Slava Grinuk was born in 1970 an died in 1999.

He was an ordinary bridge player from Moscow. He died young of cancer, and his friends, who were not bridge players, decided that the best thing they could do to commemorate him  was to establish an annual tournament bearing his name.

They were rather wealthy so they sponsored the event. It started as a small Russian tournament, but in a few years became am international event. Now The Slava Memorial Cup it is the most prestigious tournament held in Russia.

The touching part of the story that those guys are still sponsoring it despite the fact that they don’t know the first thing about bridge.