Who is Vitaly Novikov, the Russian mahjong player who is fascinated so much by Sherlock Holmes? Let's have him introduced in his own words.

Vitaly Novikov: “When I was five years old, my dad introduced to me game of checkers. Since then whole my life is devoted to various intellectual games, especially exotic ones – not even merely playing but also analyzing rules sets and constructing new versions. The other aspect of interest to games is organizing competitions, keeping ratings etc. At the age of 18 I organized an 8-round tournament for 34 players for the Japanese game of Renju. When I was student in mid-1980’s I won the Cup of Moscow in two different games: Renju and Contract Bridge.
“I encounted the game of Mahjong back in 2003, that was riichi rules set. My first games were surely against computer, primarily, because there were no players around. In 2004 I started to play MCR -- very interesting and challenging rules set. In 2005 after compiling some analytical research on mahjong – first one was “Complete One-Suit Draw Analysis” – I have decided to start my site "Analytical Articles on Mah-Jong" (http://www.mahjong-co.narod.ru/).
“When studying bridge, I found the whole world of books and articles covering aspects of the game and written by many authors. The best format of such articles covers theory in a form of problems with touch of humor. Looking at the game of mahjong, I  found total absence of such “problems” genre. Since I am fan of Mr. Sherlock Holmes the solution instantly came to my mind -- short stories with mahjong problems would be featuring Holmes & Co. Welcome to series ‘Sherlock Holmes and Mahjong’!”

Vitaly Novikov

Years of playing mahjong: MCR since 2004, first rules set to read -- riichi back to 2003.
Website: Analytical Articles on Mah-Jong
Spheres of interests: intellectual games in general, statistics & analysis, Rules/competitions regulations
MJ-servers and nick: ComboRus at MahJongTime
Country: Russia
Age: 44 y.o.
Best win: not yet so far, mahjong set at some MJT tournament.

The First Mysteries

And now, try his first Sherlock Holmes and Mahjong Mysteries…