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top news photography Europe may host 1st WC Riichi. Maybe

AMSTERDAM, the Netherlands, January, 27th - There is a chance that a first world championship riichi mahjong will be held the years to come. And this might very well take place somewhere in Europe. This is stated in a report, written for the Dutch mahjong association. Picture: The Second European Mahjong Championship, Hanover, Germany, 2010. Read more…
Players like ‘Washizu Mahjong’ Print E-mail
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Written by Staff   
Sunday, 18 July 2010 22:32

Deniz Gencturc (right) is thinking, Dicky Rep watches in awe.ARNHEM, the Netherlands - A small group of invited guests today have enjoyed a riichi tournament where Washizu rules were used. It was a test to see if these rules, which actually only exist in the Japanese ‘Akagi’ manga, really can be applied in a tournament, and if they are fun in the first place.

The remarkable about Washizu mahjong is that it is played with a set, where three out of every four tiles are transparent; only one of each specimen is opaque. So, special arrangements have to be made to hide the tiles that are in the living wall and in the dead wall.

For that purpose, Dutch player Cor Hoogland designed a Washizu top piece, and he built a number of them for the tournament. After the tournament, which was organized by Mahjong News, the 24 players evaluated the game.

Tradition

Although the better part of the players never took the game too seriously, most of them appeared to really have enjoyed it. Mahjong News seriously considers to make it a yearly tradition.

The players also liked the venue, the 'Buitenplaats' in the Dutch town of Arnhem.

Pictures of the tournament

More pictures of the tournament

The final results

The final classification of the 'Washizu in Holland' competition.

 

Rank. Voorn. Achtern.Nat. Total
1 Rick Moorman NLD 75500
2 Ans Hoogland NLD 48800
3 Els Kuijpers NLD 39700
4 Philipp Scharpf GER 34500
5 Cor Hoogland NLD 26900
6 Jan Ketzer NLD 23300
7 Michael Zahradnik GER 22600
8 Marianne Croeze NLD 19300
9 Deniz Gencturk TUR 17300
10 Björn Schulz GER 17000
11 Dicky Rep NLD 13900
12 Diana van de Wetering NLD 9500
13 Harry Kal NLD 8700
  ref. Martin   Rep NLD 0 0 0 0 0
controle         NLD 0 0 0 0 0
14 Jaap Croeze NLD -9000
15 Désirée Heemskerk NLD -9700
16 Nadine König GER -16400
17 Maurice Demmer NLD -18500
18 Chris Scheffler NLD -27600
19 Sjef Strik NLD -27800
20 Marjan Demmer NLD -28100
21 Gertjan Davies NLD -39100
22 John Kuijpers NLD -43400
23 Conny Scheffler NLD -50200
24 Ida van der Bij NLD -87200
Last Updated on Monday, 09 August 2010 23:45
 
Comments (3)
1 Saturday, 24 July 2010 23:26
Christopher Rowe
So, judging from the results, this was an individual tournament?

I've yet to properly try out Washizu mahjong against people (I have the Akagi game for the Nintendo DS), but my impression is that teams add quite a lot to the strategy of it, and I feel that playing it with four individuals rather than two teams would mean that people would rarely win except for by tsumo. With teams things can work a bit differently.
2 Sunday, 25 July 2010 10:39
Martin Rep
Hi Christopher,

It was an individual tournament indeed. But mainly because we had no idea how to play it in teams. Perhaps you could share some ideas and insights with us… You know where to reach us!
We might even invite you for the next Washizu event ;-)

Greetz
Martin
3 Saturday, 04 September 2010 03:56
Roy de Treek
I have watched Akagi recently and to me it seemed the rules for playing in a team format seemed simple enough. You can consider it a 'two-headed dragon' kind of system, only with one head being bigger than the other.

In Akagi, basically the only points that matter in the team game during the whole Washizu arc, are those of Akagi himself and Washizu.
Their partners are seated to their right.
While the partners earn points on their own with their wins as per normal rules and gameplay, at the end of a game session, either Akagi or Washizu has won based on their point total.
For example, they could play the entire session stealing only points from their partner, but if Washizu would end up in third place and Akagi in fourth, Washizu would've still won because he ranked higher than Akagi.

Well, generally speaking, the 'main players' will never end up in the third and fourth place as their partners are supposed to make sure that the main players get as much points as possible...Though, I suppose in real life it is actually possible that they'd end up in third or fourth place together.

The way I see it, in order to play in teams, you determine which person in the team will be the lead and thus accumulates all the points and the other will be the partner, whose main purpose is to play a supportive role by trying to "steal away" the opponent's dealer turns, play into the lead's hands and the deplete the points of the lead of the opposing team. Naturally, if a 'supporter' wins on a self-draw, his partner will have to pay points as well, so unless it's really convenient, supporters generally won't go out on a self-draw =)

One specific rule, however, that should be added in a team format in my opinion, is the "Head Bump" rule from traditional Japanese mahjong.
What this entails is that when two players are in Tenpai and one of the other players discard the winning tile, the person on the right of the player who deals the tile wins.
Following the Akagi example, if Washizu and Akagi are in tenpai and can go out on the same tile, when Washizu's support discards the tile, Akagi wins because he's seated to the right of Washizu's support. I think this rule will add a whole different level of strategy to the team format and makes 'dealing into the lead's hands' a whole lot riskier if the other team's lead is in tenpai as well.

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