Mahjongtime.com again sponsored with UKMA the second UK online riichi tournament which attracted a goodly following from both home and overseas, one third of the field being home grown players.
Fewer in number, but clearly superior in quality the locals took four of the top six places, with Russell Chan emerging the winner to improve on his second place in the 2020 event from Tatiana Hester from Russia and Raul Rios Navarro from Spain in second and third respectively. Interestingly Raul was the 2020 winner. He and Russell must know something about the game!
Ben Wilton, Sonia Yagi and Ian Fraser completed the top six slots for a clean sweep of the locally designated trophies. Interestingly Ian and Sonia also finished well in 2020, one of several good finishes in the monthly Mahjongtime.com tournaments that saw Sonia top the tournament rankings on the platform at the end of the year.
Hopefully 2022 will see the re-emergence of face to face tournament play, but the experience of online mahjong on a cold winter’s evening not too far away from hearth and home, may yet show itself to have enduring appeal.