DORTMUND - He is the hope and pride of mahjong playing Germany: young Kilian Stöckemann. Two years ago, at Edewecht, his father Richard was the first German winner of a MERS tournament. Today, at Dortmund, the sixteen year old ‘Bube’ (the kid) was the only German in the top five of the Dortmund MCR Open. The numbers 2~5 were all for Dutch players.

These results reflect the nature of the tournament, an initiative of German/Dutch player Jacob van der Zee. Jacob is a Dutch who lives and works at Weeze, Germany, but plays mahjong at the Golden Dragon club in near-by Nijmegen. So when, in cooperation with DMJL-president Uwe Martens, he decided to organize a second German MERS event, he choose Dortmund as the venue, since this is an easy trip for most Dutch. And with success: of the 44 competitors, there were 18 Dutch (besides 24 Germans and 2 Belgians).

The final results