Cambridge in July proved to be an excellent venue for the 7th UK Open tournament which was organised by Phillip Bielby of the Cambridge Riichi Mahjong Club, one of the UK’s most successful players and Cambridge graduate.
St. Andrews Hall Chesterton was a fine location for the two day tournament, Cambridge itself provided many good “after-play” attractions for the participants, and the event was greatly enhanced by the innovation of a superb black-tie dinner held in St. Catherine’s College on the Saturday evening.
The 7th UK Open Riichi Champion is Yixuan Yiu, a member of the Guildford Mahjong Club, an experienced mahjong player, but very new to the Riichi version of the game. Timur Hahn had travelled from Germany for the event and justified the trip by finishing second, whilst third position was filled by Peter Langford, last year’s winner, who justified his reputation as the luckiest player.
Whilst the majority of those playing are from the UK, it was good to see representatives from Germany, Switzerland, France, Ireland and China participating – special mention should be made of Jeremie Pierard de Maujouy from France who figured at the top of the leaderboard for much of the tournament before missing out at the end, but still wining the prize for most exotic name!
Philip Bielby presented a number of other novel and interesting prizes including best hanchan to Jonathon Harker for a hanchan of 71600, two of the best hands including a Yakuman to Hong Li, and fastest finishing player to John Duckworth!
Tournament Results
| Rank | Player | Country | Final Score |
| 1 | Yixuan Liu |  | 131,800 |
| 2 | Timur Hahn |  | 91,800 |
| 3 | Peter Langford | | 89,800 |
| 4 | Paul Broadbridge | | 74,200 |
| 5 | Tony Haley | | 73,500 |
| 6 | Masahiko Takahashi |  | 61,000 |
| 7 | Jonathan Harker | | 53,200 |
| 8 | Ian Fraser | | 52,000 |
| 9 | Jérémie Pierard de Maujouy |  | 46,600 |
| 10 | Christopher Rowe | | 40,900 |
| 11 | Max Bowsher | | 40,400 |
| 12 | Chris Endicott | | 34,100 |
| 13 | Michael Griffin | | 32,500 |
| 14 | Hong Li | | 31,900 |
| 15 | Yihe Lu |  | 26,300 |
| 16 | James Green | | 22,500 |
| 17 | Olivier Cao | | 19,900 |
| 18 | Nick Dyer | | 16,900 |
| 19 | H John Duckworth | | 3,500 |
| 20 | Tom Wood | | -1,800 |
| 21 | Gemma Sakamoto | | -18,900 |
| 22 | Michael Donaghy | | -22,700 |
| 23 | Mark Haines | | -28,900 |
| 24 | Selina Steck | | -30,000 |
| 25 | Paola Bungaro | | -30,700 |
| 26 | Thomas Hanrahan | | -33,400 |
| 27 | Martin Lester | | -36,700 |
| 28 | Shaun Drury | | -44,800 |
| 29 | Aidan Robison | | -56,300 |
| 30 | Hello Kitty | | -77,800 |
| 31 | Maude Grimberg | | -82,800 |
| 32 | Matthew Johnson | | -85,000 |
| 33 | Devi G. Steck | | -99,900 |
| 34 | Sonia Yagi | | -108,000 |
| 35 | David Clarke | | -129,400 |
| 36 | John Ore | | -155,700 |
Represented Countries
| | | | |
| 29 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 |