The Russian Youth Go Championships was held this weekend (January 16-17) in Moscow. This championship was different from the previous ones in Russia because a new section appeared for the first time. The usual ones are under 16 and under 12 and the new section is under 9 years. All together, 76 participants took part in this great event, and many of them made incredible achievement. It seems that future strong players are growing up in Russia.
Category under 9:
1st place | Timur Melikov | 11k |
2nd place | Alexej Kosyrev | 14k |
3rd place | Andrej Skrjabin | 17k |
Category under 12:
1st place | Savva Mezin | 3k |
2nd place | Valeria Klochikhina | 3k |
3rd place | Artemij Pischalnikov | 3k |
In this category, some players under 9 took part in this higher section to show their courage and strength, for example:
- 5-year-old Ruslan Tarasov, who has won 3 games out of 5, took 17th place and became 12 kyu,
- 6-year-old Askar Khusainov, who has lost only 1 game, took 12th place,
- 8-year-old Artemy Pischalnikov (see the picture), who has lost only one game, won the bronze medal of the Championship, and so became one of three official representatives of Russia in the European Youth Championship under 12 in Serbia.
Category under 16:
1st place | Anton Chernykh | 5d |
2nd place | Kim Shakhov | 3d |
3rd place | Vjacheslav Kajmin | 5d |
In category under 16, a 13-year-old CEGO student Kim Shakhov (see the picture) participated. He just returned from 5 month study journey in Beijing and showed how highly he improved thanks to the training. He defeated the current European Champion under 16 (Vyacheslav Kaimin), but he didn’t manage to become a champion - the new champion of Russia under 16 years has become Anton Chernykh.