Yeah, we don’t play very often.

Since wordpress sucks and won’t even let me post photos 800 wide, I’ll link to my very hastily made gallery, hosted over on azaz.se:
photos.

I’ll make sure to get better shots next time, even if nobody cares.

A few basic deals:
This is a yaku reference sheet – it doesn’t contain any scoring tables or rules; you’re assumed to know the rules yourself, and most mahjong sets come with scoring tables.
It’s based on Tenhou’s yaku table, so EMA players will cry rivers of blood because tanyao is, indeed, open.
What’s cool with this is that if there are any mistakes, you can just tell me and I’ll update the sheet. Pretty funky, eh?
Image quality sucks, I made it for local friends, not for the internet. Also, I really can’t be arsed in taking photos of my own mahjong set(s), so you get the Tenhou tiles (appropriate, considering).

Oh yeah… here it is: Yaku overview.

EMA’s tournament system is based on total score. You play a number of games – amount depending on the organizers – and the person with the most points at the end of the day(s) win. Before I go on with this post, you’ll probably need some background on me – because a random nobody with no experience running or playing in tournaments is most likely not the best guy ever to listen to.

Be prepared for another wall of text behind the cut.

I’ve played or taken part in a number of different tournaments. From Chess tournaments to Diplomacy (best board game ever? I dare say so.) tournaments to Risk and Settlers of Catan tournaments to Magic: the Gathering tournaments (where I also have a judge certification) to Counterstrike tournaments to soccer and ju-jutsu tournaments. I’ve also, perhaps more importantly, organized tournaments to a great degree as well. Obviously, mahjong tournaments are also part of my experience, but I have to say that I’ve not hosted one – yet.

Now, I’ll say this: I don’t like EMA’s system. I think it has too many flaws to be used in a serious tournament. It leaves too much to chance, and doesn’t reward the proper players. There are also issues concerning record keeping from tournaments, but I’ll leave that for later in the post.

Let’s look at a theoretical situation here:
A good player will win against a bad player – most of the time.
A good player will get more points when playing against a bad player – most of the time.

If these two sentences are correct, then the following is also true:
A good player will have a harder time winning against another good player – most of the time.
A good player will, if he wins against that same player, win with less points than if he had played a bad player – most of the time.

That is to say: An experienced player will get more points by playing inexperienced/new/bad players than he would if he played experienced/veteran/good players. Chance will obviously play a part in this, but we’ll assume that the effect of chance evens out after an arbitrarily chosen number of games (because it does). Indeed, you can even say that chance affects a good player less than it does a bad player, but that’s for another day.

Now, if we agree – or at least lend the thought some merit – that what I’ve just explained makes sense, then the following would also make sense:
A good player facing inexperienced/new/bad players in a tournament will gain more points than a good player facing other players of the same skill.

Let’s summarize:
Imagine 2 tables, table A and B. On table A plays 1 good player (player A1), and three bad players. On table B plays 4 good players. On table A, player A1 is bound to come away from the game with a MASSIVE points difference, simply because he got lucky and scored a lot off points from the bad players. On table B the winner, no matter who it is, will most likely have a really hard time getting any high scoring hands to score from, since all four players are good at not dealing into each others’ hands. Now, after the game is finished, the tables will look like this, despite (or including) uma:
Player A1: A lot of points
Players A2-4: A lot of points minus
Player B1 (finished first on table B): few points plus
Players B2-4: few points plus or minus
(The actual values doesn’t matter at this stage.)

So whereas player A1 played at an easier table, he gets an easier head start. If this should happen for two or more tables, the chances of any of the good players on Table B catching up to player A1 is diminishing by each time they play against good players.

What I’m asking is: is this fair? In my very personal opinion, I don’t think it is. It allows chance to play a lot bigger part of the tournament than it should. Chance is already present in the hands you draw during each game, it shouldn’t have as much to say at a higher “level” of the tournament.

So instead of just complaining – like some are wont to do – I decided to try and come up with a better system.

You wouldn’t believe the amount of tournament systems we have at our disposal: bracket systems, the Buchholz system (it’s used in chess tournaments, I’ll touch on this later), elimination (single-, double-, triple- and so on) tournaments, group tournaments and swiss tournaments and oh dear they are so many.

What I came up with on my own:
First place gets 10 points
Second place gets 7 points
Third place gets 4 points
Fourth place gets 1 point

So even IF player A-1 got +56,000 points and player B-1 only got +15,000 points, they’ll still be tied (so far) with 10 points each, instead of player B-1 having to score, at least, +41,000 points in the second game only to catch up – and that’s before the second game scores themselves are added to the pot. It eliminates a lot of chance – maybe player A-1 got lucky and got a kazoe yakuman (*cough* not thinking of anyone specific), maybe player B-1 was unlucky and only barely (as you can see – 9,000 uma means B-1 only won by 4k tops) won his game. But in this system a first place is a first place, not a “you basically placed second, looking at your scores… sucks to not win eh?” from the second the first game is over.

Now, now, I can hear your objections to this system. I know them all – there’s a chance that, after the tournament is over, two or more players have played a perfect game. Say that the tournament had four games, that would leave all of them at +40 points. How can you solve that, you crazy person?!

Easy. I can hear all you out there complaining that total score SHOULD TOO MATTER, and hear me out. A while back – after returning from Austria where I placed at a respectable 8th place despite playing in a drunken stupor throughout the day – I requested game records from the Hannover tournament (where I placed a respectable 44 out of 50 or something equally silly) to see if I could apply my system to their tournament. Luck had it that the organizers kept very good records of the game; recording the actual results between each game instead of how the Austrian tournament was recorded (end scores of each game). I was sitting on a veritable treasure when it came to applying it. Deconstructing the results was easy enough, so I could apply my +10, +7, +4, +1 system accordingly.

Now, before I reveal the “shocking” result – this is how the EMA result looked:
Player A: 1st, 1st, 1st, 2nd
Player B: 3rd, 1st, 1st, 4th

Which one do you think won the tournament? Hint: it’s not player A.

You know, personally I would say a system like that, that doesn’t reward the better player, to be complete shit actually. Yeah, not the most diplomatic of descriptions, but really? REALLY? Someone plays an almost perfect tournament and doesn’t win? Someone else plays a not so perfect tournament and wins? Seriously, can even the most staunch of defenders defend that system?

Now, since I’m a huge nerd that happen to like numbers I broke the results down so that I could watch positions change between each round, but let’s skip all that unless you guys request it and go for the final positions of the top 8 players. I see no problem in posting their real names, since it’s not the players’ fault that system blows, but I’ll name them player A to player H since it’s easier for me.

Player A: 1st, 2nd, 1st, 1st – placed 2nd in EMA’s system (34 points with drob system®)
Player B: 1st, 3rd, 2nd, 1st – placed 3rd in EMA’s system (31 points)
Player C: 3rd, 1st, 1st, 2nd – placed 4th in EMA’s system (31 points)
Player D: 1st, 2nd, 1st, 3rd – placed 5th in EMA’s system (31 points)
Player E: 2nd, 2nd, 2nd, 1st – placed 8th in EMA’s system (31 points)
Player F: 1st, 1st, 2nd, 3rd – placed 10th in EMA’s system (31 points)
Player G: 4th, 1st, 1st, 1st – placed 15th in EMA’s system (31 points)
Player H: 2nd, 1st, 1st, 4th – placed 1st in EMA’s system (28 points)

A few thoughts are made apparent here: someone who played very well – one fourth place and three first places – placed 15th using EMA’s system? Also, the drob system® need some way to deal with ties – because we have a LOT of those in this tournament (it was expected). The drob system® lends itself very well to adjustments as well – if you change the points difference to 15, 13, 11 and 9 instead the ranks change quite drastically (notably: Player H is 2 points away from place 2-7, instead of 3), especially with the tie-breaker I thought of.

So how do we deal with the ties? Well, I figure that scores should matter in some way. One idea is to use a Buchholz system – let me explain. In order to determine ranks in a Swiss system tournament (which is kind of what we’re using here) where players have the same score you sum up the score of the players’ opponents and thus favor those who have confronted better opponents.

Sounds PERFECT, doesn’t it? That means opponent skill suddenly matters! It is, however, excruciatingly boring to do on a Saturday morning such as this – it’s not hard, it’s just tedious until I’ve written the macro for it, which is tedious to do since I didn’t design the document to begin with. My initial idea (and indeed it’s still my thought) was that it fits Mahjong perfectly (it’s used in Chess, among others), and it does! But, let’s be honest here. It’s EMA we’re talking about – there’s not much chance that they’ll ever bother to do this amount of work, and they’re quite opposed to change as it is anyway.

Anyway, one idea I fiddled with as a tie-breaker was a percentage of the total score. That way how much points you get suddenly matters again, and there’s not a very big chance that two people will have identical scores in mahjong, now is there? Buchholz is still a better system by far, and one day I will sit down and run the numbers for that as well – but not tonight. The problem is that we’re talking quite BIG numbers in mahjong here: with an uma of +9,000/+3,000, we can’t take too much of it, or our carefully constructed system gets obliterated. How does 0.01% sound? It sounds just about right – that means if you end a tournament with +100,000 points, you get +10 points! Could it be more perfect? (Actually, yes – Buchholz.)

So what happens when we plug those in as a tie-breaker? Why, beautiful things happens:
Player A: 41.84 (1st – before 1st)
Player B: 38 (2nd – before tied 2nd)
Player C: 36.94 (3rd – before tied 2nd)
Player D: 36.78 (4th – before tied 2nd)
Player H: 36.75 (5th – before 8th)
Player E: 35.75 (6th – before tied 2nd)
Player F: 34.77 (7th – before tied 2nd)
Player G: 33.19 (8th – before tied 2nd)

Beautiful or what? Changing, as I mentioned earlier, the points to 15, 13, 11 and 9 shifts the positions so that player H places 3rd instead – so no major difference, but one that is interesting to note none the less. How volatile do you want your tournament rankings to be?

Is the system perfect? Hell no! Not even a Swiss (which this is, kind of) tournament with a Buchholz system is perfect. Is it better than EMA’s current system? Yes, I do think so. Personally, that is.

A few other thoughts: Leaving the seeding random is a good thing, I think – it’s even better with Buchholz tied in – because it will let new players play against better players and as such evolve as players and all that community-building stuff.

Now, to return to my comment on tournament and their record keeping: if more tournaments did it the way the Hannover one (Phoenix something) did, it would be absolutely wonderful, because that would mean that you could try this stuff out on more than one tournament and see how it goes. I’m going to contact clubs across Europe in the hopes that they’ll send me tournament results – the chaps in Austria were very pleasant to deal with, but they didn’t write down how people placed in each round, which makes it quite hard (if not impossible) to reconstruct the tournament such as what you’d need for this system. Of note is that this system doesn’t work very well with a small amount of players – 8 is, definitely, the minimum number of players (and let’s be honest, that’s not much of a tournament anyway), but it evens out at around 24 players or thereabouts, which is what most European mahjong tournaments end up at anyway.

When previewing this post someone mentioned that “just add a cutoff to last 4, or final 8/16 if possible, that would be even nicer”; or to explain it in another way: a finals table. Top 4 players, after Buchholz/percentage change, plays each other in one final game – even if they have played each other at some time during the tournament – to determine the ultimate winner. I like the idea, because it’s as TACOS said in the post before this one: it gives you a well-defined goal. You remove the world, the game is the ONLY thing that can decide how you place. That would be awesome in so many ways. But TACOS described it better.

Now, Tina isn’t answering my emails any longer, for whatever reason. So I’ll give the email response I got from her, as well as the reply I sent (yet never received a reply for).

Be prepared for a WALL of text.

>> Hi. Since the EMA site is currently down, I contacted you through the
>> Mahjong Denmark site instead (as far as I’m aware you’re involved with
>> EMA as well, yes?). You don’t know me, but I’ve played in a few EMA
>> tournaments, and have a couple of questions that EMA could answer.
>> They’re not very pressing, and if you’re not involved/able to answer
>> questions regarding these matters, please ignore this email.
>>
>> Anyway, the questions I have are several:
>>
>> Why isn’t open tanyao allowed in EMA. An answer detailing the reasons
>> would be very nice.
>
> The EMA riichi rules were settled in early 2008 through discussions between
> Sjef Strik, Robert Rijnders and myself with much advice from several
> English-speaking players in Japan.
>
> The two largest riichi communities in Europe that we were (and are) aware
> of, the Dutch and the Danish, both played with Tanyao concealed. We were
> aware that it is no longer very common in Japan, but still we decided to
> keep it as a concealed hand. Our concern is that it would change the
> dynamics of the game, if Tanyao can be open. For highly skilled players,
> like in a Japanese tournament, where there is much focus on defense, the
> dynamics are not affected in the same way. But for players of less skill, as
> is the case in Europe, an open Tanyao is “too easy”. So the answer I guess
> is: Tanyao is concealed in order to strengthen the defensive element.

Hi Tina, and thanks for the answers. However, as usual with answers of
any kind, they lead to more questions, rather than leave the topic
finished. I have read – but do not use – the reachmahjong.com forums
as well, so I’m aware of that post (and might indeed quote it).

Basically, what you’re saying is that European players are less
skilled than Japanese players. While I hesitate to say that, and
rather say that they’re inexperienced, I can see where you’re coming
from. However, by keeping tanyao concealed, you make it so that
players who would get used to playing with it open won’t get used to
that, and as such what you fear – players making “cheap” hands every
turn – will most likely happen when (or if) you decide to change
Tanyao to an open hand.

The defensive argument has, at the same time, a serious flaw. If you
want to strengthen the defensive element, you should use the open
tanyao yaku – it’s a very easy hand to spot, you can defend against it
quite well (since you know its requirements), and offense is a big
part of defense as well. By keeping it concealed, you remove the
option of going for a quick dirty hand to stop your opponent building
a monster hand.

Secondly, the defense argument is made completely invalid by the use
of red fives. While you can defend against various yaku (to a certain
extent) by reading discards, you cannot, in any way, defend against
red fives. You don’t know if someone has it in his hands or not
(unless you happen to sit on them), and as such a cheap hand that you
would be willing to deal into (in order to stop a worse hand from
someone else) might backfire on you, and you find yourself facing one,
two or even three red fives.

Not only that, but the defense argument is even more weakened by the
addition of several yaku which are based on chance. I don’t have a
problem with chance-based yaku, riichi mahjong is a gambling game
after all, but saying that keeping tanyao concealed strengthens the
defensive element is flawed when you have yaku that you, as a
“defending” player, can’t defend against. I’m talking specifically
about ippatsu – which doesn’t require any skill at all, but is an
incentive (along with ura dora, another chance-based element) to
declare riichi. Not only ippatsu and ura-dora, you also have two
yakuman that’s got absolutely nothing to do with skill or defense
(tenhou/chihou – not sure if you have two or three of those, I can’t
check the sheet at the moment), as well as kan dora (that some
Japanese tournaments don’t use, since it can shift the game so heavily
- and does shift it – towards chance). Rin shan kai hou,
haitei/houtei, double riichi, nagashi mangan… all these add nothing
to the defensive element of the game, yet you have them in the game
none the less. Open tanyao would, if anything, lower the chance
element of the game somewhat.

I have done some research (with help from friends, and Tenhou game
logs) regarding the average value of professional level open tanyao
hands (or indeed any open hands) as compared to open yakuhai/fanpai
hands. I’m willing to draw up detailed information about this, should
it prompt you to consider open tanyao.

The issue of open tanyao versus yakuhai/fanpai is also part of why I’m
annoyed at the EMA rules. Instead of seeing open tanyao hands, we get
to see a pon-fest of yakuhai or fanpai. As someone who rarely discards
honour tiles, it’s even more annoying knowing that two yaku that are
so popular in Europe gets to be in the game, whereas a yaku such as
open tanyao isn’t. Personally I think that it’s a loss that you don’t
have it. None the less – I have no say in EMA standards, since I’m one
of very few Swedish players that play riichi mahjong to begin with,
and if it’s a democratic vote, I’m fairly certain I’d get voted down
by the dutch players (who, despite absolutely loathing open tanyao
gladly uses yakuhai/fanpai as their sole yaku in tournament play…
colour me confused, if you will.)

>> Why is there no lower limit in how much minus you can get? In a
>> regular game of mahjong, the game ends once you end up below 0; while
>> I understand that you “start” at 0 points, you could easily format it
>> so that the game ends after someone ends up at -25,000.

> This seems for me to be a rule for when you play for money. When you play a
> tournament it seems more fair to me that all players are dealers equally
> many times.

Good call, but that doesn’t really change much. Someone that plays so
badly, to end up below -25,000 points, is probably going to prolong
the game so long that not everyone gets to be dealer anyway. The time
limit is a bit too narrow for as slow play as you see in Europe
(usually – I’ve only been to tournaments where there was a 1½ hour
playing time – which should definitely be enough, but certainly is…
not). I don’t know how many games I’ve lost, or placed worse, because
I played my usual strategy of not going for cheap hands such as
yakuhai or fanpai, because I figured I’d get my chance to recover
later in the game, only to find that the game ended because the time
ran out. Alas, there’s nothing to be done about that, since the
playing speed of the European players is unlikely to get any faster
any time soon.

>> Why do you allow first place to just get the points, ie if first place
>> wins with 18,000 points (+9,000 uma for 27,000 points), first place
>> gets +27,000 instead of a final points system (basically dividing
>> final score by 1,000 and removing 30 from it – should even out all the
>> scores on the table to 0).

> This paragraph was quite hard to read, but I think I can guess what you
> mean. It seems unnecessarily complicated; just keeping the simple addition
> as the final result is easier for all to understand. And when you don’t play
> with limits of 25,000 or 30,000 the normalisation to 30 doesn’t seem right.

Unnecessary complicated? I disagree. Indeed, by keeping the scoring
system (of final position at a table) as it is, you’re basically
making the playing field extremely unfair. Allow me to explain – and
normalization is not the solution either, a static system where first
place gets a set amount of points, as do second, third and fourth, is
a lot better. But an example will be better.

Imagine 2 tables, table A and B. On table A plays 1 good player
(player A1) and three bad players. On table B plays 4 good players. On
table A, player A1 is bound to come away from the game with a MASSIVE
points difference, simply because he got lucky and scored a lot off
points from the bad players. On table B the winner, no matter who it
is, will most likely have a really hard time getting any high scoring
hands to score from, since all four players are good at not dealing
into each others’ hands. Now, after the game is finished, the tables
will look like this, despite uma:
Player A1: A lot of points
Player B1 (finished first on table B): very few points plus
Players B2-4: very few points plus or minus
Players A2-4: A lot of points minus

So whereas player A1 played at an easier table, he gets an easier head
start. If this should happen for two or more tables, the chances of
any of the good players on Table B catching up to player A1 is
diminishing by each time they play against good players. No, better
then to have a static point system:

Player A1: 10 points
Player B1 (finished first on table B): 10 points
Player A2/B2 (finished second on either table): 7 points
Player A3/B3 (finished third on either table): 4 points
Player A4/B4 (finished fourth on either table): 1 point

You could also make a small change to this system (change the amount
of points to a somewhat higher amount to avoid ties after several
games, for instance) where the player sitting to the right of the
winner of a table (in these examples, the players sitting to the right
of Player A1 and B1) gets 1 point from the player to the left of the
winner of that table. This can be done because sitting _after_ a good
player is harder than sitting _before_ one (and indeed, it can be said
that the player sitting left of the winner helped making him win).

Not only are you levelling the playing field something enormous, you
make it so that a first place is a first place, no matter how much you
got during the game. I, personally, think it’s a lot more fair against
the skilled players.

Secondly, another change that I think should be made is how tables are
seeded. In the tournaments I’ve been to, it’s been pure chance for all
the tables, so you could easily end up against new players/bad players
during the entire tournament (and thus get a lot better chance at
winning, since the current system is so flawed). Instead, I think that
the tables should be seeded _after_ each game instead of before the
entire tournament. This way, you can make sure that good players face
off against good players, and bad players (or new players, if you
will) face bad/new players. It’s a lot more enjoyable for everyone,
and would again make it so that a really good player stands a better
chance at winning than someone who just gets lucky with his opponents.
I’m willing to help out in forming a system for deciding table
seating, if you want, because I know it can be a bit difficult. Again,
this is not something that’s even covered by the EMA ruleset, and if
you have a standard for how the _game_ is played, I think you should
have a standard for how tournaments are held.

>> Are you planning on fixing the scoresheet (pdf) mistake where you list
>> the yaku in “1 yaku”, “2 yaku” (and so on) – the original name in the
>> tables are “Iihan yaku”, “Ryanhan yaku” (and so on), which means
>> “1-han yaku”, “2-han yaku.” Are you afraid that people will start
>> mistaking yaku and han? (A mistake easily made, but which shouldn’t be
>> a problem during tournaments.)

> I don’t really consider this a mistake. It just a simplification.

No, I’m afraid that it is a mistake; a mistake that’s easy to make
when translating, sure, but it’s still a mistake. Besides, fixing it
shouldn’t be too hard, you have what, 5 different instances of the
mistake, on a pdf that is easy to update? Professionalism is key when
building a standard.

>> Are you going to keep working on the rules – as it is, several
>> situations are missing in the rulebook, making tournament play a
>> rather confused state of affairs. Personally – only my opinion, but
>> still – I would like to see a clear list of how to behave on
>> tournaments. Rules about language (ie, if there are several different
>> nationalities at a table, stay to English), play behaviour (if I’ve
>> drawn my tile, you can’t say “oh sorry, I meant to call that!” and
>> expect me to put the tile back), and what happens if there are riichi
>> sticks on the table but the game ends because time runs out? There are
>> several areas where the rules don’t state anything, and it’s fairly
>> annoying if you’re expecting a professional tournament, but end up
>> playing with people who don’t know what happens in certain situations
>> (open vs closed kan and kan dora, for instance).

> I have an idea to add at some point a bit of etiquette or tournament
> behaviour.
>
> For the things you mention:
> calling tiles: you have three seconds to announce a pung. If you have picked
> a tile, and someone pungs the previous discard within three seconds, you
> will have to put the tile you picked back in the wall. That’s pretty clearly
> stated in the rules (3.3.1), so there shouldn’t be any confusion, exept many
> players don’t read the rule books, or are inexperienced.

My situation was merely an example, nothing else. Again, one of the
requirements for playing in a tournament should be _knowing the
tournament rules_. This doesn’t happen, yet there are no safe guards
to ensure it doesn’t happen. Something less severe than a chombo would
be ideal to deal with breaking tournament etiquette, I’d say; if you
play in a tournament, you better know the rules. Again, this requires
a section on tournament etiquette, which I’d be glad to see as soon as
possible.

> If time runs out, the riichi bets are treated just as if the game ended
> normally, i.e. they are collected by the winner of the game.

I know this. A lot of people don’t, and I’ve not seen it mentioned in
the rules either.

> You seem frustrated that some things are not covered. The rules are trying
> to cover most standard situations. If there are things you find are not
> covered, let me know.

That’s what I’m doing. There’s a reason why the golf rulebook is over
90 pages long (which seems a bit superfluous at first glance). It’s
because it covers every situation that’s ever required a referee call.
I see no reason why there should be any problems adding small things
like these to the rulebook without any major discussion. Likewise, it
should be easy to require all tournaments to acquire the most current
rulebook (and not just a list of errata – they work for a while, but
every now and then the rulebook itself must be updated) before a
tournament, and make certain they know the changes (by keeping the
errata IN the rulebook, and not as a separate document). As sad as it
is to admit it, I’ve been a referee for certain collectible card
games, with a rulebook spanning more than 200 pages, so I’m well aware
of the procedure in changing, or adding, rules.

> Hope to see you soon at one of the many riichi tournaments coming up.
>
> We would love to see you in Denmark! How about 29 August in Aarhus
> http://uk.mahjong.dk/activities/cphopenuk/2009/
>
> or 3 October in Copenhagen?
> http://uk.mahjong.dk/activities/dmriichiuk/2009/
>
> Best regards,
> Tina

Chances of me going to another EMA tournament as things stand (I
really can’t stand the lack of open tanyao, nor the lack of etiquette,
or plain … ignorance, of players regarding the game), I doubt I’ll
go to another one. It’s a pity, since the chance of playing mahjong in
real life is so small here in Sweden.

Way back when mahjong first arrived in America, they started changing
the rules around a lot, and one of the rules they added (which is
still in effect) basically brought the downfall of the entire rule
set. It was the 3 han minimum requirement, and to be honest, I’m
putting it up at the same level as withholding open tanyao from the
rules in EMA (granted, there were other reasons that American mahjong
lost its popularity, but chief among them was this).

Anyway, I appreciate your time, and I might (although unlikely as it
is) drop by a tournament – I enjoy playing against Danish people a lot
more than I enjoy (indeed, I don’t at all) playing against Dutch
players; you have some very skilled players. Seeing how they’d play
with a better defined rule set would be interesting indeed.

I realize this email might come away a bit harsh, but you can’t really
convey tone of voice through an email. You have my support in
spreading mahjong popularity throughout Europe, I just hope that
Europe is ready for something as controversial (or not) as open tanyao
quite soon – I think that allowing it would let people get used to
what a shit hand it actually is in most (not all, definitely)
situations; personally I’d say it’s the way to go about it. Beginners
tend to use open tanyao a lot (anecdotal evidence, I’m afraid), but
quickly realize that it’s only good for certain situations.

Some other things that I need to touch on. The lack of documentation
on the EMA site was (and is, but hopefully due to the restructuring of
aforementioned site) horrible. Keeping logs and other material (from
meetings conducted) would remove some of the opacity surrounding EMA.
Someone outside the inner circle usually have no idea what’s going on,
or what decisions or issues are brought up for discussions, and as
such has quite the hard time giving their input on it. You mentioned
on reachmahjong.com that there had been a discussion about rule
changes recently, but the public, or EMA’s members (as it were)
weren’t really brought up to date on that, or even made aware of it.
If you’re going to act like Europe’s big sister when it comes to
mahjong, everyone should get a chance to know what’s being brought up
for discussion – BEFORE it’s brought up for discussion.

Secondly; I know that EMA runs a ranking system for riichi
tournaments. As it is, the ranking doesn’t serve any purpose other
than patting yourself on the back with, a tool for people to boost
their egos with, nothing else. Are there any plans on making it
actually count for anything, or should players continue to either
ignore it completely (as should currently be the norm, but which
certainly isn’t) or boast about their ranking?

Best regards,

—–
If you hadn’t figured it out yet, >> means it’s from me, > means it’s from Tina. Should be fairly easy to understand though.

So yeah. I’ve not received any answers from her, and judging by the reachmahjong.com post about the subject, any chance that EMA might adopt Open Tanyao seem slim to say the least. Their arguments are weak (“less interaction between players is what I like in my mahjong!”, “European players can’t handle the responsibility.” and so on), but they’re quite the inveteratists.

[00:05:36] * mib_iqrz2j7h (cgiirc@37389662.32478467.3B043F6.IP) has joined
[00:05:45] mib_iqrz2j7h> any parents here?
[00:05:58] @CRiX> ya i got 2 kids
[00:06:30] drob> “in the basement” doesn’t count as parenting, you sick fuck
[00:06:55] @CRiX> -3-
[00:07:06] mib_iqrz2j7h> http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Agu1.EGcXbqTtilrQ_nRus7sy6IX;_ylv=3?qid=20090804115823AAuCKH3
[00:07:34] @CRiX> wtf
[00:07:41] mib_iqrz2j7h> what?
[00:07:45] mouwork> im a kid
[00:07:51] @TRA> ihm, what
[00:07:54] * mib_iqrz2j7h (cgiirc@37389662.32478467.3B043F6.IP) Quit (Quit: http://www.mibbit.com ajax IRC Client)
[00:08:02] @TRA> fucking spammer
[00:08:08] drob> wat
[00:08:22] +Necrosis> Take that bitch! http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/5815/1228728767449.jpg
[00:08:22] drob> >of their kids being giants, ages K-4th grade, shaking the ground with every step? And rawr sometimes?
[00:08:24] @CRiX> he msg’d me
[00:08:26] @CRiX> [17:05:33] mib_iqrz2j7h> in school?
[00:08:26] @CRiX> [17:05:50] mib_iqrz2j7h> there is a video request
[00:08:26] @CRiX> [17:05:59] CRiX> no they don’t go to school
[00:08:26] @CRiX> [17:06:02] mib_iqrz2j7h> ok
[00:08:26] @CRiX> [17:06:11] mib_iqrz2j7h> http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Agu1.EGcXbqTtilrQ_nRus7sy6IX;_ylv=3?qid=20090804115823AAuCKH3
[00:08:26] @CRiX> [17:06:17] mib_iqrz2j7h> go to that link
[00:08:26] @CRiX> [17:06:22] mib_iqrz2j7h> any kid’
[00:08:28] @CRiX> that
[00:08:40] drob> lol
[00:08:41] @CRiX> think he’s some pervert looking for kid videos
[00:08:42] mouwork> Open Questions in Other – Entertainment
[00:08:43] mouwork> * were can i watch the teen choice awards on the internet what website can i watch the hole thing please help?
[00:08:43] mouwork> * What are some things to do?
[00:08:43] mouwork> * Can I bring a camera to a Jonas Brothers concert?
[00:08:43] mouwork> * Why doesn’t Obama buy a llama, and start a new White House custom?
[00:08:45] drob> yo got a pedophile after you
[00:09:14] mouwork> drob: a pedophile with a very elclectic taste
[00:09:18] drob> very
[00:09:21] * mib_b8e0zcoz (cgiirc@37389662.32478467.3B043F6.IP) has joined #mahjong
[00:09:24] mouwork> apparently he only wants a certain age band and going rawr
[00:09:26] drob> who said pedophiles are unrefined anyway?
[00:09:28] mib_b8e0zcoz> i’m back
[00:09:35] @CRiX> yo welcome back
[00:09:41] mib_b8e0zcoz> http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Agu1.EGcXbqTtilrQ_nRus7sy6IX;_ylv=3?qid=20090804115823AAuCKH3
[00:09:41] mouwork> its like wanting a bottle of wine, stating year, month and day
[00:09:54] mouwork> and the last name of the grape stomper
[00:09:56] mib_b8e0zcoz> did you read all of it?
[00:09:58] drob> yeah, exactly
[00:10:03] mib_b8e0zcoz> ?
[00:10:06] drob> crix did, yeah
[00:10:12] @CRiX> you bet i did
[00:10:14] %tenhou> #START Kupo Azraiel だぞ
[00:10:19] mib_b8e0zcoz> so are you guys going to send it?
[00:10:27] @CRiX> it’s on the way bud
[00:10:29] mouwork> sure why not
[00:10:34] mouwork> i got a kid
[00:10:35] mouwork> hang on
[00:10:41] mib_b8e0zcoz> being giants?
[00:10:52] mouwork> how does that work exactly
[00:10:54] mib_b8e0zcoz> in a city?
[00:10:57] mouwork> do i have to inject him with something
[00:11:00] @UmaiKeiki> what exactly do you mean by being giants?
[00:11:08] %tenhou> #END Croatia(+39) CWX(-2) Naritori(-37)
[00:11:08] %tenhou> #END Croatia(+39) CWX(-2) Naritori(-37)
[00:11:09] @CRiX> what exactly do you want this video for
[00:11:12] mib_b8e0zcoz> you know like being giants
[00:11:21] mouwork> CRiX dont ask
[00:11:22] mib_b8e0zcoz> btw to watch it
[00:11:29] +Plate> (to fap to it)
[00:11:32] mouwork> obv
[00:11:34] @CRiX> woah plate
[00:11:38] @CRiX> WOAH
[00:11:43] @TRA> don’t think he’s going to do that
[00:11:44] @CRiX> why would you just go there like that
[00:11:49] @CRiX> so rude
[00:11:53] @CRiX> to our guest
[00:11:57] +Plate> sorry,
[00:11:58] +Plate> >internet
[00:12:00] +Plate> >children
[00:12:05] @CRiX> ya
[00:12:07] @TRA> >@ramus
[00:12:11] * phrosen (~phrosen@Rizon-83E977AF.dip.t-dialin.net) has joined #mahjong
[00:12:11] * [^_^] sets mode: +v phrosen
[00:12:12] @TRA> Krynn, this your doing?
[00:12:17] mib_b8e0zcoz> are you going to upload it to youtube?
[00:12:27] @UmaiKeiki> youtube might delete it
[00:12:27] mouwork> can your fap vid of choice be any more specific than it already is
[00:12:28] @CRiX> it’s on the way BE PATIENT
[00:12:30] mib_b8e0zcoz> ok
[00:12:30] mib_b8e0zcoz> ok
[00:12:43] mib_b8e0zcoz> MORE?
[00:12:54] +DTwinWarrior> tenhou q
[00:12:54] %tenhou> 三喰アリ赤: 2,0
[00:12:58] @CRiX> why did you join #mahjong to get a video of children being giants?
[00:13:03] mib_b8e0zcoz> idk
[00:13:14] @TRA> can you play mahjong?
[00:13:18] @TRA> this question is important
[00:13:25] mouwork> try this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vy_xbXIJ898
[00:13:42] @TRA> is it bad that I know where that links to>
[00:13:43] mib_b8e0zcoz> what is it?
[00:13:48] mouwork> being giants
[00:13:54] * drob was just on his way for a fag, but has to stay until this is all over
[00:14:03] mib_b8e0zcoz> no it’s not
[00:14:07] mouwork> dont worry drob theres one here as well
[00:14:09] mouwork> =3=
[00:14:12] @CRiX> haha mouwork
[00:14:17] mib_b8e0zcoz> actually make one and send it
[00:14:28] @CRiX> ok i’m bored now
[00:14:31] mouwork> Plate has 3 kids
[00:14:34] drob> mou: but I don’t want you
[00:14:35] * CRiX sets mode: +b *!*@37389662.32478467.3B043F6.IP
[00:14:38] +Plate> do not
[00:14:41] * mib_b8e0zcoz was kicked by CRiX (no pedophiles)

Yeah, just another normal day in our lovely channel.

Right, anyway… tournament. It’s EMA. EMA sucks. I don’t get why people think it’s so fucking awesome; I talked with someone, don’t know who, that said that “We tried doing a tournament, but people said ‘if there’s no EMA ranking in it, I’m not going.’” I mean, what the fuck people? EMA rules are shitty, they miss information, and WHO THE FUCK ACTUALLY WANTS TO PLAY ARI NASHI? Also, EMA ranking is useful for what exactly? Oh, wait… it doesn’t even matter. It’s just a fucking number telling you how good or bad you’ve been playing. Its only use is to stroke your own fucking ego with. Fuck that shit, I was thinking about asking the austrian guys to not report me to the EMA ranking site, but forgot to. I was a bit sloshed when the last 2 games started, but did okay, and I won over Gemma, so that’s something. Not that she even mentions me, saying that Alexander was the bigger threat (and while he played better overall in the tournament, he didn’t suffer any handicap like I did). What the fuck? You get outplayed by a guy who’s well on his way on getting shitfaced, but don’t even remember it?

Anyway. Thoughts about the tournament… I’m not playing in another EMA tournament. They need to fix their fucked up system. I don’t care that much for the majority of the players – a few are alright in my book, but most are just too boring or stuck up. Also, the Austrian club, Kasu or whatever it’s called, is more like a youth club than anything else.

I might go to Denmark; for a lot of different reasons that can’t be mentioned here. One of them includes large amounts of beer though.

–

After the tournament, I headed back to the hostel and continued to get hammered; seems like everyone knew I was playing in it (because I’d mentioned it to two British guys that fucked me up when I arrived in Vienna), so people kept asking me what place I got. Got shitfaced again. Missed my flight. Had to stay another day in Vienna. Got shitfaced again. Got on a train at 8 AM, headed back home… Which consisted of OH FUCK YOU GUYS.

Yeah. On the train, first I was woken up by police wanting to see my passport. Okay, I hand it over. Thing is, I’m so fucking tired from all the drinking I’ve done that I fall asleep again. Next time I’m woken up by CUSTOMS instead. Fuck them. Since they pretty much punch my face with their cards, I can’t see shit, so mistake their cards for this “bahn.comfort” card meaning I have to move if some faggot shows it to me. They, of course, don’t speak English very well. Mistake gets cleared up, and they explain that they want to go through my luggage. Fuck you, German Police. Okay, so they drag me and my luggage out into the open and start going through it. These people really thought they’d found a drug dealer/junkie. When they couldn’t find anything (they found my sketchbook and went “So you’re an artist? Smoke a lot of weed?” and shit like that) they looked extremely disappointed and left me to get back to sleep. Woke up when the train started filling up, and when a very cute girl was looking for a seat, I valiantly offered the one next to me (which I’d been having my feet on). I can remember her name, but I’m not sure I want to publish it. Fat chance that she’s reading this, but anyway – cute girl on the train to Würzburg/somewhere, studying to become a teacher: thank you. That girl saved me, we started to chat for a while, and when I began to nod off again she said she’d wake me up when the train arrived in Würzburg. Well, the train crapped out, but she woke me up and explained it. Because the thing with German trains is that they’ll say some information in German, like “We’re soon arriving in [name]” followed by a couple of sentences (all in German, mind), but when they say it in English, they’ll ONLY say that you’re arriving wherever.

So yeah, that was nice of her.

After that, actually, while talking with her and trying to get out of the first train, another guy saved me as well. He was going to Hannover (whereas I was going to Hamburg), but said that he’d be taking the same train, and that I’d just have to stick with him to get to the correct train. Thank you, guy studying Law and living in Hannover. I guess I really did live on the kindness of strangers on this trip.

Got on the train, pretty empty for most of the trip, until somewhere before Hamburg… disaster strikes! The train’s starting to fill up, and my seat is one of those 4-seat ones (two pairs facing each other), and the three seats not used are the only ones free in the entire car (what, do I smell or something? I probably did by then, to be honest.). Enter the whales. A family of three – the fat father, the fat mother (who kept panting like she’d been running for a while… she’d been shuffling along with her bag was all), and their fat son. Neither spoke English, obviously, but they still tried to ask me shit. I only looked at them in disgust whenever they said anything and then went back to looking outside again.

Got to Hamburg. Had some food. Got on the train to Copenhagen. Started talking with a guy (what the fuck else am I supposed to do? I didn’t bring my laptop.), but his English was even worse than the nazi-police of Bavaria that I met earlier, so dropped it. Started talking to _yet another_ guy (what the fuck? Not a single girl in the car, so eh), that turned out to be quite nice. Police wanted to search my luggage yet again, but dropped it once I started talking about the Bavarian police. I guess I do look like a druggie.

Got to Copenhagen Airport, went to “bed” (ie, grabbed a bench and fell asleep), because no trains go to where I live in the middle of the night. Woke up around 6 in the morning, got to Malmö and sat about waiting for a train home. Got home around, oh… 10 in the morning. So roughly 26 hours of trains. Shit.

That’s pretty much it. I’m leaving out a shitload of details; all the “interesting” people at the tournament (fuck them), all the people I met at the hostel, shit I did while in Vienna (“get shitfaced” was pretty much all of it), but fuck that shit.

Oh yeah – if you’re a fan of MotelFRS or whatever the faggot’s name is, you should definitely start visiting EMA tournaments. We’ve got a shitload of him around.

Me? I don’t DO $200 shoes.

Anyway, after that she blamed me for it, and sure… I might have had a part to do with it. To be honest, I don’t remember that much of the later evening/night to be able to say; either way she and her friend left us when it started to turn into morning, and I doubt I’ll ever see her again.

Got back to the hostel and crashed in the lobby. They let me sleep there (by the side of the lobby really; they’ve got couches and shit there), and I woke up a couple of minutes ago to the noise of people having lunch. breakfast.

Tonight I’m going to a classical concert. 25€ for a ticket, quite acceptable, and a bit cheaper than what I’d pay where I live.

Shit I’m tired. Also, fuck German keyboards. Again.

Speaking of hangovers. Drank a bit yesterday. Paying for it today.

“If I crawl on the floor, I won’t fall over”, was the last conscious thought when I got back to the hostel, so I crawled to bed and woke up suffering.

Arrived in Vienna a bit before 10PM. As soon as I stepped outside I was hit by humid, hot air. 28 degrees C. At 10PM? I left my home town wearing trousers, a jacket and a t-shirt, and that was pretty acceptable. Wasn’t too warm or anything. But Vienna’s a lot … warmer. Hot, even. Scalding, you’d say if it was water.

Ok, 33 degrees C in the shadow isn’t scalding, but it’s very hot. And sunny. So hot and sunny that I had to accept defeat; I’d brought no shorts, only trousers. “Well, fuck.” I thought, and headed out (today) to buy some much-needed clothes, and new shoes. Sandals, in fact, because my feet were drowning in the usual shoes I wear in summer time. Not amusing in the least. Oh well, all in all it only cost me around 60 euro or so, acceptable.

Visited Das Porträt, which is a portrait exhibit in the “Museumquartier” or whatever they call it. Was nice, although Sally Mann (I think was the name) would probably be charged with child porn these days. Weird that if you go to a museum, what would give you a pedophile charge if you viewed it online is perfectly fine. Not sure that sentence makes sense, but whatever.

Probably not going to update very much while I’m here – because internet is dreadfully slow. I didn’t bring my laptop either, so I have to survive on freaky German keyboards (y and z are switched, to begin with).

I’ll update after the tournament though. Mazbe. Most likelz.