The best players of 2008

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Created on Tuesday, 13 January 2009 19:44

Last Updated on Wednesday, 28 November 2012 18:00

Written by Martin Rep

'Tina from Denmark the best player'

VIENNA - Austrian mahjong player Alexander Doppelhofer likes to play with statistics. He is a passionate reader of all kinds of on line rankings. In the past, together with other Austrian players, he even designed another way of calculating the European Mahjong Ranking, which, by the way, was rejected by EMA.
But this does not mean he has given up calculating and re-calculating the various ranking lists. Perhaps even earlier than the official EMA statistical expert Sébastien Berret, he knows exactly who has moved up and who is going down on the EMA ranking as well on the EMA Riichi Ranking.

At the end of 2008, Alexander has calculated which EMA players did the best during the past year. Alexander tells: 'I fed this list with all the results since the first EMA tournament, the OEMC 2005 in Holland. But for this ranking, I only took the results from begin 2008. Sometimes I had to round off or round up numbers, e.g. 2,49 became 2, and 2,51 became 3. But the way of calculating the list does not differ from the way the official EMA ranking is made up.
"I have thought of adding also the results of the EMA riichi tournaments, but I decided not to do so, since 2008 was just the first year of official riichi tournaments. So the official EMA riichi list is the same as my list would be. But for next year, I surely will make also a riichi ranking. And perhaps a combined 2009 MCR-Riichi ranking."

Alexander's List

And, who were the best players of 2008, according to Alexander's list? Tina Christensen from Denmark tops the ranking, followed by Topi Musto from Finland and Eszter Várnal from Hungary. These players do not even come close to the top ten of the real EMA list, with Topi as a negative highligt, on place 139 of the EMA ranking. There is just one player who hits the top ten in both lists: Hwa Mei Felder from Switzerland.
Luca Gavelli from Italy, who is the current number 1 on the EMA list, did not have a great 2008, according to Alexander, in whose list he occupies a modest 201st place. And Emmanuel Tai Leung from France (number 2 in the official ranking) cannot even be found on Alexander's list. He did not play enough EMA tournaments.
So, here's the list. Nothing official, but it's fun to watch and compare.
Any comment or ideas? Just send This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and he surely will appreciate.