It has been an interesting week! As many of you already knew, I had travelled off to Strasbourg, France, to participate in the 5th Open European Mahjong Championship. Together with 24 other Dutch players, whom qualified themselves for this tournament in 2013, we fought for the title of European Mahjong Champion! Departing by car around 8:30 from IJsselstein on Thursday, July 3, together with teammates Cees van den Brink and Anneke Keyl, we travelled through Germany into France and arrived at Strasbourg around 15:15. After checking into the hotel (Le Kléber Hotel) I took a half-hour stroll to the venue, Pavillion Josphine in Parc de lOrangerie. The weather was fantastic, maybe a bit too warm for some peoples tastes, but it was a beautiful day nonetheless! Arriving at the venue I registered myself for the tournament, receiving my player card and a bag filled with goodies! Around 18:30, the opening ceremony for the tournament commenced. A big hall filled with 204 contestants and a few dozen people from the organisation! Everybody was fired up! Everybody was ready to give it their all! After the opening ceremony the gala dinner started around 19:00. A huge challenge for the organisation to fill the hungry mouths of 204 players, the referees and other people from the organisation! The evening was filled with entertainment, of which I didnt see a lot, as I went back to my hotel rather early, in order to get a good nights sleep. Friday, July 4, 6:00 AM, the sound of the alarm clock ending my deep slumber. Instead hitting the snooze button once, like I usually do, I was fired up and ready to go! Taking the local tram together with Menno van Lienden we arrived at the venue around 7:20, in time for breakfast at 7:30. At 8:30 the amazing noise of the gong ushered in the start of the tournament. Players wishing each other good luck and, most importantly, a lot of fun! The first round (2 hours) started out unexpectedly well by winning 4 out of the first 5 hands, 2 of which were self-picks. From the first- until the last hand, I never lost the lead, resulting in a whopping 4 table points on the first table (with 160 mini-points)! After a 30 minute break, we continued with the second round, this would later result in my worst round of the tournament, getting close to winning nearly every hand, but always being 1 step behind an opponent, resulting in no hands won and 0 table points ( -238 mini-points) for the second round. Following the second round, came the most important part of the day, lunch! Again a great challenge for the organisation, executed really well, to feed all the famished players! At 15:30 sharp, the third round commenced. Another round with an unexpected outcome. Ending up 4th place after the first 4 hands, 3rd place after the second 4 hands, 2nd place after the third 4 hands and 1st place after the last 4 hands! Again 4 table points (133 mini-points)! The fourth round, yet again after a 30 minute break, was expectedly unfortunate. After gaining 4 table points in the first round, 0 table points in the second round and 4 table points again in the third round, it is not unsurprising to end up with 0 table points in the fourth round. Even though the end result of the fourth round was 0 table points (-56 mini-points), any player could have gotten 4 points up until the last hand! The end of the fourth round concluded the first day of the tournament. With 8 points and -1 mini-point, I ended up on the temporary 83rd place! To end the day on a positive note, a group of players from The Netherlands, France and Portugal sat down for dinner at restaurant Gürtlerhoft. The second day was a lot cooler and also a lot more cloudy, after the heavy showers starting the evening before, it was a decent temperature to play Mahjong. After yet another tram ride with Menno van Lienden, we arrived at Pavillion Josephine and at 8:30 started the fifth round! The fifth round started out great! Taking- and keeping the lead until the 12th hand, a sudden self-pick by Russian player Pavel Anokhin turned the tide and caused me to lose my first place at the table, ending up with 2 table points (152 mini-points). The sixth round was primarily a fight between the number 2 and 3 at that table, since the number one and 4 were too far at the top and bottom to change their positions. The round ended up with 1 table point (9 mini-points). After 2 points on the first round of day 2, and 1 point on the second round of day 2, I feared for what was to come in the third round as the logical results, following the above mentioned pattern, would be 0. The results soon confirmed this logic. After winning the first hand, I was unable to continue winning hands and I ended up with a disappointing 0 table points (-157 mini-points). The last round of the second day was again following the logical outcome of the previous rounds on this day. The only result I still missed was one with 4 points. Winning 7 hands (2 self-picks) I took first place at this table, earning 4 table points (196 mini-points)! This last round gave me a total of 15 table points and 199 mini-points, good for a temporary 78th spot on the tournament ranking list. The evening was exciting too! Not because of mahjong, but because of football! The Netherlands was up against Costa Rica in the quarter finals of the World Championship in Brasil. After watching the first half of the game with fellow Dutch, Portuguese and Spanish mahjong players at a local pub, I ended up watching the second half in my hotel room. I should really say “tried to watch”, as I was so exhausted from this second day that I only say the replay of the penalties, since the noise of the crowd cheering woke me up after the actual shot. The third morning I woke up well rested. Looking at my bed sheets, I held quite the wrestling match with my bed! After settling the hotel payment the night before, I dropped the key to my hotel room off at the reception and took my luggage on one last tram ride with Menno van Lienden. At the venue I dropped my luggage off on the top floor and continued to grab some breakfast. The ninth round was going to be my best round of the tournament. Starting with losing 3 hands, of which I discarded 2 of them, I turned the tide on the 4th hand with a hand-value of 50. The scoring continued by winning 4 more hands, of which 2 of them were self-picks, and eventually leading up to Austrian player Doris Sallmutter being the unlucky player to discard a green dragon tile that completed my Thirteen Orphans (including bonus tiles 91-point hand value)!! Continuing by winning 2 more hands (1 self-pick) I ended up with 4 table points and 365 mini-points!!! With two rounds to go, the 10th round was yet again very close until the end. After sticking close to the first and second place with the French Corine, even taking the lead for the duration of 3 hands, she was the better player in the end, earning first place. I took second place, earning 2 table points (30 mini-points). Following the last lunch of the tournament all players were ready to start the final round. And what a round that was! All four players at my table were apart by only several points. In the end fellow Dutch player Pauline van der Linden discarded a tile with which I won the 15th hand, taking a temporary first place at that table. With first place being up for grabs in the final 16th hand a small self-pick by Pauline caused her to pass the number 3 at the table and secure 1 table point for herself. For me and the number two at the table, this resulted in losing some mini-points, but not our positions. As a result, I grabbed 4 table points (42 mini-points) in the end! With the final round concluded and the results published, my 25 table points and 636 mini-points were good for ending up on 28th place out of 204 players. There was only one Dutch player who ranked higher (26th place) with 1 table point more. In conclusion, I can say that this was one hell of a tournament! A great experience and not to mention a fun one! I would like to thank the organisation and all the players I met for this lovely tournament!
Posted on: Mon, 07 Jul 2014 11:41:41 +0000
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