16 teams took part in 10th Russia team championship and they were split into two groups. The results of round 1 might remind the NHL. The less rich teams which included less star players in their composition, not only put up a decent resistance but managed to grab the valuable points from the European tournaments’ favorites.

Despite the junior player in the game Rodchenko – Bologan yielded 250 rating points to his opponent, he managed to win quite easily. That game took place in the match between the first Kazan team and the second one which was nevertheless won by Ladia-Kazan 2000 by 4:2. The star team from Ekaterinburg, Max Ven (featuring Grishchuk, Vaganian, Motylev, Sveshnikov, Ulibin, Tseshkovsky, Shariyazdanov, Rashkovsky) avoided the defeat to the Nizhny Tagil team with difficulty.
Norilskiy Nikel team (Dreev, Onishchuk, Malakhov, Zviagintsev, Rustemov, Naer, Dolmatov, Galkin) drawn the match with the host team that was fortified by the young Muscovite player Grachev. Jacob Geller’s win over Naer was the game that retained parity in this match.
Saint-Petersburg team (Svidler, Sakaev, Korchnoi, Volkov, Smirnov, Ivanov, Popov, Lugovoi) seemingly decided its problems in the match with the Vladivostok team after having won two games. However it all was not clear yet in games Svidler – Burmakin and Korchnoi – Bachin. Viktor Lvovich looked almost perplexed after his younger opponent made the draw offer when the struggle was yet to start. He even made some verbal commentary despite talks are generally prohibited during the game. After the game Korchnoi was free to reveal his sarcastic attitude fully by saying: ‘If you are going to play so as you did today then you will never learn anything really’. But the game was drawn and everybody congratulated Bachin whose face was red because of the strain and the reproof.

Grandmaster Svidler’s impressions of the tournament were: ‘The standard of playing in the Russia team championships is traditionally high. Almost the same people are presented here year after year, now we have no Bareev but he was replaced by Vaganian. Generally, the Russian players deserve thei own Super league’.

And Alexander Grishchuk was quite laconic when speaking about the event: ‘I think the standard of the championship is growing. Yes, due to some financial problems there were no strong teams from Tyumen and Maykop but their strongest players had been transferred to the other clubs immediately. Why am I playing for Ekaterinburg? The case is that I have good personal relations with Naum Rashkovsky. All the same, there is no team from Moscow, my native town, in this championship. Therefore I had no choice which team to join. Did I visit Ekaterinburg? No, and I hardly will be able to do so because immediately after the Russia team championship I am leaving for the European championship.’