4th Annual MAF World Cup

The 4th Annual MAF World Cup traditionally took place at the incredible Wynn, Las Vegas from August 20 to 23, 2015. Three young players, Elina Melkonyan, Valentina Mnatsakanyan and Taras Sakhno, demonstrated their very mature game and ended up at the FINAL table. The 4th Annual MAF World Cup was again memorable by very close competition. Almost all players at the FINAL table had chances to win the top prize, making the last game of this World Cup even more intense.

Interestingly enough, Natalya Khashchina pulled the DON card at the FINAL table, and the MAFIA team (Khashchina-Hovsepyan-Parunyan) played a brilliant game, drastically changing the top ranking of the 4th Annual World Cup. Thus, the "DON" of the FINAL game defended the title of DON of the World Cup. This was the first time that MAFIA team won the FINAL game of this tournament.

The best 5 players of the 4th Annual MAF World Cup received cash prizes. Among them, Gevorg Hovsepyan and Edgar Khachatryan, repeated their success of the very 1st MAF World Cup of 2012. Interestingly enough, Gevorg and Edgar played all their games in Russian, although only three years ago they could not understand the Russian language.

The Best 10 Players

Natalya Khashchina (Kiev)

Elina Melkonyan (Los Angeles)

Gevorg Hovsepyan (Los Angeles)

Inga Parunyan (Las Vegas)

Edgar Khachatryan (Los Angeles)

Vighen Mkrtoumyan (Los Angeles)

Lucine Ghulyan (Los Angeles)

Valentina Mnatsakanyan (Moscow)

Marina Kostanyan (Moscow)

Taras Sakhno (Kiev)

For the first time in the history of MAF tournaments, Natalya Khashchina defended her title of the best player, or Don of the World Cup. She received the top cash prize of $3,500 and another Don's bracelet (below). Now Natalya has two bracelets and lots of money.

Again uniquely designed by Arte Design, this 2015 4th MAF World Cup DON's bracelet is filled with Ruby stones and worth more than $3,000.