The next Reachmahjong.com Pro?! Congratulations to Gemma!
For the past few weeks our site administrator, Gem, has been in the dark. Literally.
She must have been storing all that light so that she could shine this weekend, and shine she did!
You may have noticed that I (Jenn) have taken over the content management for a few weeks.
That is because Gemma, has been without electricity while she finishes up a job in Frankfurt. Gem has been with all of you through the Open European Riichi championship last June, through the World Series in September and remotely from the Mahjong SuperCup last December. She’s also made it her business to attend every major Riichi tournament in Europe while supporting all of our content from Asia.
Only this time she wasn’t behind the scenes and the support system, this time she was the star!
If you haven’t seen it on MahjongNews yet, Gemma Collinge, UK native and resident of Germany, took down the German Riichi Open! The first victory for Gem, the first victory for a member of the ReachMahjong.com team and great news for the Riichi world.
Although this was her first win, this is not her first success in Mahjong tournaments. Gemma was also the runner-up at the first Reach Austria tournament in December of 2008.
Gem learned Japanese Riichi Mahjong in Taiwan, of all places, in 2006, where she joined JPML’s Jenn Barr once a week for a learning session. She picked up the game quickly and that was the same time that Jenn created ReachMahjong.com. Gem has been there since the beginning with her beginner’s column, “Gemma’s Journal.” All of you have watched her grow into a very capable player and it was a short trip to the top. She never played Mahjong while she was living in Japan before that, but she did visit once after and was exclusively invited to sit in on a JPML study session. (image: Gemma in Austria, Dec. 2008)
We haven’t gotten our final report about the tournament from Gem yet, but you can bet it will be up on the front page the second it comes in.
Congratulations Gem! We love you!
