Mahjong SuperCup Update (4)
Yesterday we held the first-ever ReachMahjong.com Cup in Japan. 32 players came together for a few hours and there were tons of prizes awarded including RM phone straps, T-shirts and mahjong tile sets. First place won the chance to join Jenn, Garthe and Konno in Macau next month at the 2nd annual Mahjong SuperCup at the Grand Waldo Hotel & Casino.
Our winner was Naoki Setokuma, A1-League pro from the Japan Professional Mahjong League. He not only won, he crushed the field with an over 100-point lead going into the semi-finals. The final table started off slow for him, but in the last few hands he continued as dealer and took back what it seemed was rightfully his.
Players also bought JPML 2009 calendars (available at MahjongMart) and enjoyed Jenn’s homemade cake and cookies. It was a huge success.
Setokuma has decided to play in the Mahjong SuperCup next month and he is in good company. Jenn, Garthe, Konno and other players planning on joining in are practicing the rules regularly and that proves to be no easy task.
Big money tournaments are new to Mahjong and there are many challenges in bringing together many nations and many languages. The English rules are needing more and the Japanese rules were translated by ReachMahjong.com. Our task at hand is to help the guys at the Mahjong SuperCup make the English and Japanese versions of the rules easy to read, understand and play. To do this we get to play LOTS of Mahjong.
This time we are practicing the 16-tile rules for the event and it is a bit hard to find a parlor in Japan that uses things like Flower tiles. Thanks to Alban, though, the tables can be set to 144 instead of the normal 136 and away we go.
We just got a new update on the rules and we’re working with the Kugimiya’s (you know them from other international tournaments) on another update. Both sets of rules should be set and ready to go this week. Next week we’ll give a full report and analysis of these rules in English and you can follow along.
We will be podcasting from the Mahjong SuperCup, so make sure to e-mail some questions and give us ideas for players to interview while we’re there!
