Cherry Blossom 2009 Report – Part 1
It was a one day event attended by over 50 riichi players from all over Europe.
The first part of my report from the Cherry Blossom Tournament!I’m pretty sure everyone knows by now that I attended the Cherry Blossom Riichi tournament in Nijmegen last weekend. For those of you who don’t know the details yet, it was a one day event attended by over 50 riichi players from all over Europe.
To give you an on the floor perspective, I’ll give an account of the day from the perspective of an aspiring Mahjong player who sometimes has days of brilliance but on average plays substandard…
I wake up feeling pretty positive. I’m glad that I spent yesterday traveling so I’m well rested for today. I get up, get dressed and head to the ground floor of my hotel for breakfast.
I played some games last night with Martin and his wife as a warm-up. I didn’t play very well though and I’m hoping that last night managed to wash away my bad luck for today. I’m overly superstitious so I’m wearing the same bracelet that I wore when I played at Vienna. I hope that I can pull something similar off today.
Today’s tournament is considerably bigger. There are over 50 players from all over Europe attending today. More than a few of them are excellent players.
I don’t think that I should concern myself too much. I’ve improved a lot over the past year and have been practicing online as much as possible. Playing with real people is always a lot more nerve-racking though. I often play over-defensively when with real people. I tell myself to take the risks I need to win!
I leave my hotel with plenty of time to get to the venue and a good thing too as the road signs are less than helpful! When I do finally find my way there, I’m greeted by some friends standing outside having a smoke.
Some of them have come a long way this morning; Starting out at six in the morning. That’s true Mahjong dedication! I make my way into the venue, where Sjef and Martin are finishing the preparations, and pick up my table assignments for today. This is the moment when I start to realize that my calm exterior was simply fooling myself! I’m against some of the best players in Europe today! Just being able to play with some of them is an honor and of course an amazing challenge! Something I’d like to challenge myself to do anytime but today!
The first game starts. The first round I just hit nothing. I don’t even make it to ready most of the time. I made one or two mistakes. But I do that a lot on my first game in tournaments. It takes my brain a little time to settle down. The second round I do make it to ready but when I go for it or reach, someone always manages to win off me or tsumo. It’s frustrating but my opponents are good so I can’t begrudge them. I end up minus 26,400. Not good by any stretch of the imagination but it could be a lot worse.
The table is finally over and I grab a sandwich. Maybe I need more food! (You can tell that I’m a comfort eater!) I check to see how Bjoern and Tom are doing. Bjoern has first place but Tom fell into a monster of a hand (kokushimusou – sixth/seventh discard) and lost a lot. I start to think that I managed to escape my first table fairly unscathed and go into the next game at least with a glimmer of hope of recovering my deficit!
Second round comes… Finally I bring my game back! Well, I bring my game back with helping hand from Lady Luck! The players I was with were very good but for some reason the tiles favored me. To illustrate this, I was waiting for Lesser Dragons with one red dragon. I’d already stolen the green and the white. Two red dragons were discarded and so my only hope was to draw the single tile myself. No one was going to discard the final one if they drew it and there was still a chance that it could be in the dead wall… Two rounds later, I pull it to everyone’s astonishment. I was lucky. Very lucky. It gives me plus 34,400 so I’ve recovered from my first game!
To be continued…
