Mahjong Travel Journal: SNPM Pair Match

In the last travel journal Garthe, Konno and Jenn went to Utsunomiya to visit Kaori Shimizu, one of the strongest mahjong players in the world. This time Jenn teamed up with Kaori to play in the Saikoui Japan Pro Mahjong’s pair match. With matching clothes and winning smiles how could they lose?The SNPM Pair Match happens every January and is one of the most exciting tournaments of the year. The big names in Japan mahjong dress up, show up and spend the day catching up with all the other big names. People are there in costumes and this year there were even 2 actresses from the new drama “Mukoubuchi” (based on the popular comic). Two years ago Jenn and Garthe played together and ended up with less than amazing results. This time Jenn joined the former OUI title holder, Kaori Shimizu and two of the most well-known girls in the mahjong community took on 100 other pairs for the title. I (Jenn), started out with a horrible score. I couldn’t get a rhythm going and I ended up with -50.4 points. There is a 30 point penalty for 4^th place, so it was a finish of 9000 points or so, but how embarrassing! I was the one who invited my elder, Kaori to play and then I completely busted us in the first game! I sheepishly went over to Kaori to let her know that I was sorry and watched her win a 12,000 point hand as dealer. I remember thinking, “Man, she’s going to be carrying me today.” And hug my head all the way back to my seat.To my surprise Kaori came over a few minutes later. “Jenn! I’m sorry! I got last place!” she said as she approached me. I breathed a sigh of relief and told her of my defeat too. We both resolved to win the next 3 games to give ourselves a fighting chance. The 2^nd game was worse than the first. This time I busted out in the last hand and had negative 67. I went through the same motions again and was even more surprised when Kaori did too and came to tell me that she had also busted out! What a pair we were. After 4 games Kaori had a first place and I had a 2^nd and a 3^rd. My score was -129.5 and our combined score was around -200. We ended up in 89^th place which means that we were not dead last, we didn’t get the booby prize (2^nd to last) and we didn’t get the cut-off prize for 90^th place. If only I had lost one more hand!Other notable names at this tournament were Masayuki Katayama (author of Obaka Miko), Toshimasa Chou (2^nd place at the WSOMRE qualifier in Japan) and Kozue Miyauchi. We were lucky enough to get permission to cover this event thanks to Toshimasa Chou. He was also the winner of Takeshobo’s Saikyoui tournament, one of the biggest mahjong tournaments in Japan (Ben played in that one too). You’ll see Chou playing in lots of big tournaments in the next few years and we’ll definitely be covering him on ReachMahjong.com too! So we have gone to Utsunomiya to visit Kaori and now she has come to Tokyo to play with us. Starting in the spring Jenn and Kaori are going to continue their adventures together in the new JPML North Kanto League so look for their story from Gunma in April.

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