TEMSE, Belgium - The Dutch outnumbered the rest of the mahjong players by far. 36 players from the Netherlands had made the short trip to the Belgian town of Temse, where they met with 12 French and 6 Belgian mahjong players (and one Portuguese - but she lives in Holland - and an Englishman). Yet, in the final ranking of the first Open Belgian Championship since 2006, it was the French who dominated.

Lionel Legaie took the first prize, while Sébastien Berret was the runner-up. The first Dutch player in this open championship was 'good old' Rudy Wong Chung, who won the third prize. By the way: all the three players on the victory stand had 14 table points.
One of the reasons that so many Dutch players attended the Temse 'Little Three Dragons Tournament', is that, for them, Temse 2009 is a qualification tournament for the World Mahjong Championship 2010. Yet, Temse is a foreign city, and the results of the tournament will not be implied in the Dutch mahjong ranking list.

Flanders

Mahjong in Belgium is by far not as big as in its neighbor countries Holland, France and Germany. There are just a few clubs, and they all are found in Flanders, the Dutch speaking part of the country.
Until some years ago, the Belgian championship was organized by Jan and Linda Thomassetti from Mechelen. Chinese classical rules were used, until, in 2006, Jan and Linda switched to the Mahjong Competition Rules.
Jan and Linda did not like the change, mainly because of all the EMA restrictions they had to meet with, and they decided not to go on with the organization. Fortunately, in the meantime, an active mahjong club had started in near-by Temse, led by Michel and Peter van Damme. They have taken over the initiative of a formal Open Belgian Mahjong Championship in the MCR rules. Also, a formal Belgian Mahjong Association is being established and will soon be a full member of EMA, the European Mahjong Association. For the next World Mahjong Championship (2010 in Utrecht, the Netherlands), Belgium has a right to send a delegation of three players.
The first Belgian player today at Temse was Rudy Kopmanis, who did not make it to the top twenty. He ended on the 21st place.
The number of Belgian players competing at Temse was rather small: just over 10 percent. Since most Belgian players are not quite experienced - yet -, they are still shy to play in a tournament with an official MERS rating. That's why, the day after the MERS event, a separate Friendship Tournament was held, where the title of Belgian Championship was at stake. Only Belgian players could win this title, although also Dutch players competed in this small (24 players) competition). The formal title of Belgian champion was won by co-organizer Peter van Damme, who was runner-up, after Marianne Croeze from the Netherlands.