I was in Hamburg last weekend for the German Mahjong Open 2008. It was a real tournament, much like poker tournament, just with mahjong instead of poker. There was no gambling involved though, so you can't get rich (or poor) from this. Everything is counted in points, so the only thing you "fight" for is your honour.
I had never been to Hamburg before, unless you count connecting trains at the central station to continue further to other parts of Germany. However, I can't say that I saw much of Hamburg during this trip since most of my time there was spent either in the Museum of Ethnology playing hours of mahjong for the 2 days I was there, or home at my friend's apartment sleeping for the 2 nights I was there.
The other places in Hamburg we had spent time at were Chinese restaurants and the underground (U-bahn). So much for checking out the city.
Anyway, part of the reason why I went to Hamburg was also to visit my friend, Christophe, who had moved there. He used to be a former colleague, but we still keep in touch even after he left, so it was wonderful to see him again, even if for just a short time.
As for the mahjong tournment itself, I had a lot of fun experiencing it indeed. We were 2 teams from Denmark - the Flower Power girl's team, and the Danish Red Dragons boy's team. I went there with the goal of not being in the last position out of 32 participants, and I'm glad to say that my goal was achieved; I was in 30th place ;o).
I'm not that lucky in mahjong yet as I'm still learning, but I am proud to say that out of the 5 rounds in the tournament, I was actually the winner at my table in round 3. Not only that, I was also playing against the #1 and #2 ranked players at that point in time during that round, so by being the winner at that table, it meant also that I had beaten the top 2 ranked players!!! Woohoo!!! That was the best and LUCKIEST round I've EVER had since starting to play mahjong 3 months ago.
I have to confess though, that I was not so popular after my very last game of the tournament. It was quite an interesting round, because I was playing against the #3 and #4 ranked players at that time, and though I welcomed the pressure after a successful round against the previous #1 and #2 before, that round didn't go too well for me. It started well 'cos I won a hand at the start, but then I made some stupid mistakes, the worst one being that I didn't call "HU!" when I self-drew a winning tile because I wasn't sure if I met the minimum 8 points needed to call for a win. So I threw out a tile instead to continue the game, and the realised that I shouldn't have thrown out that particular tile (5 bamboo) as it was better than another tile (7 bamboo) that I opted to keep!
Anyway, in our last hand, the game was almost going to end as a "dead hand" since nobody called a win yet and there was just 1 tile left on the wall. I was the "lucky" one to pick that last tile, and it was a green dragon tile. It wasn't a winning tile for me, so I could either discard it, or find a safer tile from my hand to discard.
I wasn't thinking about risks. I thought instead "Well, chances of anyone winning on the last tile is very slim, so nobody's going to need this green dragon anyway," so I threw it out.
"HU!" cried Morten (#4) and Joe (#3) together when they saw the last green dragon tile!!! They were BOTH needing that tile to win! But Joe was after me, and Morten was after Joe, so the tile belonged to Joe, and I had lots of points deducted because the winning tile came from me.
Before the appearance of that green dragon, Morten actually had more points than Joe, so he could be in top 3, but because Joe now won that hand and there was not enough time to play another, it meant that Joe overtook Morten by...get this...ONE point!
So yeah, Morten...who was part of the Danish Red Dragons team (in other words, one of our guys), ended up in 5th place...all because I unnecessarily threw out that 1 deciding tile. Now he never wants to play with me again :o(. I'm sorry, Morten!!! Please forgive me ;o)! Thing is though, if Joe didn't need that tile to win, then Morten would have gotten it, get lots of points, and possibly become either 1st place or 2nd place in the tournament! So if his luck was better, I could have played a big part in helping him get that spot... .
Anyway...here are some pics from the event.
Museum of Ethnology
Flower Power girls!
Check out his heavy headgear!
Preparing for Round#1
My 1st round was at Table A.
Everyone getting into position.
And so begins the tournament!
Concentrating hard.
Here's happy Morten...while he was still in 4th position and enjoying it while it lasted for the next 2hrs until the nasty Green Dragon flew out of my hands and took it all away from the defenseless Kung Fu Panda... .
Flower Power girls again! 7th position out of 8 in total combined mahjong table points, but definitely 1st position in total combined beauty points ;o).
Danish Red Dragons. Well, I see 2 Red Dragons, 1 Flower Power wannabe, and 1 sad panda... .
The whole "Danish" team who made up 1/4 of the total participants.
The Lamborghini I drove around in while in Hamburg. I would have driven it all the way back to Copenhagen, but didn't want to seem anti-social so I joined the rest in the train instead.