LONDON - ‘Poker in the Park’ in London, ‘Europe’s biggest Poker Festival’, this year wants to set a record not only in poker but also in mahjong. According to a press release, the organisers are hoping that hundreds of eager mahjong players will flock to the venue in order to set a new record for the ‘biggest mahjong tournament outside China’.

Mahjong was never played before during the festival. But even now, less than four weeks before the start on September 2nd, the organisers do not know yet what type of mahjong will be played, in spite of Mahjong News’s repeated questions. According to organiser Lyceum Media, it all depends on the mahjong sponsor.

Additional information: In a comment on this article (see below), Michael Caselli of the organising team, says that Hong Kong mahjong rules will be applied. HKMJ is a simplified set of rules, in which only the doubles ('fan') are counted. E.g. in a game where a player wins with All Pong, his winning hand is worth 2 points, or 2 doubles, or 2 fan. Depending on the tables that are used, he receives a number of chips from the other players, e.g. 32 from the discarder and 16 from the other two players. For more info, check the website of FourWinds Mahjong. 

Chinese community

Mahjong is supposed to be an addition to the festival, which last year drew 20,000 fans. Quote from last week’s press release: “Organiser Michael Caselli said, “The addition of mahjong is not only a way to involve the large Chinese community from nearby China Town in our festival, but we also hope it will introduce a large number of poker players to what is one of the most widely played skill games in the world.”
Most British mahjong lovers play the national variant of the old-fashioned Chinese classical game, with some special rules, e.g. only one chow is allowed in a winning hand. But when it comes to attract Chinese people, it seems more appropriate to choose for a Hong Kong type of game. Finally, the British mahjong association has chosen for the Japanese riichi game as the most important standard. So, someone has to make a decision.

Participants

Apart from this: what would be the ‘biggest mahjong tournament outside China’? The staff of Mahjong News is curious about this figure. In the past, European casinos, e.g. in the Netherlands, have organised mahjong tournaments with several hundreds of participants. Anyway, probably more than the number of players in the official tournaments which are rated by the European Mahjong Organisation, the largest of which was the World Mahjong Championship in Holland last year: 208 players. In the United States, also NMJL tournaments usually draw not many more than a couple of hundreds participants. Perhaps readers of Mahjong News have a clue about what might be the 'biggest mahjong event'.

‘Poker in the Park’ will take place on September 2nd~3rd.
More info: http://www.pokerinthepark.com/
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