The second open international team championship in Renju, held in St. Petersburg from 4 to 8 January, became the decoration of the New Year’s holiday window. Although a year ago it was not quite clear what place the new tournament will take, now we can already say that this is one of the main events in the country, along with the Russian championship. For the second year in a row, the commander has collected a good team and has a serious heat of struggle.

Compared to last year’s tournament, the number of teams was reduced from 10 to 7. This is probably due to two factors. Firstly, the imposition of dates on the championship of the Arkhangelsk region and the celebration of the 25th anniversary of the Poduzhskaya section, in connection with which this year representatives of the Arkhangelsk region did not take part in the tournament (two teams were put up last year). The number of Estonian teams also decreased (two against three last year). The second factor is the odd year in which the World Team Championships are not held. If last year’s team competition can be viewed, in particular, as a general test of forces before the World Team Championship, this time the tournament was self-sufficient. It is also worth noting that, despite the smaller number of participants, the tournament turned out to be no less interesting than last year’s, both for players and spectators.

Like a year ago, the first team of St. Petersburg and the Russian national team (“OWEN TEAM”) were considered the favorites. These teams underwent minimal changes in the line-up: this year Mikhail Kozhin, who played for the Russian team, was unable to play. The Moscow team was transformed into another Russian team (the “Creative Team”). This year Pavel Makarov, Yuri Tayblin and Igor Magdeev were unable to play for it. Instead, they included former world champion Vladimir Sushkov (who played only a few games in the tournament due to his large employment), Viktor Golosov and Ivan Danilin. With such a composition, the transformed team could also compete with the main favorites.

The tournament was held in a circular system in 1 circle, after which the teams that took 1-2, 3-4 and 5-6 places played butt matches from 2 rounds with alternating the first turn sequence for the final allocation of seats.

Time control: 80 minutes + 30 seconds Fisher. Debut time limit: Yamasyrv-8.