In less than a month’s time, MCR enthusiasts will be gathered at Chengdu for the First World Mahjong Championship (WMC) organised by the World Mahjong Organisation (WMO). I can almost feel the excitement building!
I feel a little wistful at not participating though. Earlier in August, I sounded EP out on the possibility of both of us attending. However, his timetable is a little out, as it will still be term time over here and EP is not allowed to take leave from his teaching job. I then thought of going by myself, but I also had some problems getting leave and besides, it would not be as fun to go by myself. So we would both have to give it a miss.
Anyway, that was before EP told me about the American online qualifying rounds. Curious, I went to Mahjong News and read about the WMC being the culmination of the World Series of Mahjong (WSM) – which so far consisted of two tournaments, one in Taiwan in April this year and the European one in Copenhagen in June. I understand there was supposed to be one in Shanghai in September and another to be held in Japan, date unknown. US was to have an online qualifying round, but I understand that it had been cancelled due to low participation rates. However, I have not been following the news recently, so have not heard any further updates on these tournaments. Did they happen?
I shot off an email to EP with the following questions after reading about the above, but he didn’t have most of the answers, nor was he able to provide other sources of information.
1) Are the qualifying rounds part of the Chengdu organising committee's requirements?
2) So it means that there is no open registration with the Chengdu side directly? All players have to have played in the WSM first and the final list submitted by the organising committee for that particular regional tournament?
3) The category is “American and Others”. How are the players under "Others" affected? We would also have to go through the US online qualifying round? It doesn't seem to have been made clear, or I haven’t been updating myself enough.
4) So lets say, as a Singaporean, I participated in the European tournament in June or even the Sept Shanghai one (supposedly called Asia Mahjong Championship), and got a good placing. But I didn't enter the US qualifying rounds. Will I still be allowed to participate in the WMC? And under which group?
5) On a similar basis, if a player plays in all the WSM tournaments and got good placings in all, how will they place him/her? If he/she had good placings in some WSM tournaments, but did poorly in others, how will that affect his/her chances for the WMC? Is there some kind of rating that can be calculated?
6) Is the above going to be the case for the subsequent WMCs?
7) If answer to 6) is yes, does that mean organizers of the regional WSM tournaments are going to start restricting participation to members from their own category to ensure maximum participation from their own region for the WMC? For example, will the European tournament start limiting participation in the European WSM to only Europeans and no others, so that more Europeans can make it to the WMC?
The premise of the above questions, of course, stems from the fear that it would be over for us Singaporeans before we even get to start. Being categorised under “Others” doesn’t seem to ensure opportunities for participation in various regional WSM tournaments and finally the WMC if quotas are going to be established based on regional/national lines.
That there is no clear answer that I can find online to my question above is a comforting thing in itself, as it probably means everything is still at an experimental stage, and by trial and error, the organizers will find some optimal way to ensure the participation of all interested parties. It means that EP and I will probably be able to slip one or two tournaments under our belts yet. ^_^
The fact that there is even going to be a WMC ought to be cause for celebration for all MCR enthusiasts though, and I eagerly wait for the day when I, too will be able to participate in one. In the meantime, I guess I should continue to practice hard for that coming day.
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4 comments:
The qualification and subscription for the WMC has not exactly been a transparent process. We hope this will improve in the future. Let me try and shed a bit of light, even if I don't know very much about it.
Your questions:
1) I believe the idea from China was that the qualifying tournaments should be a requirement, but in reality it was not realistic since the info about the tournaments came out very late. Also, the idea was never discussed in WMO, it was just dictated from China.
2) If you want to go, I suggest you take contact directly to chinamajiang and ask them if there are still places.
3) The category "America and others" is indeed a fine mess. But how do you as an organizer cope with a large number of countries without national mahjong organizations?
4) The rules or guidelines were very hard to understand because the English translation wasn't the best. And it turned out not all qualification tournaments were realistic. So, yes, I believe they would let e.g. a non-European who did well in Copenhagen participate.
5) China Majiang operates with what the call the pin system (a ranking system) which is supposed to answer this question, but it is not well-communicated, it is not entirely clear, and in my opinion it is not a realistic tool here in the infancy of world-wide mahjong.
6) EMA will do what it can to ensure much more transparency in the WMO and WMC matters. At the moment China is very dominant and they're not used to transparency.
Consider, how would you make a registration for a WMC if not by some system of qualification tournaments? Input is appreciated, but it is no easy problem for an organizer! One thing I can say for sure: if you want a stronger position for future WMC's it's a good idea to form a national mahjong league, if none exists today in Singapore.
greetings! It has been awhile since we last met :)
Glad to see that you're blogging as well :)
Hi, Tina,
Thanks for your input.
Firstly, my questions/comments were not really intended to be criticisms of the current situations or organisers of the various tournaments, so hope it is not taken as such. ^_^ I only meant to share some thoughts on the WMC and perhaps get some input from people like your good self.
I do appreciate the efforts put in by all involved parties (like yourself) that enabled mahjong to be played on an international scale today. Indeed I look forward to any future developments with excitement and enthusiasm.
Q2)I would have contacted chinamajiang if we had been intending to participate. However, our (EP & I) schedules being what they are, I thought I would not add to the confusion at this time. The situation might become clearer nearer the competition and much may be cleared up by the next WMC tournament, when we may be ready to participate.
Q3) I am actually quite ok Singapore being categorised under the categorisation of "America and others". I can understand the sheer logistical nightmare if organisers had to cope with the large number of countries otherwise. It is just that since only the US was mentioned for the qualifying round, I was a little confused if that applied to us under "Others" as well. As mentioned in 2), if we were participating, I would have written and asked, but it seemed like a moot point since we were not.
I believe that the rest of my questions will be cleared in due time, especially since I understand active dialog will be going on during the various conferences that will be held alongside the tournament. However, I still want to thank you for your reply and assurances.
Regarding the formation of a mahjong league in Singapore, I believe it has been tried before, but there was quite a bit of opposition from various parties. That is a story for another post.
However, I am not adverse to trying again. In fact I consider what EP is doing now, bringing in more and more people to our mahjong group and trying to spread the play of MCR, as a small start towards building up of a mahjong league. We will see where we go from here.
Hi, Eileen,
Thanks! My blog may seem quite boring to a non-mahjong player. However, since you play MCR as well, lets hope it is not too dry for you.
See you soon for another game!
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