Diary of the World Mahjong Championship 2007 - Diary of the World Mahjong Championship 2007

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Created on Monday, 05 November 2007 09:22

Last Updated on Wednesday, 28 November 2012 18:00

Written by Martin Rep

Li Li's the Champion; Dutch Dees in the top ten

EMEI SHAN, November 5, 2007 - It looked like the final of a soccer match, when the public applauded and yelled and screamed, when the video camera's zoomed in and the flashes of the photocamera's flashed continuously. But this was the final of the World Mahjong Championship 2007. Sixteen players, sitting around four automatic mahjong tables, had been playing for two hours in absolute (well, nearly ;-) silence. But when the final gong was heard, it was a pandemonium.
He was the best, absolutely: Li Li from Tsinghua University. His team mates embraced him, everyone congratulated him, everyone wanted his autograph and everyone wanted on a picture with him. It was the happy end of the World Mahjong Championship 2007.
Actually, watching the final of a mahjong competition is quite boring. But, as one of the players said (I can just as well say this was Tom Sloper): 'I just could not stop watching.' The best sixteen players in the general classification were admitted to this final round. Public was allowed to watch, but only in silence, 'no talking, in any language', pictures could be made, 'but no flash'.
Then you sit and watch. Every now and then you hear 'chi', 'pong' or 'hu'.
For the Dutch, the final round was attractive, though, because the Dutch favorite Désirée Heemskerk had managed to qualify herself (and not Austrian Alexander Doppelhofer, who eventually ranked 28). A number of her fans were sitting quite close to her. And so they witnessed that 'Dees' could not win this table, even though she was quite happy with the 2 table points she won, which brought her to the 10th position in the final classification. That was even better than Masato Chiba, the winner of the first European Championship in 2005 (the Netherlands).
Li Li was really unbeatable, so he fully deserved his title, which he takes over from Mai Hatsune from Japan, who did not compete in this world championship. Runner-up was (Chinese) Zhang Zhangfei, and number three Minori Imaeda from Japan.
Some more figures, before we join the party here: Laurent Mahé from France just did not make it to the final round; he ended on position #17. Martin Wedel Jacobsen from Denmark, the current European champion, ranked to position 27, Alexander Doppelhofer - as told before - landed on position #28.
The best non-Asian team was the Dutch 'Rotterdam' team (Dees's team, of course), on the 11th position.
Okay, finally the Dutch again: 62 Adrie v Geffen, 15 points; 73 Jaap Croeze, 14 pts; 88 Anton Kösters, 13 points; 100 Frans Roquas, 101 Martin Rep, 103 Marianne Croeze, 104 Dicky Rep, all 11 pts; 113 Harry Kal, 116 Wil Meijer, 118 Yvonne vd Heide, all 9 pts; 125 Jeroen Meijer and 126 Rudy Wong Chung, 7 pts.