For the first time in two years, the international mahjong scene will see world champion Li-Li back. He won his title during the World Mahjong Championship 2007 in Chengdu, China. The final of the WMC was a great party for the student of Tsinghua university in Beijing. Mobbed by his friends and other mahjong players, he shook hands with everybody who was standing near to him, and many players had his picture taken, preferably with themselves standing next to the new world champion. Yet, the final of ‘Chengdu 2007’ was a strange one. Not all of his competitors agreed with the course of events. Mahjong News reconstructs what happened.

Amongst the happy sixteen players were ten Chinese:

• Zhang Bo,
• Song Panjing,
• Wang Yanhuang,
• Huang Shufu,      
• Gao Jun,
• Jiao Linghua,
• Zhang Bingcheng,
• Ni Haiting,
• Zhang Zhangfei, and
• Li Li.

There were five Japanese:

• Masato Chiba,
• Yuri Teduka,
• Yoshinori Kato,
• Kazutoshi Iwasawa, and
• Minuri Imaeda.

And, surprisingly, one player from the Netherlands, Désirée Heemskerk. Although a strong player, Désirée had had a disappointing result at the second European Championship in 2007 in Copenhagen, where she became 127th, out of 136 competitors.
The Danes looked the best candidates for the final of the WMC, but their European champion, Martin Wedel Jacobsen, reached only to the 27th place in E’mei Shan. After Ms. Heemskerk and French Laurent Mahé - he ended on 17th position - Martin was the first European player, though.