Three years after the previous MCR tournament, the 3rd UK Open MCR Tournament was held on 22nd July 2022 at the Masonic Hall in Godalming, Surrey.
16 players from 5 countries competed feverishly for the honour of being the 3rd champion, with some being far luckier than others. Andy Mathew being one of the former when self-drawing Little Three Dragons plus a terminal pung and a terminal pair plus “bits” for a hand of 107 points, winning 321; not unnaturally, he won the biggest hand prize.
MCR playing is still a bit of a novelty in the UK, and we are expecting it’s popularity to grow in this country, but it still attracted an impressive group of players from overseas who, I fear, showed the Brits how it should be done!
At the end of the day, three French players led the rankings, with Saiming Fung finishing 3rd only just behind a regular welcome visitor to England in Joel Ratsimandresy; but it was Caroline Arnaud who played impressively throughout and led the way with 3 table wins and one 2nd (plus twice as many table points than any other player) to take the first place prize home.
John Duckworth was again the leading UK player in 4th, and three other members of the UKMA committee also turned up and were very unlucky. UK mahjong players are urged to try their hand at this fascinating, challenging and most enjoyable variant of the game – the committee promise to practice more!