(Update: results of the first Dragon Tournament added)

Playing online tournaments for three months, in order to get one of the four places in the finals on November 6th - that was the target. But, no ‘a3geffen’ at that final table. For Dutch mahjong player Adrie van Geffen, the fierce competition during thirteen weeks resulted in a sixth place. Before the finals even took place, the next three months’ Dragon Tournament for a golden tile will start already on November 1st.

SAN DIEGO - The first Golden Dragon online competition organized by Mahjong Time is over. The final results:

1. ‘once’;
2. ‘Enel’;
3. ‘GamblingQueen’;
4. ‘Eastwin’.

The choice of Eastwin was to play Hong Kong mahjong. To get the gold plated silver tile, winner Once has to sacrifice the net wins of some 400,000 dragon chips.

Objection

In the last weeks, most players in the top 10 played tournaments simultaneously and when possible all three sessions. My objections to playing simultaneous remain: delay and decrease of playing level. But winning prevails, and the chances of getting through appear to be more important.
It may be my character flaw, but I cannot stand making mistakes. I have tried twice to play two tables at the same time, but both times I caused delay and made stupid mistakes. Nevertheless, out of those four I still managed to get a prize in one of them. And that seems to be the motivation for players like 'eastwin', ‘Enel’, ‘al888999’, ‘mcguires’, ‘ChinorosT’, ‘eede’ and ‘4eva’ to play multiple tables, some of them three sessions per day in the last week. As I stated before: madness.

Prizes

Numbers 1 to 3 of the finalists have to hand in their won dragon chips to get their prizes: 1. golden tile; 2. large mahjong set and VIP membership; 3. travel mahjong set and premium membership; and for all T-shirts and a virtual medal. Number four can convert the won dragon chips to golden coins at a rate of 5 to 1.
This has been changed for the next tournament. Then the rating will be the same as for numbers 5 to 12 being 10 to 1. And what to do with golden coins? Mostly buying dragon chips at a rate of 1 to 10 and to partake in tournaments on Saturdays.

Not playing simultaneously and thus not having paid too much on subscription fees I suspect that, with Gambling Queen, my net result must be in the highest regions. Having played in 74 tournaments I managed to get a prize 41 times. Not so bad, I would say. Mahjong Time claims on the site with information that ties in the scores are unlikely. If so, then the player with the higher rating will be ranked higher. Surprise: it happened to me four times! Being a VIP member with high rating I profited all times, the best in the final of MCR 1027-2 to get the first place having an equal score to ‘knurft’.

Suggestion

In the second half of this tournament less players participated. The winners were more or less known and their individual effort to make it stay that way too. Players ranked under 15th position hardly participated anymore in the end. My suggestion (one of the page full I handed in) to shorten the duration to one month instead of three, has been put aside.
Another suggestion, however, is now implemented: the styles will rotate over the different weekdays. Hence fixed obligations in normal life on regular days will no longer, or less, prevent possibility to participate.
Another alteration which I really don’t understand is that the subscription fee is increased with 50 percent. Instead of 5,000 chips it now costs 7,500 on weekdays and 30,000 instead of 20,000 on Saturdays. I don’t think this will encourage players to give it a try and I fear that the second Dragon Tournament will see less of the same players.

Strain

I won’t be one of them. The strain on my agenda, the fixed hours almost every day, making me play at moments I’d rather not, and the overall experience of the last three months (of which not the least playing at tables with delay for multiple table players) has made me decide to use my golden coins just for playing when it is convenient to me. Maybe I will be back in such a tournament coming February.