The UKMA hosted the 4th running of this event at The Maltings in Farnham, Surrey over the 3 days of 7th – 9th October 2016. Farnham proved to be a very hospital and popular location with the visitors, and The Maltings proved itself to be an excellent venue for this major event. The UKMA benefitted from the support of a number of generous sponsors including Farnham Town Council with the Mayor giving the opening address.
This prestigious Championship attracted the best players from Europe (plus a number of important guests from the ROW); most of whom had to qualify though previous recent performances. This was the biggest Championship to date with128 players from 21 countries keen to prove that they deserved to be there, and to do their best for themselves and their country.
The format was innovative in that the aggregate scores from the first 10 hanchan defined in which of 8 “Divisions” each player was to play the final 2 hanchan, so that the highest 16 scoring players played in Division 1 to decide who finished in positions 1-16, and so on. After the first 10 hanchan, UK players were scattered throughout the Divisions, with two playing in Division 1 – Daina Chiba eventually finished 8th and Yixuan Liu (who gained a very late wildcard seat in the Championship by virtue of a late withdrawal and her win at the last UK Championship) finishing a creditable 14th. John Duckworth again finished towards the top of a major tournament by finishing 2nd in Division 2 and therefore 18th overall.
However, the European Riichi Champion for 2016 is Mikhail Lugovkin of Russia, who finished very strongly to overtake Désirée Heemskerk of Holland who had led for much of the tournament; Mateusz Wozniak of Poland finished 3rd. Mikhail gave a generous speech of thanks to everyone involved.
The feedback about the quality of the tournament – particularly the location, the format, the scoring program and the friendliness – has been very positive and heartening.