So, three of us of the Nijmegen Golden Dragon Team will go to the Third Open European Mahjong Championship in Austria. I am proud to say that Nijmegen is the place where international mahjong in Europe started. Ten years ago already, players from Denmark and Belgium came to play in our Golden Dragon Tournament - at the time with Hong Kong Mahjong Rules, but, after 2005, with the Mahjong Competition Rules.
In Nijmegen also the first OEMC was held, in 2005, and that was just the beginning of the MCR success story…
Like I wrote earlier, I did not have to qualify for the OEMC 2009, but the other Nijmegen players had to. Chris succeeded in qualifying rather soon. But, initially, Conny did not. It was not until EMA had decided to give some extra places to Holland until she could be sure of the trip.
The fourth player of the Nijmegen Team is Ma Prem Sohana, but she does not play in the Golden Dragon club, but in the Red Dragon at Hengelo, some 100 kms from Nijmegen. Also, she has already left for Austria, so I am afraid I cannot tell you very much about her training schedule. But I do know that Chris is the player to watch in Baden. During our training sessions, he won about every second game, and most of the time with self-pick. This man has got an incredible lucky hand. Also, both at the OEMC 2005 as at the first European Riichi Championship he was the best Dutch player. But in both tournaments, I did not play… so I will have to break your record, Chris!
Anyway, we have nice T-shirts for Baden: beautiful black, with, in orange of course, our names on it. All the four of us will wear them, so you can recognize us easily at Baden.

My colleagues at work of course sympathize with me. I work at the Volvo Cars Sales Company in Beesd in the Netherlands. They already know me there as ‘the mahjong guy’. Sometimes I showed them pictures on MahjongNews.Com if I won a tournament or when I had organised one.

Every now and then, I go to the Volvo Car Corporation in Sweden. Most of the Swedish colleagues have known me for quite a while. After they have asked me how I am doing, the second question is how everything is going with mahjong. Sometimes I take a mahjong set with me to show them the beautiful tiles and to explain the game. I’ve even played mahjong with some colleagues once!