The inaugural Green Dragons Riichi Mahjong tournament took place on Saturday 28th September 2024 at the Medway Community Centre in Bakewell, and I’m extremely pleased to write that it was a great success. People seemed to enjoy themselves, complimented the venue, and I was flattered to receive thanks for hosting. So, while preparing everything has been a slightly stressful endeavour, things went as well as I could have hoped for and I would be extremely interested in hosting another tournament sometime in the future.
Venue
The Medway Community Centre in Bakewell was fantastic. During organising, its staff were extremely helpful and friendly. The building was comfy and a pleasant environment to play mahjong in. There was space for about 14 or so parked cars, which we didn’t need all of. Overall, the venue was very well received by everyone, and I would be more than happy to host further events at the same place.
Getting Started
The number of registrations hit 28 just a week before the event, leaving myself and my co-host Dan Green as substitutes, with Bec Green (who on short notice kindly learned enough of the rules to get by) as a third emergency substitute. One player withdrew a few days before; this put Dan in the tournament, and when a single other player didn’t show up on the day, this meant I played in the tournament too. Whilst selfishly happy to get in on the mahjong action, I have learned that both hosting and playing is exhausting. In any future tournaments, having an extra substitute on hand is going to be very helpful. While the 28 of us were playing, Bec alone managed the scoring and refreshments, with Dan updating the tournament movement between rounds.
Results and Prizes
We had two hanchans before the lunch break, with Kuangshi Dong leading the tournament comfortably after two nice wins worth 42,700 and 34,300 (including the 15,000 uma). After lunch, a last place in the third hanchan meant he was overtaken by four other players, with Clinton Wong becoming the new tournament leader on 75,000. He was closely followed by Tommy Lee (73,000), Akio Fujimura (72,400) and Luke Ramsden (68,400). In Hanchan 4, Akio scored a big win and soared to first place while Clinton unfortunately fell to fifth place after coming third in his hanchan. Meanwhile, Tommy and Luke stayed firmly in the top four, joined by Arisa who was now in third place. So, after 4/5 hanchans, we had Akio (118,400), Luke (105,000), Arisa (76,700), Tommy (74,500). There was drama in the final hanchan as Akio, Luke, and Arisa all finished third, while Tommy got a much-needed first place. In the end however, Akio’s lead was strong enough to hold on for the win. The final podium was:
1st: Akio Fujimura (111,100)
2nd: Tommy Lee (105,700)
3rd: Luke Ramsden (95,200)
Each player on the podium received an exquisite glass trophy for their achievement, along with extra prizes including high-quality Japanese sake, an elegant dragon-adorned tenugui, and a mug bearing the powerful imagery of a green dragon wrapped around a green dragon mahjong tile. Many congratulations to Akio, Tommy and Luke!
We also had three special prizes. The Best Hand prize was won by Luke Ramsden, who scored a dealer baiman (on my table, I add!). He received the prestigious prize of a large Bakewell Pudding, a local delicacy.
We had a special Green Dragon Prize for the event: throughout, players kept track of how many green dragon melds they had made, whether winning the hand or not. At the end of five hanchans, four players were tied with four melds each. Two of those players were myself and Dan, so we graciously let the other two, Matthew Huang and Sam Sleight, battle it out in a 50/50 draw to determine the winner. After shuffling two tiles face down, Matthew drew the green dragon tile and claimed an adorable green dragon plush for his admirable contribution to the green dragon cause.
Finally, the Last Place prize was received by Aaron Taylor, who earned a stunning wooden spoon engraved with the tournament logo and name. It was presented by Dan Green, himself the proud winner of a wooden spoon from the 2018 Oxford Great Scholars tournament.
The full results can be found here.
For more photos, please see the Photo Gallery.
Thanks
My personal thanks to everyone who attended the tournament. It was my pleasure to host and I hope to put on another in the future!
Even more thanks are due to the following people who helped me create the tournament:
– Dan Green: for co-hosting, helping with the technology and movements, and being extremely helpful throughout the entire organisation process.
– Bec Green: for sorting out all the refreshments on the day, managing the scores, and being an emergency substitute.
– Devi Steck: for bringing her own mahjong equipment, collecting further equipment, and driving it many miles to the venue. The event could not have happened without her help, so a very special thanks to her.
– Shaun Drury: for being tournament referee and setting up the equipment on the day.
– Ashley Baldry: for joining Shaun in helping with equipment and tidying up after.
– Ian Fraser: for the initial guidance on how to go about turning the event from an idea into a reality, and for lending us some mahjong equipment.
– Gemma Sakamoto: for lending me the use of the JanKenRon website and helping to publicise the event.
– Nick Dyer: for lending me the use of his scoring website and teaching me how it works.
Future Considerations
Venue
There were two things I would like to improve for next time. First, we were told last minute that we couldn’t use the projector. Luckily we had a spare TV, but ultimately this meant we only had one screen for the event. We needed this to display the movement (as we did not print the rotation on nametags beforehand, just in case we needed to reduce the number of tables on the day), so we had nowhere to display the scores between rounds. This meant players had to keep track of scores on their phones, which wasn’t too much of a problem but I would have preferred two large screens in the venue to avoid this. Secondly, the heating came on later than we would have liked. This meant the first hanchan was a bit chilly, with players playing in their coats. Thankfully, things warmed up and the rest of the day was fine.
Catering
In contrast to other mahjong tournaments I have attended, we did not provide a fully-catered lunch. This was done for many reasons. Bakewell has many fantastic lunch options all within a very short walking distance of the venue, and I thought letting people simply choose what they want for lunch would be better. Going catered would also have added an extra, often over-priced expense, and it was my mission to keep the registration fee as low as possible. At just £17, I thought the day-long event was excellently priced, and this would save money that players can put towards travel and accommodation. We still provided a choice of teas, coffee, juice, and biscuits which were kept topped up throughout the day. I am interested to hear in the feedback forms whether people thought this was a preferable arrangement or not.
Behind Schedule
All five hanchans overran into the breaks, with the third or fourth hanchan (I have forgotten which) overrunning so much that the next hanchan should have already started. The schedule was a very standard tournament schedule, with 90 minutes allotted per hanchan and 15-minute breaks between (with one hour for lunch). The end of the event was a little rushed as we had to begin announcing prizes the moment that the last scores were received. We couldn’t afford to overrun the event too long because players needed to catch public transport, and we started playing in the morning as early as is reasonable for people who were not spending the night in Bakewell. Reducing the number of hanchans from 5 to 4 would be a shame and not something I would want to consider for a future event. In all then, I’m not sure how to remedy the scheduling in a way that would be satisfying.
Leniency
This event was not an EMA ranked event, but it did follow the EMA rules. We were keen however to provide a comfortable atmosphere without being too strict on punishing small mistakes. Many players emailed me in advance to say it would be their first tournament and that they had never played with real tiles before. I can only speak for the tables I played at, but when things such as knocking tiles over in the wall or taking the wrong tile occurred, they were generally overlooked. Some dead hands were given at times, and a total of two chonbo penalties were issued, both in the final round. Overall, I was content with how things played out in this regard, though I appreciate not everyone may feel similarly and I look forward to hearing feedback on how strict we should be in the future. If the tournament were ever to become ranked however, naturally we would certainly have to be stricter.
Thank you once again to everyone who could attend. I had a lot of fun and it was fantastic to meet you all! Keep an eye out for an email about a future event, likely two years from now or perhaps next year if I’m persuaded otherwise. Until then!
James Green
30/09/24