Tom's Excellent WCMJ* Adventure
* World Championship in Mah-Jongg
October 22-27, 2002, Tokyo, Japan
| The closing ceremony was marked by more speeches, but let's first take a look at the winners. The top-scoring team was Young Pros B, from Japan. I played against every member of this team - small wonder that my final score was so low! Here they are, waiting for their awards. |
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The 2nd-place team was the Guangzhou team. Ruth Unger presented them with their medals. There's Bob Lee. I played two of the members of this team (Bob was one). |
| The #3 team: Japan Health Mahjong Association. |
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The #4 team: Tianjin. I played He Jing, the man who's second from the right. |
| This is Ladies Team B (they placed 7th in the team competition). |
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This happy group is U.S.A. Team Red. They placed 8th. |
| The #1 top player is Mai Hatsune, of Ladies Team B. Ruth presented her award. |
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The second prize winning individual player was John O'Connor of the U.S.A. |
| 3rd prize went to Yuichi Ikeya of Japan Mahjong League Team A. |
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More top honors went to two guys I had played against (of course!). |
| I was honored to present awards to the 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th place winners. I didn't get a picture with my camera, but Mr. Noguchi very kindly mailed me some afterwards! Photo courtesy Mr. Noguchi, JMOC. |
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The 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th place winners are Wu Quan Ze (China), Huang Cao Fang (China), Masashi Saitou (Japan), and Cui Junhao (China). Photo courtesy Mr. Noguchi, JMOC. |
| Martin Rep presented the awards to the 11th, 12th, and 13th place winners. |
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Dan Glimne also presented awards. |
| Taiko drums got everybody's pulse rate to increase. As if we needed any encouragement! There was already a lot of excitement in the room. |
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Ryan Morris has what has to be a dream job, writing about mah-jongg for KINDAI MAJAN. |
| Ruth and Rita posing with the Chinese ladies. |
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Ruth shared with me how impressed she was with the high level of cameraderie and passion for mah-jongg she felt from the tournament participants. And she expressed her admiration for the skill that went into the organization of the tournament. |
| Alain and these lovely ladies "manned" the microphones for the award presentation, and announcing the speakers, in three languages. That's Keri Chang on the right. |
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The WCMJ was a multi-faceted event! Click on the links to read the chapters.
Copyright 2002 Tom Sloper. All rights reserved.
