The 7th Sergei Lavitsky Billiard Tournament for Lawyers. Summits Conquered and Unconquered
By tradition, legal community marked the end of this spring beside the green drapery of billiard tables at the Sudak Recreation Complex's business centre that hosted the 7th Sergei Lavitsky Open Billiard Tournament, one of the most awaited social events in the legal world, on May 30-31.
The event ran under the auspices of the Ukrainian Lawyers' Association with the support of Rentakran as a general partner and Southern Legal Group, Legal Alliance and Magisters as partners. Yuridicheskaia Gazeta publishers were the exclusive media partner of the tournament, and Sergei Solovyov was for the sixth time invited as its referee.
Prizes in different nominations were provided by SAM-Crimea travel agency, Budget-Ukraine car rental company, and Shokoladnitsa chain of coffee shops.
It was owing to this innovation — prizes from nomination partners — that all of the 7th Tournament participants had a chance to leave with a trophy. Two main prizes: a weekend tour to one of the Yalta's best hotels provided by SAM-Crimea and free rental of a Volkswagen convertible from Budget-Ukraine, were raffled off based on guests' registration numbers. The first award fell to Viacheslav Petrushyn, director of Argomed real estate agency, and the second one to Denis Syshchenko, head of investigations department of the Crimean Police Chief Directorate.
A quite unusual nomination was sponsored by Shokoladnitsa: lady participants of the tournament were offered bonus certificates to visit company's coffee shops.
This time the largest amateur billiard tournament in Ukraine, running by professional rules, was attended by 36 lawyers specializing in diverse areas of law practice.
For the tournament participants, billiards is no longer relaxed pastime but rather a sport. Both players and fans share the opinion that it is getting increasingly difficult to spot out a tournament front-runner. Preparation to the tournament more and more resembles pre-Olympic training: the participants spend 8 hours a day in the billiard room ahead of the tournament and arrive accompanied by renowned coaches. It is only logical that with such a serious approach it is individual skill that finally determines the result. Yesterday's outsiders every now and again get into the focus of mini-sensations by outrunning recognized favourites. However, the ultimate goal — victory — often becomes the matter of uncertain fortune.
In a rivalry for the third place Sergei Popov, deputy head for human resource of the Odessa State Interior University's Crimean Law Institute (Simferopol), confidently defeated Viktor Vydashenko, operative of the Crimean directorate of SBU (Ukrainian special service), with the scope 4:0. Note that both contestants participated in the tournament for the first time and were able to run all the way through the semi-finals leaving behind recognised gurus.
The tournament finals were played between Evgueni Drachevsky, assistant prosecutor (Vinnytsia), and Vladimir Okhrimenko, deputy head of the Crimean Tax Administration (Simferopol). Vladimir Okhrimenko is a three-time winner of the past tournaments; some say participation in the tournament is not for the sake of victory but for the chance to outgame Okhrimenko. In fact, very few succeeded. This time Mr Okhrimenko made it to the finals through five confident victories. The way of Evgueni Drachevsky to the top was quite different. Having lost the very first game, Evgueni had to prove his right to fight for the victory with the tournament's most noble player with much greater pains: he needed to win seven times before the finals. Mr Drachevsky already made a confident statement of himself the last September running the second in the intense 4-hour confrontation, giving in to Igor Dvorny, judge for the Crimean economic court.
The finals, unlike games of the tournament's first day, lasted until four victories. Initially, Evgueni Drachevsky was an obvious favourite. However, Okhrimenko began regaining advantage ball by ball with the count of 2:0 in Drachevsky's favour. For several games in a row success changed hands; heat at the table reached its peak with the count 3:2 by games to the advantage of Drachevsky and the count by balls in the game of 7:71. In that game, Vladimir Okhrimenko demonstrated the character and self-control of a natural born general and managed to even up the score in front of the decisive game. In that last, seventh game whose winner was to become the tournament's number one, running at 2:2 by balls, Evgueni Drachevsky managed to strike in three balls in each of two successful approaches, proving his unquestionable superiority.
Thus, Evgueni Drachevsky, deputy prosecutor from Vinnytsia, became the winner of the 7th Sergei Lavitsky Open Billiard Tournament. The honourable second place was captured by Vladimir Okhrimenko, deputy head of the Crimean Tax Administration (Simferopol), and the third one by Sergei Popov, deputy head for human resource of the Odessa State Interior University's Crimean Law Institute (Simferopol).
Natalia Dokuchaeva
Development Manager
Legal Alliance Law Firm
