High Class Social Event

GUILDFORD, Surrey, England – In the same weekend that the English soccer team was kicked out of the World Cup in South Africa, in Guildford, Surrey, there was a less noticed yet just as important event, when the British returned to the international mahjong world.
Back in the nineteen-twenties, mahjong was a major hype on the British Islands. Even royals seem to have liked the game. After the decline of mahjong, however, England and the other European countries drifted apart and chose their own ways of playing. But now, with the first UK Riichi Open, combined with the formal decision of UKMA to enter the European Mahjong Association, England, finally, is part again of the expanding world of mahjong lovers.

Golf Club

The first official tournament on British soil (MERS 1, which means the results will be included in the European mahjong rankings) was an all-English happening, which took place in the club house of the exclusive Guildford Golf Club, so sometimes the clattering of the mahjong tiles mixed wonderfully with the modest sounds of golf balls being launched. In a marvellous speech which concluded the tournament, the Captain (‘speaker’) of the Golf Club, Paul Donaghy, appeared to be just as unaware about ‘whatever game you played today’ as the mahjong players probably were about the secrets of the golf sport.
The UK Riichi Open was a very friendly competition in the first place. As usual in international mahjong tournaments, the Dutch provided the largest foreign delegation, so that, with 30 British and 13 Dutch players, it very much looked like an England-Holland meeting. (The other players came from Austria, Italy, Korea, Russia and Japan.) Which, this time, eventually was won by the Dutch, since Ans Hoogland appeared to be the best, or the luckiest, player, with a remarkable score of 120,300 points. Runner-up was Marc Pester, third place was for John-Joseph Wilks; both from England.

Social

Like stated before, it was a very successful social gathering in the first place, and an extremely well run tournament. This also means that there were large differences in the skill level of players. In his weblog, Christopher Rowe of the Cambridge riichi mahjong community, remarks that ‘the general consensus from the Cambridge guys was that the average skill level at the tournament was pretty low.’
‘I don't mean that as a negative to the people involved or the tournament’, Christopher writes, ‘because everyone I spoke to was nice, and the tournament was good fun, but aside from a few players there who genuinely seemed pretty good, the majority of the field was at a fairly low standard. It didn't stop the tournament from being enjoyable, but it wasn't what I was expecting, and I'd say in some ways I could have enjoyed it more if I'd gotten slaughtered by playing people way above my level.'

Strategic

‘The basic thing that stood out was that a lot of people just seemed to ignore most of the strategic aspects of the game. There were a few players who knew what they were doing when it came to defending, and would discard sensibly, but a lot of people just seemed to continually be chasing any sort of hand that they could win out on. Most of the hand values were pretty low because people seemed happy to settle for poor, single-yaku hands instead of going for anything big, and defensive play especially just seemed to be non-existent.
‘There was no need to go for clever waits after declaring riichi because a lot of people just seemed to completely ignore any notion of not dealing in, and instead pursue getting their low-value hand out instead. It's actually quite hard to play when you've got some people floating around who are extremely good, and others which will deal into the most obvious and dangerous of hands because they don't really consider the idea of throwing a hand to avoid dealing into someone.'
Christopher, by the way, shows great respect to the one player from South Korea, Jaewon Yu, ‘a really nice guy but a scary player’. Jaewon Yu made it to the seventh place, but impressed everyone for his great skills. 

Ian Fraser is glad with the input of the young competitors. "It was very pleasing to have such a strong student representation - both in number and quality - from Cambridge and Lancashire too, at the tournament.   I was not at all surprised at their speed of thought or the quality of their play - after all, Cambridge has been known to produce some pretty handy chess and bridge players in its time.  It's good to know that a thriving group of more than capable riichi players now exists there too, who are predictably enough 'students of the game'."

Christophers weblog

Pictures of the tournament

Final results