: I want to run a mah-jongg tournament. Where do I start and what do I need to do?
: I want to run a mah-jongg tournament. Where do I start and what do I need to do?
: Let me state that I have never run a tournament myself. But I've participated in several of them. Have you ever been to a mah-jongg tournament? If you have, you've got a head start. If you haven't (if you live in the American heartland, or a country where tournaments aren't common), then I hope I can give you a few clues from my observations.
No matter what kind of mah-jongg you play (or, if you aren't a player yourself, what kind of mah-jongg the tournament attendees play), the basics of running a tournament are pretty much the same. The following is written based on a one-day tournament (one that begins in the morning and ends that afternoon), but you can apply the same principles to a multi-day tournament. The longest tournaments I've attended have been 3-day events. Anything beyond that is probably overkill.
For starters: you have to find a location, with enough tables, tablecloths, and chairs. And of course you need mah-jongg sets. What a lot of American tournament organizers do is have players bring sets. It's probable that at least 25% of the players own (and can bring) a mah-jongg set. If you want players to bring sets, make sure that their promise to bring a set is included in their application to join the tournament. Make sure to plan to have extra sets, because sometimes a player who'd promised to bring one forgets!
If your tournament uses American rules, you may need to have extra NMJL cards available (inevitably, somebody forgets hers). If your tournament uses Japanese rules, you probably need to arrange to have enough special automatic tables that shuffle the tiles.
You will need to reach enough players to make it an exciting event, so you'll need to think about how to advertise to them (maybe FAQ 15 will be helpful in reaching them).
And every attendee of the tournament must play the same kind of mah-jongg (it wouldn't do to have some people playing by American rules, and others playing Chinese Official rules, etc. - that would be a disaster!). So make sure that in your advertising efforts, you make it clear which mah-jongg rules will be used in the tournament.
You'll need to think about what prizes to offer, how much it will cost to run the tournament, how much you want to raise, thus how much to charge players for the event.
I assume you yourself play mah-jongg (if not, you need to bring in at least two experienced players to act as judges to rule on those annoying little things that are bound to come up).
Make sure you have a copy of the printed rules on hand.
Tournament rules are pretty simple. Score points rather than coins or chips. With points, a winner's payment can come from thin air (rather than from other players' purses).
You will need to make score cards - one person at each table should be table scorekeeper, and each player must initial her score to verify that it's accurate. You also need a tournament scorekeeper, who collects the score cards and determines tournament scores by simply adding them all up, then sorting from highest to lowest. This is a function done easily in a spreadsheet program like Excel. But don't think you can just download an Excel file somewhere - the tournament organizers listed in FAQ 4a had to create their own. You'll have to create your own too, just like everybody else.
You need an East marker on the east wall of the room, and you need to number the tables. You should also mark the other walls of the room. Chinese and Japanese tournaments have S to the right of E, but Americans are confused by that, so they typically label the room walls according to the actual compass instead (putting N to the right of E).
You also need to come up with a table/seat-rotation mechanism. The table rotation used by Bill and Judi Nachenberg (pictured here - their website is http://mahjonggfunla.com) is that East stays stationary (she sits at the same seat and the same table throughout the day's games) - South moves down 1 table each round - North moves up 1 table - West moves up 2 tables. A player who goes beyond the highest-number table goes down to the lowest-number table (just as the Ace is both lower than the Deuce and higher than the King in a deck of cards).
Wikipedia has a nice description of how a round-robin tournament should be rotated. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Round-robin_tournament. See emails below for more information about how to make a round-robin rotation that minimizes player placement repetitions, especially for small groups (groups smaller than, oh, say 16 tables). No matter what solution you use for your table rotations, you have to thicken your skin and let complaints bounce off you.
Under Bill & Judi's rotation mechanism, East is more a permanent seat location than a permanent player designation. At the beginning of the round, the player in the East seat deals first. After that game is finished, the dice pass around the table as is normally done. When the dice come back to the East seat again, the round has been completed (she doesn't deal again with that group of players).
In a Chinese Official tournament, you'll want a seat rotation policy as well as a table rotation policy. After the deal has moved back around the table to the East seat, E switches with N, W with S - then after the next round, E switches with S, and before the final round E switches with W... (for example).
Each player has to be assigned a starting seat and table upon arrival (usually on a name badge, either stuck on or pinned on or hanging on a neck lanyard). Give each player an individual rule sheet, self-scoring sheet, and pencil.
Plan the tournament's schedule.
Allow time off for lunch in the middle of the tournament, and allow time at the beginning for announcements and rule-setting. Allow time at the end for the awards ceremony. Random door prizes (picked from a fishbowl) help keep people from leaving before the prizes/awards are given out.
Speaking of time: If you'll be using a computer projection system and laptop, and if your play sessions have to stop when time runs out, Stephan Hilchenbach has created a useful countdown timer which can be downloaded at http://www.countdown-timer-stop-watch.com/index_gb.html. I have often used online-stopwatch.com.
You may also want an audio amplification system if the crowd is large enough.
Hopefully, this FAQ has given you a starting list. You and your organizing committee can now sit down and brainstorm the details. If you have questions, you can always ask on the Mah-Jongg Q&A Bulletin Board. Like this, for instance...
We want to organize competitions.
>From: Tony
>Sent: Tue, February 9, 2010 8:44:03 AM
>Subject: Mah-Jongg Q+A
>My mah-jongg question or comment is: I am running a new Mah-Jongg club and we want to organise competitions. Can anyone direct me to templates for scheduling round robin events for different numbers of players in a tournament or league format?
>We expect to have between 8 and 16 players involved. We need a schedule where everybody plays everybody else the same number of times (in round robin everybody plays everybody else once). Can you direct me to somewhere where someone has worked this out before? I can't believe that nobody has tried to work this out before.. Thanks. Tony
Hi Tony,
Of course many tournament organizers have worked out ways to rotate seats at a table during a game session, and ways to rotate tables between game sessions. But it sounds like you expect that those folks have published their methodologies on the Internet somewhere -- and I've never seen anyone do that.
You can find how seat rotation works at WMCC-organized events. Go to
http://sloperama.com/tour/rulebook.htm
and you can download the Mahjong Competition Rules (there's a link there). But as for table rotation, I discussed that a little in FAQ 21 (you didn't say if you'd read it or not), but you probably will have to just sort of puzzle this out on your own. It isn't always possible for every player at an event to play every other player (work out the math). The tournament organizers do manage somehow, though, to make sure to pit me against the top champions every time I play in a tournament (how else can you account for my low scores, and the champions' high scores?) (half-kidding).
Good luck. Let me know what you figure out, and I can post the information for future organizers who ask this same question.
Tom Sloper
Author of "The Red Dragon & The West Wind," the definitive book on Mah-Jongg East & West.
Los Angeles, CA (USA)
January 9, 2010
That's awesome info, Andrew. I'll append this to FAQ 21 for future organizers.
Tom Sloper
Author of "The Red Dragon & The West Wind," the definitive book on Mah-Jongg East & West.
Los Angeles, CA (USA)
02/10/2010
Hi Edwin!
Thanks for those links and that explanation. One thing you said:
A full round-robin is indeed possible for 16 players in a 4-player game. Smaller numbers of players (less than 16) would be difficult to schedule in a 4-player game like mahjong.
Exactly what I figured (read: "guessed"). But since I don't regard myself as a math-head, I wasn't able to (and didn't want to try to) explain it to Tony. I'll append this to FAQ 21 for future tournament organizers.
May the tiles be with you.
Tom Sloper
Author of "The Red Dragon & The West Wind," the definitive book on Mah-Jongg East & West.
Los Angeles, CA (USA)
02/10/2010
There is a computer program or formula for tournament table rotation
>From: Edwin Phua
>Sent: Tuesday, June 29, 2010 3:53 AM
>Subject: Re: Tournament scheduling
>Dear Tom,
>I refer to the recent question on tournament scheduling and table rotation by Gail.
>There are solutions for the problem(s) posed by Gail, within constraints set (20 to 28 players, 6 rounds). Some solutions may not be ideal, due to mathematical impossibilities. All solutions here been trawled from the Round Robin Tournament Scheduling forum (
http://www.devenezia.com/round-robin/forum/YaBB.pl) (credit to Ian Wakeling).
>For 20 players:
>Round One: (1, 2, 3, 4) (5, 6, 7, 8) (9, 10, 11, 12) (13, 14, 15, 16) (17, 18, 19, 20)
>Round Two: (1, 12, 15, 18) (2, 5, 10, 20) (3, 6, 11, 16) (4, 8, 13, 17) (7, 9, 14, 19)
>Round Three: (1, 2, 8, 17) (3, 5, 15, 19) (4, 9, 16, 20) (6, 10, 13, 18) (7, 11, 12, 14)
>Round Four: (1, 6, 14, 20) (2, 11, 13, 19) (3, 8, 9, 18) (4, 7, 10, 15) (5, 12, 16, 17)
>Round Five: (1, 5, 9, 13) (2, 7, 16, 18) (3, 10, 14 17 ) (4, 6, 12, 19) (8, 11, 15, 20)
>Round Six: (1, 7, 11, 17) (2, 6, 9, 15) (3, 12, 13, 20) (4, 5, 14, 18) (8, 10, 16, 19)
>For six rounds, there will be some instances of repetition. Four players (Players 1, 7, 11, and 17) will meet one repeat opponent twice, while four players (Players 2, 8, 12, and 14) will meet one repeat opponent once. The other twelve players will play against all opponents once and will thus meet eighteen different players over six rounds.
>It is not possible for any player to play against all other players in a 20-player field. Since mahjong is a four-player game, and one gets to meet 3 opponents at any one time, all best solutions involved a field where the opponents are in multiples of 3 (e.g. for 16 players, where the opponents are numbered 15, a multiple of 3; 5 rounds is needed for all players to play one another once).
>For 24 players:
>Round One: (1, 2, 3, 4) (5, 6, 7, 8) (9, 10, 11, 12) (13, 14, 15, 16) (17, 18, 19, 20) (21, 22, 23, 24)
>Round Two: (1, 9, 18, 24) (2, 11, 19, 23) (3, 5, 12, 16) (4, 6, 10, 14) (7, 13, 17, 21) (8, 15, 20 22)
>Round Three: (1, 12, 15, 19) (2, 5, 20 24) (3, 11, 14, 17) (4, 8, 18, 21) (6, 9, 13, 22) (7, 10, 16, 23)
>Round Four: (1, 6, 17, 23) (2, 10, 13, 18) (3, 7, 19, 22) (4, 9, 16, 20) (5, 11, 15, 21) (8, 12, 14, 24)
>Round Five: (1, 5, 10, 22) (2, 8, 16, 17) (3, 6, 15, 18) (4, 7, 11, 24) (9, 14, 19, 21) (12, 13, 20, 23)
>Round Six: (1, 8, 11, 13) (2, 7, 9 15) (3, 10, 20, 21) (4, 12, 17, 22) (5, 14, 18, 23) (6, 16, 19, 24)
>Round Seven: (1, 7, 14, 20) (2, 6, 12, 21) (3, 8, 9, 23) (4, 5, 13, 19) (10, 15, 17, 24) (11, 16, 18, 22)
>For a field of 24 players, there is no repetition for seven rounds, and every player will meet 21 other opponents, and will not meet only 2 opponents. For a tournament of six rounds, any one round can be dropped.
>For 28 players:
>Round One: (1, 2, 3, 4) (5, 6, 7, 8) (9, 10, 11, 12) (13, 14, 15, 16) (17, 18, 19, 20) (21, 22, 23, 24) (25, 26, 27, 28)
>Round Two: (1, 5, 21, 25) (2, 6, 13, 17) (3, 11, 16, 28) (4, 12, 20, 24) (7, 9, 19, 27) (8, 10, 15, 23) (14, 18, 22, 26)
>Round Three: (1, 6, 24, 28) (2, 5, 15, 19) (3, 9, 14, 25) (4, 10, 18, 21) (7, 12, 13, 22) (16, 20, 23, 27) (8, 11, 17, 26)
>Round Four: (1, 9, 17, 23) (2, 10, 14, 28) (3, 7, 15, 20) (4, 8, 22, 25) (5, 11, 13, 24) (6, 12, 18, 27) (16, 19, 21, 26)
>Round Five: (1, 7, 16, 18) (2, 8, 21, 27) (3, 10, 19, 24) (4, 9, 13, 26) (5, 12, 14, 23) (6, 11, 20, 25) (15, 17, 22, 28)
>Round Six: (1, 11, 19, 22) (2, 12, 16, 25) (3, 8, 13, 18) (4, 7, 23, 28) (5, 10, 20, 26) (6, 9, 15, 21) (14, 17, 24, 27)
>Round Seven: (1, 8, 14, 20) (2, 7, 24, 26) (3, 12, 17, 21) (4, 11, 15, 27) (5, 9, 18, 28) (6, 10, 16, 22) (13, 19, 23, 25)
>Round Eight: (1, 12, 15, 26) (2, 11, 18, 23) (3, 5, 22, 27) (4, 6, 14, 19) (7, 10, 17, 25) (8, 9, 16, 24) (13, 20, 21, 28)
>Round Nine: (1, 10, 13, 27) (2, 9, 20, 22) (3, 6, 23, 26) (4, 5, 16, 17) (7, 11, 14, 21) (8, 12, 19, 28) (15, 18, 24, 25)
>This is one of the best solutions: a field of 28 players allows a full round-robin of nine rounds, where every player will meet every other player (27 of them) exactly once. For a tournament of six rounds, any three rounds can be dropped.
>As for computer programs, there may indeed be some programs written for handling tournaments, but these programs may not be easy to use, and/or are not usually specifically written to handle table movement/rotation. As far as I know, Mahjong Denmark has a Mahjong Tournament Organiser program (which includes a function for scheduling and creating table/seat arrangements).
>Best regards,
>Edwin
Edwin,
This is all fantastic information. I'll add it to the tournament FAQ. Thank you!
P.S. - I'd completely forgotten that you and Andrew had already responded to a similar question previously.
May the tiles be with you.
Tom Sloper
Author of "The Red Dragon & The West Wind," the definitive book on Mah-Jongg East & West.
Los Angeles, California, USA
June 29, 2010
Note: A "round robin" tournament is one in which all of the entrants play each other at least once, in which not winning a round does not eliminate you from the overall competition.
Formula for tournament table rotation?
>From: Ed B
>Sent: Saturday, April 2, 2016 8:26 AM
>Subject: Tournament tables?
>Tom,
>we are running a tournament and will have 64 players at 16 tables with 12 games.
>I am trying to set up the rotation of players and did use the
>East-Stationary
>West-2 up
>North- 1 up
>South-1 down
>rotation,but when it came to the 9th round it seams that it starts repeating it self
>How can i get it so all players play with each person 1 time?
>Thank You for your help
>Ed B
>From: Ed B
>Sent: Saturday, April 2, 2016 9:00 AM
>Subject: Part2
>Tom,
>Just for info
>i did set this up for 60players at 15 tables for 12 rounds and the players came out good with thr rotation working out,but like i said the 64 players will not work ??
>Ed B
Ed, your question goes beyond what I can answer. I think you need a mathematician or something, not a mah-jongg author. Did you read all the posts at the bottom of FAQ 21? I just looked, and there is a post describing a formula - but don't ask me to explain it. My brain has too much of my own world to concern itself with this weekend, and I'm no mathematician. You can link to the FAQs above left.
Tom Sloper
トム·スローパー
湯姆 斯洛珀
Creator of
the Sloper On Mah-Jongg column and
the Mah-Jongg FAQs -- donations appreciated.
Author of "The Red Dragon & The West Wind," the definitive book on Mah-Jongg East & West.
Los Angeles, California, USA
April 2, 2016
Formula, part 2
>From: Ed B
>Sent: Saturday, April 2, 2016 11:51 AM
>Subject: Re: Part2
>Thanks anyway
Formula, part 3
>From: "ex
>Sent: Monday, April 4, 2016 5:02 AM
>Subject: Tournament cycles for Ed B
>
>Hi Tom, Senechal here.
>Ed wishes to organize a tournament with 64 players for 12 rounds. While I do not know the perfect solution, I know of one that could satisfy his needs. Lacking a better name for incomplete systems, Dutch cycles (owing to their prevalent use in the Netherlands, it's not a round robin nor a swiss system) have the advantage of being simple to deploy if the number of participants is a multiple of a prime number. 68 works great (17*4), 56 less so (14*4 = 7*2*4). 64 is also an unfortunate number, because a player that move two apart from each other end up meeting after 8 rounds (16/2 = 8). Hence why they often limit registration to numbers like 52, 68, 76 and 92 when they can.
>
>This solutions uses the standard of moving players from one table to (the same, one up, two up, three up) for the first 8 rounds. The next three rounds have to send people to different tables out of sequence. Other tables have their player numbers raised by 1, unless they go over 16, 32, 48... then you simply take off 16.
>
>Round 1: 01, 17, 33, 49
>Round 2: 01, 18, 35, 52
>Round 3: 01, 19, 37, 55
>Round 4: 01, 20, 39, 58
>Round 5: 01, 21, 41, 61
>Round 6: 01, 22, 43, 64 (Table 7 would consist of 07, 28, 33 and 54)
>Round 7: 01, 23, 45, 51
>Round 8: 01, 24, 47, 54
>
>Dutch cycles usually break down at this point. However, with 64 players, we have some room to assign more tables with minor adjustments. Rounds 9 through 11 consist of the following seating arrangements, but players will have to move differently than the established rotation.
>
>Round 9: 01, 25, 34, 60
>Round 10: 01, 26, 38, 63
>Round 11: 01, 27, 42, 50
>
>There is a possibility to make not only 12, but 16 rounds with no repeats, using the perfect shuffle of 16 within each group.
>
>Round 12: 01,05,09,13, 02,06,10,14, 03,07,11,15, 04,08,12,16 (Table 5 would have 17, 21, 25, 29. Table 9 would have 33,37,41,43)
>Round 13: 07,04,13,10, 06,01,16,11, 05,02,15,12, 08,03,14,09
>Round 14: 09,15,06,04, 10,16,05,03, 13,11,02,08, 14,12,01,07
>Round 15: 12,13,03,06, 11,14,04,05, 15,10,08,01, 16,09,07,02
>Round 16: 01,02,03,04, 05,06,07,08, 09,10,11,12, 13,14,15,16
>
>Ed could choose to use Round 1 through 11, plus 16 on the list if it makes things easier for him. In Riichi tournaments, there's special care used for wind balancing and anti-cheat mechanisms (making everybody move tables), but these seating arrangements do not have these. Hopefully this still helps him out.
>May the seats be with you.
>--Senechal.
Hi, Senechal.
I figured that, like you said, the solution is to change the rotation pattern after mid-day (or at least after the first rotation pattern has run its course). Thank you. Hope this helps him!
May the tiles be with you.
Tom Sloper
トム·スローパー
湯姆 斯洛珀
Creator of
the Sloper On Mah-Jongg column and
the Mah-Jongg FAQs -- donations appreciated.
Author of "The Red Dragon & The West Wind," the definitive book on Mah-Jongg East & West.
Los Angeles, California, USA
April 4, 2016
Why is American/NMJL tournament scoring different; why no doubling?
Scenario A - home scoring used at tournament Player A wins with a 25-point hand by discard (on any number of exposures), during the course of which one player's hand went dead.
Scenario B - tournament scoring. Player A wins with a 25-point hand by discard (on one exposure), during the course of which one player's hand went dead.
That's just a guess, Belinda. I don't know what would actually happen if regular scoring was used at a tournament.
>From: Belinda G
>Sent: Friday, July 20, 2012 1:32 PM
>Subject: Tournament question - need help
>Tom:
>I am sponsoring a mah jong tournament at a local restaurant as a fund raiser for our local food pantry.
>I have read, and reread your website regarding tournaments and I am all set, but have a question on scoring.
>Why are the tournament rules for scoring different than the regular scoring rules for NMJL?
>Most tournaments that I have googled use the following scoring rules:
>Winner of the hand gets face value on the card, plus ten points for picking own MJ, plus 20 points for a jokerless hand (except S&P)
>Ten points to each player for wall games, exception - dead hands receive no points
>Player throwing a tile for MJ, received minus 10 points if there was one or no exposure, minus 20 points if there wete 2 exposures or minus 25 points if there were 3 or more exposures.
>NMJL rules double the face value for picking own MJ and doubles it for jokerless
>Throwing player pays double the final value of the MJ, including the doubles, if any.
>Why is there a difference in the scoring? I am holding our tournament on Monday 7/23.
>Thank you for any input you may have.
>Belinda
Hi, Belinda.
I really couldn't say why -- I was not involved in the decision-making process, and I have never played in a tournament where the same scoring is used as that on the back of the card (double for self-pick, double for jokerless, etc.).
But let's try a thought experiment for a moment.
- Player A's score is marked down as 100.
- Player B's score is marked down as -50.
- Player C's score is marked down as -25.
- Player D's score is marked down as -25.
- Next hand is a wall game. Nobody gets any points.
o By the end of the tournament, lots of players have scores in negative territory (some in the minus thousands, probably) and a few players have scores well above a thousand. A very wide divide between the top and bottom players.
- Player A's score is marked down as 25.
- Player B's score is marked down as -10.
- Player C's score is marked down as 0.
- Player D's score is marked down as X (or 0, for going dead).
- Next hand is a wall game. Everybody gets 10 points.
o By the end of the tournament, the divide between top and bottom players is measured in hundreds, not thousands. There are very few players whose scores are below zero.
Tom Sloper
Creator of these Mah-Jongg FAQs -- donations appreciated.
Author of "The Red Dragon & The West Wind," the definitive book on Mah-Jongg East & West.
Los Angeles, California, USA
July 20, 2012
Software for tournament scoring?
> From: Sandee C
> Sent: Sunday, June 30, 2013 12:53 PM
> Subject: Mah-Jongg Q+A
> My mah-jongg question or comment is:
> I run the tournaments at the jcc in new york city. was wondering if you know of any software available for tournament scoring. we usually have 50-55 people and scoring manually is a little slow.
> any suggestions greatly appreciated.
> best, sandee c
I do not, Sandee. I recommend you contact organizers of tournaments (of American-style mah-jongg), and ask them. See FAQ 4a, the Find Players bulletin board, and FAQ 21.
Tom Sloper
Creator of
the weekly Mah-Jongg column and
the Mah-Jongg FAQs -- donations appreciated.
Author of "The Red Dragon & The West Wind," the definitive book on Mah-Jongg East & West.
Los Angeles, California, USA
June 30, 2013
Software for tournament scoring, part 2
> From: betsy newlife
>Email: betsyneedsalife溌yahoo.com
> Sent: Sunday, July 7, 2013 11:30 PM
> Subject: Hi Tom...Sandy C asked about scoring programs [June 30]
> I spent a great deal of money to make a program for scoring.
> and had the programmer include the ability for me to rent it out....for a week or a year, or anything inbetween.
> If u have tournament people who are interested...feel free to send them my way.
> 718-974-9115
> Bettyann
> JokersWildMJT.
>I Love You Flowers 'The happiest of people don't necessarily
> have the best of everything;
> They just make the most of everything they have!
>.•* *~`:Beyann.•* *~:
> From: betsy newlife
> Sent: Sunday, July 7, 2013 11:47 PM
> Subject: I do rent out my scoring program....
> It was created at substantial cost to me...with that in mind.
> how can I contace Sandee C?
> Bettyann
> Jokers Wild, MJT
Maybe she'll come back and see this, Bettyann.
And I'll append this to the Tournaments FAQ.
May the tiles be with you.
Tom Sloper
Creator of
the weekly Mah-Jongg column and
the Mah-Jongg FAQs -- donations appreciated.
Author of "The Red Dragon & The West Wind," the definitive book on Mah-Jongg East & West.
Los Angeles, California, USA
July 8, 2013
Tournament organizer questions from Singapore
>From: Wei Jian T
>Sent: Sunday, November 2, 2014 11:04 AM
>Subject: Mahjong
>Hello Tom,
>I am reading your articles regards to mahjong as I am looking at organising a mahjong tournament.
>However, I have this 2 questions which bothers me for many sleepless nights. Haha
>Question A:
>Lets say i am doing a tournament whereby players are assigned to a pre-allocated time slot. On the actual day of the tournament, 1 player decided to no-show and its 5min to the start of the session, what should I do with the other 3 participants??
>Question B:
>I am looking for professional judges / tournament directors, what is the cost involve and how can I get in touch with this group of specialist?
>Thanks and really appreciate your kind assistance!
>Best regards,
>Wei Jian
Hello, Wei Jian.
To answer your questions, I needed to know where in the world you are, and (to answer your second question) what kind of mah-jongg you might be talking about. I saw that you also sent me a LinkedIn request, so I followed it to learn more about you. I see that you are a manager of casino marketing events at a resort in Singapore (important information I needed to know, in order to give you an answer). You asked:
[what if] 1 player decided to no-show and its 5min to the start of the session, what should I do with the other 3 participants??
This is a great question! You always need to have people standing by for such an eventuality (up to 3 substitute players, who might not be eligible to win a prize, as you see fit).
I am looking for professional judges / tournament directors, what is the cost involve and how can I get in touch with this group of specialist?
China isn't that far away from Singapore (not as far as America or Europe). I assume your tournament will use some Asian or Chinese rules (not American or Japanese rules). You would probably need to cover travel costs for your judges (airfare, hotel, meals, local transportation). I think if you contact people who've judged in China, they'd probably be delighted to do it. I have not been to a Chinese tournament in five years, and it's going to be up to you to locate people and contact them (I can't help you by putting you in touch with them, and I don't think they are connected to my LinkedIn profile). You can read my accounts of my travels to China, and you can read accounts of international tournaments on mahjongnews.com, and you can look for reportage of past instances of the World Series of Mahjong, and you can try contacting people in the international mah-jongg community. If you are planning very far in advance (a year in advance, for instance), then you can hook into the community and find out about the next big tournament, and plan to attend. I'm sure you would find judges while you are there. I am going through an extremely busy time in my life right now and cannot help you beyond this reply. I wish you luck!
May the tiles be with you.
Tom Sloper
Creator of
the weekly Mah-Jongg column and
the Mah-Jongg FAQs -- donations appreciated.
Author of "The Red Dragon & The West Wind," the definitive book on Mah-Jongg East & West.
Los Angeles, California, USA
November 2, 2014
You're confusing me, Sloper!
In a home game, people are playing for dimes and quarters, but in a tournament, there can be big prizes, and there may be dozens or scores of players involved - so the competition is upped a notch (or many notches). Also, since coins aren't used, points have to be added and recorded by a scorekeeper, and the scoring system used in a home game can't be used. And penalties differ, and rules have to be stricter in order to be more fair for competition purposes.
For example, right here on this board, you'll find one such example. When calling a discarded tile for mah-jongg in a tournament, if you take the discard and put it in among your concealed tiles on the sloping front of your rack before exposing the hand atop the rack, you could be called dead. Or if you call someone dead in a tournament and you're wrong, you could be declared dead.
For other examples, see questions 7 and 8 in last week's column (#685). Don't look for examples in yesterday's column (#686). Hmm, I assume that's the source of your frustration, that there were no tournament rule answers in that column. ... And now you've made me reveal a "spoiler" to any bulletin board readers who haven't read yesterday's column yet, darn you! (~_^)
>From: "lindaz...
>Sent: Monday, August 14, 2017 12:22 PM
>Subject: I'm so confused!
>Hi Tom,
>What is the difference between an official rule and a tournament rule? I've never played in a tournament--can you please give some examples of tournament rules that differ from official rules?
>Thanks, Linda
Hi, Linda!
I assume you've become confused by something in my latest columns (specifically #685 and #686). Sorry about that! You asked:
What is the difference between an official rule and a tournament rule?
It should be obvious that a tournament rule is a rule used at a tournament, when that rule differs from the official rules.
can you please give some examples of tournament rules that differ from official rules?
I already have, many many times. If you search this page right now for the word "tournament," you'll find some. If you go to FAQ 19 and search for the word "tournament," you'll find lots more.
Tom Sloper
トム·スローパー
湯姆 斯洛珀
Creator of the
Sloper On Mah-Jongg column and
the Mah-Jongg FAQs -- donations appreciated.
Author of "The Red Dragon & The West Wind," the definitive book on Mah-Jongg East & West.
Los Angeles, California, USA
August 14, 2017
What are typical prizes for a tournament?
On Tuesday, February 18, 2020, 11:30:45 AM PST, bW wrote:
Mah-Jongg Q+A
My mah-jongg question or comment is:
Hi Tom - thanks for your
article on tournaments. I found it to be very helpful Can you tell me what the typical prizes are for 1st/2nd/3rd place winners?
Thanks,
Barbara
No, I can't, Barbara. Sorry! You have to figure out what works based on the amount you're charging and the number of players you'll have, minus the costs of marketing and hosting the tournament.
May the tiles be with you.
Tom Sloper
Author of "The Red Dragon & The West Wind," the definitive book on Mah-Jongg East & West.
Author of the
Sloper On Mah-Jongg column and
the Mah-Jongg FAQs -- donations appreciated.
February 18, 2020
Los Angeles, California, USA
© 2004-2021 Tom Sloper. All rights reserved. May not be re-published without written permission of the author.
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