Russian Go Championship 2011 - overview and results

 Russian Go Championship 2011 took place in Saint Petersburg. In the event participated 28 Russian best players, including 2 pro players: Alexander Dinerchtein 3p and Svetlana Shikshina 3p. Unfortunately, Ilya Shikshin, European champion 2011, couldn't participate because of the health problems.

1^st and 2^nd boards were broadcast live on KGS (you can check games under users: ruschamp1 and ruschamp2).

 After 4 rounds only 2 players had 4 wins: Alexander Dinerchtein and Alexander Vashurov. A. Vashurov is a young (15-16 years old) player from Kazan. Recently in spite of his young age he showed good results in major Go tournaments in Russia. He was 3rd at Baduk Cup of Consul General of Korea in Saint-Petersburg. In the game Dinerchtein took early lead and was ahead on territory. In the middle game Vashurov tried to change the flow of the game with move Black 101, trying to use his thickness and get some points in center while attacking white's group. But white counterattacked strongly and black had nothing to do but to concede the game.

We can see that new generation of talented young players are on their way but it will take some time for them to win major tournaments.

By the end of 6^th round A. Dinertchtein had perfect score of 6 wins and there were only 2 players with 5 wins: Oleg Mezhov (Diplomat on KGS) and Dmitry Surin. Alexander had to play Surin in the last round, but this game was cancelled due to Alexander's health problem. In spite of the result in the last round Alexander had best SOS and SODOS rate, so his 1^st place in the tournament couldn't be changed.

The final top three places were as follows: 1^st A. Dinerchtein, 2^nd O. Mezhov, 3^rd D. Surin.

Congratulations to Alexander for becoming Russian champion in 2011!

You can check the results of the tournament here (only in Russian)

Some photos from the tournament here