William Sutjiadi, president of MahjongTime

This server is extremely popular, esp. with European players, since this is about the only server where they can play the new mahjong rules, i.e. Mahjong Competition Rules. Moreover, MahjongTime also sponsored the OEMC 2007 in Copenhagen as well as several European national mahjong organizations.

Just like on the official OEMC, on the Online OEMC players can win points for a formal European ranking list, which is called MORSE (Mahjong Online Ranking Sytem Europe).

William Sutjiadi, CEO of the US-based server, is quite optimistic about the first European online championship. Mahjong News had a talk with him about this forthcoming event.

Mahjong News: is there much interest from mahjong players?
William Sutjiadi: Yes, there is a lot of excitement from our online players. Some already registered and many are talking about joining shortly.

Mahjong News: how can you guarantee that it will be a real European championship?
William Sutjiadi: As you know, we are the official partners of EMA as well as most of the European associations. The tournament is endorsed by EMA and also will be the first one using the MORSE ranking system, so whoever wins will earn the MORSE point, which is the online version of MERS ranking. We are working with all the European associations to ensure participations of the ranked European Players. We are also actively promoting the tournament via our own channels to get participation from many players around the world.

Mahjong News: if people want to participate, how many hours will they have to be online?
William Sutjiadi: The schedule is posted here: http://mahjongtime.com/OEMC-Tournament.htm
It will be a two-day tournament; three 90 minutes rounds with 15 minute break in between rounds. On the 2nd day, the top 4 players will play the final round.

Mahjong News: will winners be online longer than the losers? I.o.w., is there some kind of a knock-out system?
William Sutjiadi: All participants will play a total of 6 – 90 minutes round. The top four players will play an additional final round. This tournament follows the OEMC format, so there is no knock-out system.

Mahjong News: has there been discussions about prize money?
William Sutjiadi: Yes, we discussed about putting together a prize money, however, due to the current EMA and WMO regulation, to abide by the rules, we decide not to offer prize money for this tournament. We do hope to offer prize money in the future.

Mahjong News: can you do something against cheating, e.g. players can have contact online via Skype and ask for specific tiles?
William Sutjiadi: Mahjong Time has implemented the most advanced and sophisticated anti-collusion (anti-cheating) system. Our system has proven to detect and caught cheaters and we are very strict about our anti-cheating policy. Moreover, the games are also monitored and analyzed by our player services to make sure the games are played with the highest integrity. In addition, players themselves can also review the game and report to us any suspected game/players.

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