SAN DIEGO - Player 'briesje' (Dimphy van Grinsven from the Netherlands) has won the alternative German Online Open Mahjong Championship, last weekend. Runner-up was her fellow-countryman a3geffen (Adrie van Geffen), third place was for Rostved66 (Frank Rostved) from Denmark. After the tournament, an unofficial MORSE ranking of the online tournaments is published. Just as the 'Do It Yourself' German Online Open, this is a 'wild' initiative by some mahjong players.

The cancellation of the GMO2009 tournament was such a disappointment for Janco Onnink that he decided to do it himself. Twenty participants registered. Janco mailed who was to sit on which table during the tournament and who was to be leader. The leader of each table had to create the table and allow players to sit and play. Afterwards the scores (print screen and paste) were to be mailed to Janco. At the start one player was substituted by Yenia who played the full tournament. It was quite remarkable that all rounds were played at the right time. Sadly two players decided not to turn up in the sixth round. One player could be replaced by Dragontwo (Chris Scheffler) but the other had to be substituted by Jerry (the computerplayer of Mahjong Time). Tarabarsky (Mark Chizhenok) helped out Janco by processing the scores and put the results on his website.
 
The excitement and the tension was the same as in other tournaments. And why shouldn’t it be? Playing six time 1.5 hours of mahjong always is. After the first three rounds Dzumshud (Vit Sav) was in the lead with a full score of 12 points. But on Sunday he was not as strong. Starting the sixth round Briesje (Dimphy van Grinsven, NL) was in the lead and by winning her last table she kept her first place with 18 points. Second was a3geffen (Adrie van Geffen, NL) with 16 points and third Rostved66 (Frank Rostved, DK) with 15 points.
 
The features on Mahjong Time that make it possible to ‘do it yourself’ are not found on any other server. By my knowledge this was the first time that players organised an online tournament and pulled it off. With some effort all kinds of tournaments could be held. Club against club, country against country, guild against guild, or just an open tournament as Janco did. It just takes someone who says: I will start it.