9th UK Open Riichi Championship – 2018

This year’s tournament attracted the largest and most widespread support in the history of the event with four dozen domestically based players and twenty from overseas taking part. It was particularly pleasing to note that there were more British players alone than have played in any previous event.as well as the largest representation to date of players from elsewhere in Europe.

Scoring was strong although not always in a positive direction. There were 11 chombos throughout the event, which may well be another (unwelcome) record. On the plus side in round 2 Koken Takeda scored a yakuman for Big Dragons (Daisangen). Jason He also collected a Suu Ankou yakuman at the event but unfortunately it occurred during social play after a hanchan had finished. Timing is everything Jason! One experienced player is believed to have missed a scoring feature on one hand that may well have secured a podium place if it had been spotted by any of the players at the table. More haste less speed Philip.

The player who amassed the most points at the tournament was Oliver Burrows. Sadly, however, the minus sign before the number accentuated Oliver’s 4 chombos, which he accepted with good grace and sportsmanship. The event was played in a good spirit, perhaps too much at times as the floor did became a little noisy during play occasionally.

The British entrants provided eight of the top ten finishers, only Martijn Klaar (Netherlands) in second place and Isabelle Marsac (France) preventing a domestic clean sweep. In an excitingly close finish, long-term supporter of the competition, Sonia Yagi, held on to win by a fine margin in the final round.

Tournament Results

Represented Countries

Rank	Player	Country	Final Score
1	Sonia Yagi		174,000
2	Martijn Klaar		172,400
3	Meng-Chien Wu		165,800
4	Philip Bielby		162,500
5	Hong Li		139,400
6	Christopher Rowe		137,000
7	Koken Takeda		136,400
8	David Clarke		102,400
9	Russell Chan		99,200
10	Isabelle Marsac		92,500
11	Michael Short		91,200
12	Timur Hahn		71,900
13	Joel Ratsimandresy		58,200
14	Jason He		57,200
15	Tatsuya Igarashi		57,000
16	Mathieu Chambe		55,500
17	Thomas Diment		54,200
18	Nicole Haasbroek		51,200
18	Tony Haley		51,200
20	Martin Lester		51000
21	Alexey Belovs		46,700
22	Raúl Ríos Navarro		46,500
23	Philipp Martin		45,300
24	Carlos Granados		41,400
25	Angus Fisk		35,000
26	Andy Mathew		29,700
27	Thomas Wood		29,000
28	David Stallan		22,900
29	Ian Fraser		20.200
30	Selina Steck		19,500
31	Andrew Smith		16,000
32	Anna Canova Putinier		6,900
33	Sandra Berthommier		4,500
34	Gerda van Oorschot		2,100
35	Mark Haines		-200
36	Elmira Mustakimova		-8,200
37	Jeanne Manzo		-11,000
38	Ben Wilton		-11,300
39	Devina Steck		-18,900
40	Olga Igarashi		-23,500
41	Axel Eschenburg		-25,000
42	Norma Todd		-26,200
43	Yixuan Liu		-29,700
44	Peter Langford		-33,300
45	Max Bowsher		-41,500
46	Gemma Sakamoto		-49,900
47	Jem Short		-50,800
48	Piotr Baranowski		-54,200
49	Paola Bungaro		-56,000
50	Shaun Drury		-63,500
51	Mark Bradford		-73,600
52	Nick Dyer		-74,300
53	Matthias Trinkl		-80,800
54	Jay Li		-89,300
54	Graeme Robinson		-89,300
56	John Cilliers		-90,700
57	Olivier Cao		-91,000
58	Luc Humbert		-91,500
59	Marv Hunter		-93,800
60	Andrew ZP Smith		-96,900
61	Thomas Yems		-108,300
62	Richard Langtry		-111,700
63	Eric Haney		-119,500
64	Susan Cumming		-130,600
65	Bruno Manzo		-131,900
66	Michael Donaghy		-140,200
67	Annabel Di Domenico		-204,000
68	Oliver Burrows		-245,300