eventually won quite easily in 23 moves. Her 4th round game was equally unsuccessful, this time losing to 16th seed Ana de Oliveria Oba of Brazil.

Blackman had a particularly difficult morning game due to ill health and had to be treated by the medics while at the board. Despite this he bravely played on and was rather unfortunate to lose to 6th seed Sergio Morales Garcia of Mexico. His afternoon game was against another Mexican, 12th seed Israel Lino Lopez which he eventually drew.

In terms of standings at the end of Round 4, the lead pack in both Girls' Under-12 and Boys' Under-18 have thinned quite a bit.

Top seed Yurani Loaiza of Colombia and 40th seed Syliva Yang of the United States share the honours on four points in the Girls' Under-12 and top seed international master Mauricio Flores Rios of Chile and 5th seed FIDE master Alfredo Pena of Colombia lead the Boys' Under-18, also on four points.

Smith on two points is tied with nine girls for 16th place and Blackman on 1 1/2 points finds himself in a large traffic jam tied on 26th with twelve other players. (PR)