The Konami Cup, now called the Konami Cup Asia Series (watch out for the dizzying flash video),  reveals itself  as a  kind of exhibition–the champions from the Japanese, Korean, and Taiwanese leagues, along with  the Chinese national team, all coming to Tokyo to play a round-robin, with a championship game on the fourth day.

But the cup has a great equalizer: a bunch o’ money.  One hundred million Japanese Yen to be precise, which is about $871,269 in the Uncle Sam vernacular. Not chump change.

Luckily in Asia there is also national pride at stake. These factors  combined have made for competitive tournaments in the two previous editions, although things have generally gone as planned with Japanese teams winning both times.

However, last year’s runner up was a bit of a surprise as Taiwan’s representative La New Bears, defeated Korea’s champion Samsung Lions 3-2, for the right to  lose in the championship versus the  Nippon Ham Fighters. In that game  Konami Cup  MVP Yu Darvish pitched a two-hitter to win a close game 1-0.

Last year the Chinese national team lost its first two games  to the  ”mercy rule.” Its third game was a  a 6-1 loss to the Ham. It will kick things off Nov. 8 at 12 p.m. JST  versus the Uni-President Lions, winners of this year’s Taiwan Series.    

The 6 p.m. evening game  will be  Chunichi Dragons/SK Wyvrens matchup that could spell trouble for the Japanese  team’s eight game unbeaten streak. The Wyvrens  are well-coached and were from start-to-finish the  class of the KBO this season. The same cannot be said for the Dragons, who despite its series win, had the fourth best  record in  Japan this year.

Nov. 9 will see SK battle the Chinese team  in the early game, and Chunichi take on  Uni-President in the afternoon.  On Nov. 10  China Stars will play Chunichi and SK will battle Uni-President.

The championship will be at 6 p.m. JST Nov. 11.