Oranda Saikou Tournament Report
Unfortunately dodgy hotel internet wouldn’t let me update this as the weekend progressed, but here are the reports I wrote on the days…
DAY ONE
Myself and my mah-jong buddy, Colin Farrell, came to the Netherlands to participate in the Oranda Sai-Kou Tournament. Unfortunately our journey from Frankfurt was less than smooth. Our train broke down meaning we were over two hours delayed and we got in much later than planned the night before.
We crawled out of bed the next day exhausted, but still excited for the games ahead. This year the Oranda Sai-Kou is nine tables. Five on day one and four on day two. Five tables in a day is quite a fear, especially when you’ve only had about five hours sleep the night before. However, on a cup of coffee, we started our games with the enthusiasm and optimism that everyone has at the start of the tournament. Unfortunately for me, that optimism was quickly proven to be misplaced.
I lost sooo badly on my first table. No matter what I did, I just couldn’t get a break. Several tsumos later and I was wreaked. Second and third tables were not so bad with a respectable second places. Fourth table and it had come back to get me. This one I couldn’t blame entirely on luck. I made some foolish decisions. I’ve often found it hard to read a closed wait and this really was my downfall, dealing into one pretty big hand. Final table for that day and the first hand won was by the dealer as a baiman tsumo. I tried not to lose my head though and crawled up to second place. In conclusion, not a good day at all for me, but I’ve done much worse in the past.
Colin had a better day than me but still a mixed bag. He got small winds on one table, but also chomboed twice during the day. However, despite his inconsistent performance, he’s about 50k points higher than me in the rankings so I’m in no position to judge him!
Tom (Wortex) is making both of us look very, very bad. Tom is displaying his usual excellent play and finished the day overall third. If you want to root for one of the reachmahjong.com team, it’s definitely Wortex. As long as his luck stays with him, he’s in a good position to take the trophy this year!
DAY TWO
