Well organized and a good atmosphere. It was nice to be back in Paris again
Cor
The French can do the ECR, but will they do it?
- Details
- Created on Sunday, 11 March 2012 23:56
- Last Updated on Thursday, 03 January 2013 11:50
- Written by Martin Rep
The French TNT Riichi club organized its first international tournament, which went almost flawlessly. An absolute beginner, Maude Grimberg, was the undisputed winner.
PUTEAUX, Île de France – Last December, in Paris the Red Eyes Tournament ('get riichi or die tryin') was organized by riichi club RER. That was a first successful riichi tournament after the French Riichi Open 2011, which was done mainly by French MCR-players.
Today, in Puteaux, the Tri Nito Tiles Tournament was concluded - another successful event, organized by a French riichi club. So now, everybody wonders: will France also be the candidate to host the next European championship?
Probably not.
Says Valérian Thomas of the Tri Nitro Tiles, during a break of the TNT Tournament ‘1st detonation’, Sunday at Puteaux: “Organizing a tournament is really hard. Not only it is much work, but we had quite some cancellations from players, even in this last week.”
Besides, he says: “Most French players want to play themselves, and when you are organizing, you cannot play… And don’t forget, we have just started to play in tournaments, we have only recently joined the French mahjong federation FFMJ. It would be nice if the French MCR players would do the organization, so that the French riichi players will be able to play.”
Antwerp
Says Sébastien Berret, member of the board of FFMJ and of the presidium of the European Mahjong Association: “France will also organize the OEMC 2013 2014 in Strasbourg, so, I am not sure… I think for the EC Riichi we prefer Antwerp, that is a good place for the French, it is not so far away.” The coming week, TNT and Sébastien Berret will talk about the French candidature.
Antwerp is the venue where the Dutch plan to organize the EC 2013. Since they like this Belgian town so close to the Dutch border – and where actually Dutch is spoken – and since hosting a tournament in Belgium is much cheaper than in the Netherlands.
Just as the French, the Dutch have shown interest in organizing the next ECR. Even though they think that it is not really their turn, since they co-organized the ECR 2008 in Germany, and since they already organized the OEMC2005 and the world championship MCR in 2010.
So perhaps, Austria may be the best candidate for the ECR2013 after all. Just the other day, Austrian player Alexander Doppelhofer officially submitted his application for the ECR at Baden/Vienna to the Austrian mahjong league. President Martin Scheichenbauer confirms that he has approved the application and has forwarded it to EMA president Tina Christensen.
Finger exercise
Whatever the outcome, the TNT tournament was a nice finger exercise for the TNT club. The brothers Valérian and Quentin Thomas had decided to refrain from playing in order to control the competition as well as possible. The venue was perfect, there was a nice evening program for the players (food, drinks, and the option to play remarkable mahjong variants like Washizu and American ‘mah’) and lunches, snacks and drinks during the tournament were all fine.
What was disappointing for the TNT club was the modest number of participants: 32, while they had expected some 64 players since that was the number of players last year when the first French Riichi championship took place, Perhaps this was due to the fact that in the same weekend, the Belgian MCR championship was held, at Temse.
The atmosphere during the TNT event was companionable and easy-going, and the outcome quite surprising. An absolute beginner won the tournament. Maude Grimberg, who had not started playing mahjong competitions until six months ago, was the indisputable number one. She was a very lucky player, but she had no problem maintaining her number one position, almost during the whole weekend.Runner-up was Hubert Vergaud, the number three player was Hide Hayashi.
Pictures of the tournament on Flickr
Video of the tournament
Results of the Tri Nitro Tournament 2012
| Rank. | First N. | Last N. | Nat. | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Maude | Grimberg | FRA | 222500 |
| 2 | Hubert | Vignaud | FRA | 216500 |
| 3 | Hide | Hayashi | FRA | 157300 |
| 4 | Kiril | Osipov | FIN | 149000 |
| 5 | Kim | Iversen | DAN | 146200 |
| 6 | Nicolas | Campina | FRA | 121000 |
| 7 | Quentin | Porcherot | FRA | 97400 |
| 8 | Ans | HOOGLAND | NED | 91800 |
| 9 | Aziz | AZOUGAGH | FRA | 91200 |
| 10 | Martin | Lester | GBR | 89000 |
| 11 | Martin | Rep | NED | 75600 |
| 12 | Fabien | Robert | FRA | 48000 |
| 13 | Do Thu Khoa | Trinh | FRA | 43800 |
| 14 | Nicolas | Pochic | FRA | 43700 |
| 15 | Cor | HOOGLAND | NED | 38700 |
| 16 | Ian | Fraser | GBR | -3700 |
| 17 | Harry | Kal | NED | -6900 |
| 18 | Thomas | Wedekind | GER | -9400 |
| 19 | Gemma | Collinge | GBR | -11000 |
| 20 | Sebastien | Berret | FRA | -24800 |
| 21 | Anthony | Ea | FRA | -33300 |
| 22 | Joel | RATSIMANDRESY | FRA | -47800 |
| 23 | Olivier | Aubrun | FRA | -51400 |
| 24 | Tony | Haley | GBR | -51600 |
| 25 | Antoine | Rossard | FRA | -85300 |
| 26 | Aubry | Palouzier | FRA | -100200 |
| 27 | Florent | plisson | FRA | -102400 |
| 28 | David | Stallan | GBR | -143200 |
| 29 | Peter | Langford | GBR | -183700 |
| 30 | Benoit | Rugraff | FRA | -190000 |
| 31 | Jean Marc | Dedieu | FRA | -199600 |
| 32 | Olivier | Yang | FRA | -360800 |
Comments (4)
1Tuesday, 13 March 2012 08:47
Cor Hoogland
2Tuesday, 13 March 2012 10:12
Quentin
The OEMC will actually take place in Strasbourg in 2014.
3Tuesday, 13 March 2012 13:19
Nicolas P
Honestly Martin, are you doing it on purpose?
or are you just unable to keep in mind that ReR( the other french riichi club, that you always forget about...)have already organize a Mers1 whit 40 players in late december?
Sorry to be a little pissed of, but this is, at least the third time we have to clarify the situation.
or are you just unable to keep in mind that ReR( the other french riichi club, that you always forget about...)have already organize a Mers1 whit 40 players in late december?
Sorry to be a little pissed of, but this is, at least the third time we have to clarify the situation.
4Tuesday, 13 March 2012 21:47
Mahjong News
Bonjour Nicolas!
No, of course I am not doing this on purpose. But it is a sad thing that I overlooked the RER competition of last December (again). Excuse-moi!
To make it up with you, I will try to be there the next time. If you set a proper date, please count me in!
And it was nice playing against you in Puteaux. Looking forward to the next time.
Salut.
Martin Rep
No, of course I am not doing this on purpose. But it is a sad thing that I overlooked the RER competition of last December (again). Excuse-moi!
To make it up with you, I will try to be there the next time. If you set a proper date, please count me in!
And it was nice playing against you in Puteaux. Looking forward to the next time.
Salut.
Martin Rep
And the new faces were from Muenster and from Munster. That's all mistakes ;)
The tournament was great in my opinion, there should be some more like it^^
Congratulation Kirill !
Well done mate
Regards
Nicolas
I have corrected it now.
Martin Rep
Fly
Well, you are quoting from reliable sources (~_^), so I suppose you must be right… I should read my own newspaper better.
Anyway - it’s the first MERS tournament with three Slovakians on the honorary stand, right?
Congratulations! Hope to meet you all during the European Riichi Championship at Bad Vöslau, later this year.
Martin Rep