Perhaps one of the main events of the year will be the first open team tournament for the Cup of Japan’s Consul General in Renju, which will be held in St. Petersburg this Christmas. This event is large for several reasons. First, Russia has not organized any new major tournaments for a long time, largely because of the large outflow of players (a record-breaking number of people took part in the All-Russian Renju tournament this year. The last such major event was the tournament in the framework of the festival Larix, replacing the Moscow Open (it has been held since 2013). Secondly, quite a long time ago, many players spoke in favor of the appearance of the Russian team championship, which the organizers tried to do, with one small assumption that the tournament would be open to foreign teams as well. Some radical proposals even suggested abandoning BT and merging it with the Higher League, and inserting a team tournament into the vacated window in November. It is nice to see that another time was found for the commander, although it also has a small drawback: at the same time, a traditional tournament is taking place in Rybinsk. But there is a nice addition: the Gomoku Christmas tournament, which will be held there, in St. Petersburg, in front of the commander.

Of particular interest is the tournament in connection with the World Team Championship, which will be held this spring in Tallinn, the last one under the rules of the Yamaguchi. This team tournament in St. Petersburg, as well as the Higher League of the Russian Championship is in fact the final test of strength before an important competition, the decisive opportunity to see which of the athletes will be able to adequately perform at a prestigious tournament in which Russia in recent years shows not the best result.

Tomorrow, January 6, the draw will take place, and the first games will begin on the 7th in the morning. A total of 10 teams will take part in the tournament: 3 from Estonia, 2 from the Arkhangelsk region, the Moscow team, 3 teams from St. Petersburg, and a hodgepodge called the Russian team (if there are Estonian teams, then why not be an inter-regional Russian?) . In fact, of the playing regions, only Rybinsk is not represented, and traditionally almost nowhere participating is Zhigulevsk. Nizhny Novgorod, although not formally represented by its own team, the tournament will be attended by two pupils of the Nizhny Novgorod section: Maxim Karasev in the Russian team and Roman Berezin in St. Petersburg, as well as one of the founders of the Gorky renju section, Vladimir Filinov, whose name is really strongly associated already with Peter. than the bottom.

Composition teams:

Arkhangelsk region-1:
1. Hook Roman
2. Fedotov Denis
3. Semenov Oleg
4. Vostryakov Alexey
zap Metreveli Irina (captain)

Arkhangelsk region-2:

1. Dyachkov Nikita
2. Karpov Fedor
3. Yusupmurzin Danila
4. Lapin Ivan
zap Ponezhin Gennady (captain)

Moscow:
Magdeev Igor
Makarov Pavel
Nikonov Konstantin
Nikonova Natalya
Taiblin Yuri

Russia:
Dmitry Epifanov (captain)
Karasev Maxim
Kachaev Denis
Kozhin Mikhail
Filinov Vladimir

St. Petersburg-1:
Artemyev Sergey
Balabay Victor
Berezin Roman
Potapov Alexey
Salnikov Pavel (captain)

St. Petersburg-2:
1. Moses Kirill
2. Arevkov Maxim
3. Semenov Vladimir
4. Salnikova Nonna (captain)
zap Zubashchenko Ivan

St. Petersburg-3:
Kalnitsky Oleg
Kachaeva Ilona
Kuleshov Mikhail
Lisyutin Alexander (captain)
Rumyantseva Catherine

Estonia-1:
1. Hybemyagi Martin
2. Lents Johann (captain)
3. Topkin Georg-Romet
4. Lillemaa Argo
zap Sotsirv Ants

Estonia-2:
1. Piik Sander (captain)
2. Kylar Karl-Charter
3. Ikla Marcus
4. Raag Ardi

Estonia-3:
1. Chris Holtsman (captain)
2. Murumaa Magnus
3. Muugamäe Erik
4. Murumaa Matias

The favorites of the tournament are the team of Russia and the first team of St. Petersburg, who brought together a very good composition. It would be desirable, of course, to dwell on each player individually and to tell about him in detail, however, being limited by the framework of one article, I will dwell only on key personnel.

Alexey Potapov is considered one of the strongest part-time students in the world (in 2012, he became the world champion by correspondence) and a fairly strong player. While living in Komsomolsk-on-Amur, he was cut off from face-to-face tournaments for quite a long time, however, having moved to Petersburg a couple of years ago, he began to actively participate in tournament life, playing in the championship and the cup of St. Petersburg, as well as in VT-2015 in which he quite confidently won. Of course, the level of VT is lower than the level of the championship of Russia (and almost the entire first six from the previous tower, with the exception of Oleg Fedorkin, will take part in the teammate), but his confident performance at least indicates a good form. Alexey Potapov is definitely one of the candidates, if not the first Russian national team, then the second.