Russian Cup. This tournament is a bit in a background but it is quite interesting.
They have 174 players. 12 McMahon groups (so top players start with 11 points).
And the players from the world cup do participate.
We have Shikshin, Frejlak, Podpera, Benjamin, Pace Alessandro, Rooney Gevin.
Just in this round we have (W) Drean-Guenaizia Benjamin (6d) – (B) Frejlak Stanislaw (7d).
Edit: Benjamin didn’t come, Frejlak win by forfeiture.
Oh no. 
Let’s go, try and beat those Asians.
Also, look, it’s dark. No wonder, the round starts at 18:00.
Frejlak won against Japanese.
Others lost. Look how easily Chinese player rekt Podpera.
Nice one Siasio!
Ma Tianfang is not just low end of pro strength, he beats middling pros too. I was rather surprised when he didn’t do so well at the Gold Cup in China few years ago, losing to 2 top Korean amateurs I think it was.
Edit after checking game, OMG, a4 was Lukas vs Ma, when I saw that on breakfast’s stream I assumed it was some kyu player from a weak go country!
Indeed, what was he thinking, I wonder?
We have 4 players with top scores: Ma Tianfang (China), Chan I-Tien (Chinese Taipei), Chan Nai San (Hong Kong), Frejlak Stanislaw (Poland). Thus, three versions of China and one Poland.
11 players follow suit with top score minus one. Zhao Ricky (USA), Podpera Lukas (Czechia), Kaymin Viacheslav (RGF), Drean-Guenaizia Benjamin (France), Kim Dabeen (South Korea), Morikawa Shunji (Japan), Kramer Lukas (Germany), Pace Alessandro (Italy), Wichrich Karuehawanit (Thailand), Mero Csaba (Hungary), Pham Duc Anh (Vietnam).
Stanislaw is going to take a crack at Ma Tianfang.
Podpera Lukas against Italian Alessandro.
Kaymin vs Kramer.
Benjamin vs Morikawa.
So I think the games to watch this time are Stanislaw’s and Benjamin’s.
Russian Cup. Games to highlight:
Muromtsev outplayed Frejlak. He was lying low the whole game waiting for opponent to make a mistake than boom, capitalized on it. Muromtsev is like under 16, so a young master by our standards.
Maybe Stanislaw is conserving the energy before the evening game. I hope he doesn’t get upset too much, he’ll have to play against Ma Tianfang.
(also look at the bad style of placing a stone https://youtu.be/KDfC278Uot0?t=10415 shouldn’t that be illegal)
Ilya won against Podpera in a close game (sgf not complete)
Let’s summarize what’s going on. Frejlak Stanislaw and Chan I-Tien both have 6 points and play against each other. Whoever wins gets 7th point but they have the next round still, so they might lose there, it’s not a guaranteed first place, I mean depending on tiebreaks it might be.
In line with that people with 5 points are still within striking distance, and they certainly can get podium. There’re eight people like that: Ma Tianfang from China, Chan Nai San from Hong Kong, Podpera Lukas from Czechia, Kim Dabeen from Korea, Zhao Ricky from USA, Kramer Lukas from Deutschland, Drean-Guenaizia Benjamin from France, Wichrich Karuehawanit from Thailand.
We all are gonna root for Stanislaw this round, of course. But Benjamin will try to trip up Korean player which is also interesting.
In Russian Cup Shikshin made a quick work of Muromtsev, so he takes the first place.
Frejlak stumbled a bit but won against Kulkov
Businessman Match - an event for business people. As we know it’s desirable to court people like that to get connections for funding and such. So marketing go as a game for business strategies is one way. A bunch of players were there but most of the time the camera was focused on one board. Here’s a quick summary:
And then they’ve run out of scheduled time
Their strategy must have been too complex 
@S_Alexander Thanks for your coverage of this event!
I was watching with all my might, but the positions were so hopeless, I’ve fallen asleep. Frejlak lost and Benjamin also lost.
If you look at the last round pairings, Europe may take podium. We have 6 players with 6+ points, and they play against each other. Frejlak plays against Podpera so a European player is going to have 7 points (Podpera didn’t make any headlines and yet has the same score and almost the same tiebreaks lol). Wichrich gonna play Ma Tianfang so one of them also will have 7 points. And Korean with 6 points will play Chan I-Tien with already 7 points, so here either Chan will get 8 points or they both will have 7 points.
In the worst case scenario 4 players will have 7 points and European player will be fourth by tie-breaks. But we need to look at the tie-breaks.
Last day games started.
Wow, Frejlak is having a bad position at this moment. This sucks because Podpera has bad tie-breaks. There’s a good chance Podpera will finish 4th if he wins. On the other hand Frejlak could’ve hoped even for the 1st place.
Yeah, Podpera won and he’s gonna be fourth. Frejlak choked. Even sky is crying today.
Found twitter account of the Japanese player Morikawa Shunji https://twitter.com/forestriver1996 maybe someone will need it sometime
Now we’ll have to wait another year, and certainly it won’t be as covered in the West.
Here’s a photo album:
Thanks for your coverage S_Alexander
I guess taking the games seriously is part of the reason why he’s strong and a pro. Most people will feel the peer pressure to just accept it as “just a prank, bro”.
Here’s a video about Championship. There’re English subtitles, I imagine slower speed like 0.75 is advised lol.
