SAN DIEGO - After the cancellation of the German Online Open to be held on September 2009 all hell broke loose. Players organized a tournament themselves. Not only EMA but Dutch and German Association turned their back on Mahjong Time. It’s been a long wait, but after a total reprogramming of the site Mahjong Time is back in business. Or isn’t it?

Subscriptions

Because online everything goes a bit faster the choice was made to shorten the tournaments. Only 1 day instead of 2, and four rounds of 50 minutes with a break for necessary relief. It turned out that most tables were able to play well in the West-round each time, so more then eight hands.

Somewhat surprising that only 40 players subscribed. The last tournament, being the OEMC2009, had double. It could be that the way of subscribing was different (being logged in and find your way through the tabs instead of a separate webpage); or an error in the webpage that said that the subscription fee was $100 instead of $1; or the confusion you needed 100 golden coins to enter (100 golden coins can be bought for $1); or even that $1 is too much because one has paid to be a member already….

All things considered it was a successful restart. Very competitive and heart pounding till the end. After round three Janco, well known to most MT-players, was in the lead. He had to settle for second place though, for newcomer Svit from Russia took the first prize, scoreing 14 table points. Number three, with 11 table points like Janco and runners up 4-6, was Pochacco, the mysterious leader of the current ranking in MCR on Mahjong Time.

Every Saturday there is a tournament like this one, albeit in different variants. Next MCR tournament will be next month. Rankings of each variant will be maintained (or started).