During the World Championships held in Suzdal, a meeting of the RIF General Assembly (renju international federation) was held, during which several important, momentous decisions were made.

The first such decision was the election of a new president of the RIF. They became a Swede, Anders Henningson. During the closing ceremony, his letter was read to the participants of the championship (read in English by Dmitry Epifanov, in Russian by Pavel Salnikov).

Another interesting decision is the choice of venue for the European Championship in 2016, which will now be held in Tashkent. At first glance, the place seems extremely unfortunate, since it is located on the outskirts of the world of Renju, but this is not quite true, because behind this lies an attempt to resurrect the European championships. The fact is that the European Championships have long been perceived as a festival tournament, and not a prestigious competition (which, by the way, was facilitated by the form of the championship – according to the Swiss system instead of round robin). Indeed, in strength with the compositions of the European championships in recent years, such festival tournaments as Tallinn Open and Larix can compete. To change the situation in the next year’s championship, it is proposed to invite players from Asia (for some time the Asian Championship was held, which was even less glorious) and to hold a joint championship (Eurasia?). In the event that this venture is brought to life and succeeds, the European Championship in its new form, with the participation of players from the Asian region, may become the second personal tournament in strength after the World Cup. Details of the holding are still unknown.

The World Team Renju and Gomoku Championship will be held from April 28 to May 4 in Tallinn, Estonia. This will be the first team championship since 2008, which will not take place in the Asian region (in 2008, the venue was Helsinki, and Tallinn last hosted this competition two years earlier, in 2006). The debut yamaguchi regulations, control 120 minutes +30 seconds.

And at the end, perhaps, the most important decision that many people have been waiting for is a change in the main debut regulations. The strongest players on the planet have long recognized the fact that the current debut regulations of Yamaguchi have become obsolete, in view of sufficient knowledge. Indeed, two years ago, in the previous championship, we still managed to present an interesting novelty (a new fourth move in 1B, the fate of which is still not clear), but there were no surprises at this championship. The new main rules now – co-op-8. You can familiarize yourself with the details of this (and not only) regulations here, and I will focus on the question of why co-author and what does it mean that it became the main debut regulations?

The last few years have passed in some uncertainty about the future debut regulations, it was a time of experimentation. It was already felt that the Yamaguchi is outdated and not suitable for holding high-level competitions (for a number of reasons, including the almost inability to get away from a draw in a number of known options, 11v, 5B / 7B, 9B, as well as the general knowledge of the rules), but it remained unclear what to offer him to replace: co-raw or taraguchi? The Russian tournaments of recent years very clearly reflect this confrontation in the championships of Russia, the first leagues, the championships of Moscow. In terms of frequency of use, it becomes obvious that since about the years of 2011–12 it has been achieved by the co-policy, the crown was the final rejection of the reject system consisting of taraguchi-5, co-worker-5 and yamaguchi in favor of Yamasyrva-5. And although the national and global trends are clear, locally this confrontation is still ongoing. So, before last the championship of Moscow was held on taraguchi-7, and the last – on tarannikov. Why exactly soosirv-8, but not 5 or 7? In the world there is still no practice of holding tournaments under this regulation. The last Russian championship was held in Yamasyrv-7, and even the correspondence world championship for the second year is held in Soyorz-7. The first tournament in co-operative-8 took place just the other day, after the decision was made to change the main regulations. Soosirv-5, in the first place, although it is not studied properly, does not sufficiently increase the number of options, which will lead to its study in a fairly close perspective. Secondly, it almost excludes a number of debuts from playing practice, which are difficult to play with five fifths (4B, 7D, 4D), where the fifth move is very difficult for White to play, as well as second debuts, where there are 7 fifths with a margin . For the same reason, it was decided to move away from the co-operative 7, in order not to exclude the second debuts from practice. Thus, co-RV-8 was recognized as the most optimal debut regulations for the moment, since it allows you to bet all 26 debuts, and also very, very soon, will lose its relevance.

The status of the main debut regulations suggests that it will now be used in major official competitions (and not only). And although the nearest world team championship will still be held in Yamaguchi, the next personal world championship will already pass under the new regulations.