MOSCOW - The first MERS tournament on Russian soil has not become the great success which Mahjong Russia president Mark Chizhenok dreamed about.

Some players did not show up; in the case of Dutch player Sandra van de Berkt this was caused because she was lost in Moscow – see this article. Some Russian players did not want to play the Chinese Official (MCR) rules and left the tournament when they were penalized for that. And there were – as a result of the insufficient knowledge of the rules – some long arguments.

After the tournament, organizer Mr. Chizhenok has asked the Board of the European Mahjong Association to forfeit the two MERS points from the tournament, ‘Due to the fact that the Russian Open Mahjong Championship failed to meet many of EMA standards in the level of play and knowledge of CO rules and English language by the participants; in obstructing the tournament by participants leaving the tournament in the middle of it; in incurable differences between novices and experienced players, in disturbing the game by making unreasonable calls for the judge and arguing with the judge etc. - this all showed that many Russian players were not actually ready for this tournament’.
Tournaments with a MERS ranking are used to determine this ranking list.

According to Mr. Uwe Martens, president of EMA, the MERS qualification of the Russian Open will not be withdrawn, since the the problems are not due to bad organisation, but to the lack of experience of a number of players and to irritations as a result of this inexperience.
The tournament was won by Mr. Alexander Doppelhofer from Austria, with Serguey Egorov as the runner-up and Boris Andreev on the third place, both from Russia.

Results of the tournament

Dutch player lost in Moscow

Mark Chizhenok: 'I feel shame'