Jenn’s Corner #9: Tournaments

Mar 6th, 2007
by jenn

A few too many days have passed since the last column and I have to apologize. I was planning on having this up on March 3rd and here it is, already early morning on the 6th. Last week was extremely busy with Gemma visiting Tokyo (that means lots of real-mahjong sessions), Garthe playing in Champion’s League, add in another mini-tournament on Sunday and finally preparations for Garthe and my trip to Las Vegas!!
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Posted in Columns, Jenn's Corner |

Jenn’s Corner #8: Mediators and Tournaments

Feb 20th, 2007
by jenn

I arrived at SNPM’S Ryuou-sen match to cheer on one of my favorite Pro’s of all time, Yuukou Itou. My plan was to rush off to JPML’s Phoenix Cup Finals right after, but because of the length of the Final game (of 6), there was no time, so I just said my good-byes and headed home.
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Posted in Columns, Jenn's Corner |

Jenn’s Corner #7: Gambling

Feb 8th, 2007
by jenn

Did everyone see the new Glossary? If you didn’t then you should definitely check it out here! It has all of the terms we have used on the page up until close to the end of January. Keep checking back for additional terms (we will be adding at least monthly with terms that we have used on the site) and also for a Japanese Romaji cross-reference! That way we can all understand the same terms and use the terms we are most comfortable with!
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Posted in Columns, Jenn's Corner |

Jenn’s Corner #6: Online Mahjong

Jan 29th, 2007
by jenn

Ok, Ok, so my column is one day late. BUT! I have a great excuse! I was busy playing mahjong!! Not good enough? I’m sorry… The truth is, I took off to Okinawa for the weekend. I’m back now and went to our Monday night Mahjong group as usual, yesterday I really did play Mahjong. IN OKINAWA? you ask, why yes, I played from the comfort of my resort hotel room. Not only that, I played with Garthe in Tokyo, Gem in Taipei, and dbos in Toronto. We were also joined by Doug in Yamagata and Walter in Montreal!
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Posted in Columns, Jenn's Corner |

Jenn’s Corner #5: Mahjong History

Jan 18th, 2007
by jenn

Mahjong of Yesterday, Mahjong of Today, Mahjong of Tomorrow?
So Mahjong has come a long way from what was rumored to be an illegal card game waaaaaay back in the mountains of China. It has changed with each place it has gone to throughout the world, but the basics are still the same for everyone. No matter how you say it, the way you get tiles is by drawing (tsumo), bumping (pon, pung) and chowing (chi) and you have to throw away one tile for each one you get.
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Posted in Columns, Jenn's Corner |

Jenn’s Corner #4: Professional Mahjong

Jan 7th, 2007
by jenn

Ok, I’ve been busy trying to get the calendar updated (it’s getting there!), preparing the next chapter for the “Rules” page, putting together Garthe’s links (check out the “World Associations” section of the “Links” menu!!) and studying up on poker, which is what Garthe and I spent most of our time doing in Las Vegas. We also looked around for promising venues for a future Mahjong Tournament!! Yay us! So yes, someday we would like to hold a Mahjong tournament in Las Vegas. Anyone interested in joining us?
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Posted in Columns, Jenn's Corner |

Jenn’s Corner #3: Mahjong Parlors

Dec 29th, 2006
by jenn

I would like to use this week to talk about Mahjong Parlors (‘jansou’) in Japan. There are parlors in other countries as well, but it is definitely an entirely different culture in Japan.

Imagine a dark, smoke-filled room holding a few strange perfectly square-shaped tables topped with green. Four people with visible tattoos and greasy hair sit in the middle of the room with cigarettes hanging from their lips, an audience of 7 or 8 scary-looking fellows gathered around and a wad of cash on 2 tables. Sound like a place you wanna visit?
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Posted in Columns, Jenn's Corner |

Jenn’s Corner #2: International Mahjong

Dec 20th, 2006
by jenn

Helloooooo everyone. Did you miss me this week? I hope you enjoyed my first corner, however lengthy it may have been. How about In Garthe’s Hands? By the way, currently taking bets on how long Garthe will be able to keep up with a weekly column!

So here is my second corner, only halfway away from a room!
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Posted in Columns, Jenn's Corner |

Jenn’s Column #1: Hey!

Dec 13th, 2006
by jenn

Welcome my very first Corner! This Corner is all my own and I’m excited because until now all I had was a wall. Well, now I have a corner, and you know what that means. TWO WALLS!! That’s right. I intend to use the meeting point of these two walls to create a corner that informs you about Reach Mahjong. Garthe and I will be updating (at least) weekly to bring you the best and most interesting things in the Reach Mahjong world. So for my first Corner, I would like to introduce ourselves to you and explain what we are up to. You can bet it is NO GOOD. That’s how we plan to keep you coming back!

My name is Jenn.
His name is Garthe.

We became members of the Japan Professional Mahjong League (JPML) in April of this year. As Pros, We tend to play a lot of Mahjong. We are both currently appearing in a networked real-time Mahjong video game created by Konami and featuring over 40 professional mahjong players from our league called Mahjong Fight Club. You can find it all over Japan and Hong Kong. We also participate in many of JPML’s tournaments throughout the year including the Professional League (just starting out, we are both currently in the D2 League), which has 2 seasons each year. There are many other big tournaments that we will keep you updated on as well. Just wait!!

Now for the indies:
I am Jenn. I am originally from Seattle, Washington USA and moved to Japan when I was 18 for school. Since then I have spent 5 months each studying in Hawaii and Taipei. I can speak Japanese (for the most part) and am working on Chinese. My mahjong history is probably the shortest in our league with only about 2 years of playing experience. I make up for it in perseverance though! Go ahead and try to catch me skip a day of studying tile patterns or actually playing! I became a professional mahjong player so that I could have something to work for and achieve some kind of goal while continuing my love for the game. These past 6 months have been a blast and I can’t wait for what lies ahead!

He is Garthe. He came from Sacremento, California and came to Japan to… Yep, you guessed it, teach English. It was exactly that which got him started in this wonderful game. A student of his recommended it and he started by playing video games. One day he met me (Jenn) and we started playing mahjong together. One day Jenn said she was going to become a professional mahjong player and Garthe got jealous, so he followed her (but very carefully so as to not be mistaken as a stalker) and the rest is history (well, not yet, but maybe someday it will be).

So what are we doing in this place? Ummm…

Oh yeah!!



So our lives as professional mahjong players takes us around Japan and keeps us busy, but sometimes it’s hard to be the ugly ducklings… So, let’s get more non-Japanese-speaking players involved and make THEM the ugly ducklings! Actually, we welcome Japanese speakers as well.

But, we would like to get more people around the world playing Reach Mahjong and hopefully get some worldwide leagues and tournaments going someday, so here we are, ready to converse with other mahjong lovers and future lovers on the World Wide Web.

We are planning to do a lot of traveling in the next couple of years and get more people washing the tiles and interested in the best game in the world!

You can catch Garthe every week with his “In Garthe’s Hands” section where he will introduce you to a new hand every week. Well, that won’t even last a year, so should we can him after that? However nice that would be, I can｡ｦt do this all alone, so after we get through all of the hands, we will rotate through them again and we will of course keep a database online as well so you can check out any hands that you missed anytime.

I will be in charge of looking cute and keeping you updated on Our activities and those new friends that we meet along the way. Please feel free to leave messages on our BBs and talk to other mahjong fans, also make good use of the e-mail link. After all, Mahjong is all about making friends. To post comments to this column, click here.

Copyright 2006 © Jenn&Garthe All Rights Reserved

Posted in Columns, Jenn's Corner |