News
2012 UK Open Riichi Tournament
The 3rd UK Riichi Open will be held on Saturday June 30th, 2012.
Like last year tournament this will be a 5 round MERS 2 rated event. Full details of the tournament and the ability to register can be found here.
2nd UK Open Richi Tournament
June 2011 was clearly a month for ‘new kids on the block’. Rory McIlroy won his first golf ‘major’ - the US Open - and Steven Chowning from the Leeds University mahjong group saw off some strong competition to win his first major – the UK Riichi Open.
With one round to go, Steven was tied for the lead with one of the usual suspects - well enough known in the mahjong world to get by on her forename alone – Gemma. Gem won her final round with +10,000 but couldn’t match Steven’s 25,000 win.
In 3rd place was Nicolas Poilleux, recent winner of the French National title. More ‘new kids’ took the next two places Kristiina Kuusela from Finland, and Robert Steele from the emerging Warwick University group.
It was pleasing to welcome such a powerful French contingent to the tournament and to note the emergence of the student groups from Leeds and Warwick as well as an increased representation from Cambridge at this year’s event. Members of the Guildford Golf Club were heard to wonder when last so many Frenchmen came over to England, and concluded that it was probably 1066. (These visitors were more welcome). They further mused whether quite so much hair had ever been seen at the Golf Club, unless it was with many more heads to carry it! (The return of hair would also be most welcome, apparently).
Full results were:
| Rank | Player | Final Score | |
| 1 | Steven Chowney |  |
111,200 |
| 2 | Gemma Collinge | |
96,700 |
| 3 | Nicolas Poilleux |  |
92,900 |
| 4 | Kristiina Kuusela |  |
72,900 |
| 5 | Robert Steel | |
52,000 |
| 6 | Kevin Lincoln | |
51,100 |
| 7 | Alex Horsman | |
50,300 |
| 8 | Valerian Thomas | |
47,900 |
| 9 | Richard Langtry | |
45,600 |
| 10 | Ian Fraser | |
41,900 |
| 11 | Dominic Denham | |
37,100 |
| 12 | Cecille Poilleux-Laudy | |
35,000 |
| 13 | Aidan Robison | |
34,100 |
| 14 | Jean-Marc Dedieu | |
33,900 |
| 15 | Pierre-Cyrille Kutukdjian | |
29,700 |
| 16 | Toshi Kashiwazaki |  |
29,000 |
| 17 | Cor Hoogland |  |
28,400 |
| 18 | Christopher Rowe | |
25,900 |
| 19 | Nicolas Campina | |
25,000 |
| 20 | Edwin Thomson | |
21,400 |
| 21 | Martin Lester | |
20,100 |
| 22 | Ans Hoogland | |
19,800 |
| 23 | Geoff Isenman | |
19,600 |
| 24 | Aziz Azougagh | |
12,800 |
| 25 | Sara Dona | |
11,200 |
| 26 | Paola Bungaro |  |
8,500 |
| 27 | James Neve | |
-1,200 |
| 28 | Susan Stewart | |
-2,400 |
| 29 | John Duckworth | |
-9,000 |
| 30 | David Clarke | |
-17,700 |
| 31 | Peter Langford | |
-20,600 |
| 32 | Andy Mathew | |
-22,700 |
| 33 | Marc Pester | |
-28,100 |
| 34 | Joshua Tattersall | |
-32,900 |
| 35 | Andrew Smith | |
-37,400 |
| 36 | Matthew Johnson | |
-39,000 |
| 37 | Quentin Thomas | |
-43,500 |
| 38 | Michael Donaghy | |
-44,700 |
| 39 | David Morris | |
-47,700 |
| 40 | Julie Gacser | |
-53,900 |
| 41 | Nick Dyer | |
-53,900 |
| 42 | David Stallan | |
-61,100 |
| 43 | Teemu Sandblom | |
-66,700 |
| 44 | Edward Tebbatt | |
-73,700 |
| 45 | Norma Todd | |
-76,7000 |
| 46 | Paul Malone | |
-80,900 |
| 47 | Wendy Coyne | |
-105,000 |
| 48 | Benjamin Wicks | |
-132,800 |
Represented Countries
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|
|
|
|
| 35 | 7 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 |
The 1st UK Open Riichi Tournament
After the success of the pilot event, the inaugural UK Open was held on June 26th 2010. Supported by official recognition from the EMA, with MERS ranking points at stake, and with the assistance of publicity via Mahjong News a significantly wider participation was achieved. It was particularly pleasing that Martin Rep, editor of Mahjong News, was able to take part this time, and both surprising and gratifying that the President of the Korean Mahjong Association, Jaewon Yu, who chanced to be on holiday in Europe at the time, was available to compete.
Some very capable players from the Cambridge University Riichi Mahjong Club featured prominently, taking inter alia, second and third places, but on this occasion the clear winner was Ans Hoogland from the Netherlands.
| Rank | Player | Final Score | |
| 1 | Ans Hoogland | |
120,300 |
| 2 | Marc Pester | |
80,800 |
| 3 | John-Joseph Wilks | |
76,300 |
| 4 | Alexander Dienaar | |
71,600 |
| 4 | John Wood | |
71,600 |
| 6 | Sebastian Powell | |
71,100 |
| 7 | Jaewon Yu |  |
69,500 |
| 8 | Alexander Doppelhoffer |  |
67,700 |
| 9 | Anneke Keyl | |
41,100 |
| 10 | Paola Bungaro | |
41,000 |
| 11 | Janco Onnink | |
29,200 |
| 12 | Cor Hoogland | |
27,100 |
| 13 | Gemma Collinge | |
24,500 |
| 14 | Christopher Rowe | |
21,300 |
| 15 | Andy Mathew | |
17,700 |
| 16 | Andrew Jordan | |
16,300 |
| 17 | Rick Sorgdrager | |
12,200 |
| 18 | Iain Ramsey | |
9,400 |
| 19 | Aidan Robison | |
7,600 |
| 20 | Patrick Hafkenscheid | |
4,100 |
| 21 | Toshi Kashiwazaki | |
3,200 |
| 22 | James Neve | |
-1,500 |
| 23 | John Duckworth | |
-3,500 |
| 24 | Andrey Podrezov |  |
-3,800 |
| 25 | Richard Langtry | |
-6,700 |
| 26 | Benjamin Wicks | |
-8,200 |
| 27 | Martin Rep | |
-15,300 |
| 28 | Yingke Shan | |
-16,200 |
| 29 | David Stallan | |
-20,900 |
| 30 | Susan Cumming | |
-21,400 |
| 31 | Ian Fraser | |
-25,400 |
| 32 | Peter Langford | |
-26,900 |
| 33 | Toni Wensley | |
-30,100 |
| 34 | Gerda Luebkeman | |
-30,600 |
| 34 | Marian Raybone | |
-30,600 |
| 36 | Tony Haley | |
-35,600 |
| 37 | Wendy Coyne | |
-35,800 |
| 38 | Henry Lin | |
-36,000 |
| 39 | Alison Brown | |
-36,200 |
| 40 | Norma Todd | |
-38,000 |
| 41 | Nick Dyer | |
-42,000 |
| 42 | Maurice Demmer | |
-43,600 |
| 43 | Jonathan Coke-Smith | |
-44,900 |
| 44 | Marjan Demmer | |
-52,300 |
| 45 | Dimphy van Grinsven | |
-55,000 |
| 46 | Roy de Treek | |
-55,900 |
| 47 | Matthew Johnson | |
-56,700 |
| 48 | Susan Stewart | |
-111,500 |
Represented Countries
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|
|
|
|
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|
| 30 | 13 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
Pilot Tournament in UK
The first known Riichi tournament held in the UK took place in September 2009, involving members of the local groups around Guildford and a handful of specially invited guests from mainland Europe, including Tina Christiansen, Vice President of the European Association.
The result was a minor embarrassment for co-organiser Peter Langford, who hadn’t even necessarily been expecting to play, but at least it showed that the Brits could hold their own against some experienced competition. Not that the Brits were entirely lacking in experience. In second place was John Wood, the very man who had brought Riichi Mahjong back to the UK from Japan some thirty years earlier.
| Rank | Player | Final Score | |
| 1 | Peter Langford | |
87,600 |
| 2 | John Wood | |
69,500 |
| 3 | Gemma Collinge | |
65,600 |
| 4 | Ilka Stummeyer |  |
51,900 |
| 5 | Tony Haley | |
51,100 |
| 6 | Ans Hoogland | |
46,400 |
| 7 | Colin Wood | |
30,700 |
| 8 | John Duckworth | |
26,300 |
| 9 | Ian Fraser | |
20,700 |
| 10 | Andrew Smith | |
16,900 |
| 11 | Nick Dyer | |
15,300 |
| 12 | David Stallan | |
4,200 |
| 13 | Morten Andersen |  |
-5,400 |
| 14 | Richard Langtry | |
-7,200 |
| 15 | Geoff Isenman | |
-8,500 |
| 16 | Gerda Lubkemann | |
-9,400 |
| 17 | Cor Hoogland | |
-9,900 |
| 18 | Andy Mathew | |
-11,000 |
| 19 | Toni Wensley | |
-14,300 |
| 20 | Janco Onnink | |
-19,900 |
| 21 | Jonathan Coke Smith | |
-21,100 |
| 22 | Tina Christensen | |
-38,000 |
| 23 | Iain Ramsey | |
-44,500 |
| 24 | Mark Turner | |
-47,600 |
| 25 | Lizzie Haliburton | |
-53,300 |
| 26 | Paola Bungaro | |
-55,300 |
| 27 | Wendy Coyne | |
-66,800 |
| 28 | Naomi Fraser | |
-74,000 |
Represented Countries
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| 22 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 |