Jenn and Garthe’s December League Results

Garthe and Jenn are in separate leagues for the first time ever. Read about how they fared in December and their prospects for the last 2 sessions of the season.
Jenn Barr: Grade 2, League D2
I made one of the biggest mistakes ever at December’s League tournament. I arrived at Narita airport at 7:30am and went straight to Takadanobaba to play in Shintaro Kamimura’s bimonthly freeroll. My results were in the lower bracket but not nearly as bad as last time.
After that I rushed to League but arrived about 3 minutes too late, good for a 5point penalty.
The day itself went ok. My hands weren’t bad but fatigue and jetlag made sure that I didn’t take advantage of the hands that I should have.
Even though it’s guaranteed that I won’t move up to D1 this season, my 2009 resolution is going to be mahjong, mahjong, mahjong. ReachMahjong.com is stable and has more readers than ever so I’ll be contributing my articles and leaving the rest of the organization in the capable hands of Gem and Kirk and put my efforts to moving up in the league.
For the remaining 2 sessions of the league I am determined to make sure I do not move down to D3. That means that I have to do the hardest task in any game: not lose.
Garthe Nelson: Grade 2, League D1
So I went into this month’s league session with an upbeat attitude. I’m pretty sure I’m better than most of the players in my current league, D1, and having watched high level play the day before, I was confident good play would win the day. Well it might have, but unfortunately, I am an easily tilted player and forgot all about good play as soon as I had a couple bad beats. My first hand seemed to be a good omen; starting with a triple of Lucky dragons in my hand, I reached and was able to draw my winner for a nice 2000/4000 point start. What should have set off alarm bells was the fact that my reach got no one to give up their hands and still they didn’t throw my winner. That was to be the tone for the day. The first two games some young donkey won by never folding a hand once, despite my reaches when I had big hands and good waits. Frustrated, I decided I could play just as recklessly as they and while I won a few big hands, I threw more big ones and managed to finish 4th for the last two games, -42 for the day, and -134 for the season so far. Here I come Jenn. Just don’t move back up to D1 as I fall back to D2, please.
