SAN DIEGO, March 2nd, 2008 - It was the second official on line championship organized by Mahjong Time, and it had the same winner as the first one. Today, American Juliani Leo won the Open Hungarian On Line Championship, just like she did six months before on the first Open European On Line Championship. She was quite modest after the event: 'I was lucky", Juliani (or her MahjongTime avatar 'JulJul') commented during a short chat session I had with her after the championship.

Since the European Mahjong Assocation (EMA) and MahjongTime, a large San Diego based mahjong internet server, reached an agreement about a partership, the possibility of on line tournament was created. Last autumn, the first Open European On Line Championship was held. The virtual MT tournaments got an even more formal status when the organizers of the World Championship 2007 decided that American players could qualify via on line competitions, but these never took place.

On the MT-server, players can play for money or just for fun. Also, MT sponsors large money events, like the World Series of Mahjong 2008. This does not prevent the company, however, from cooperating with organizations which are against playing for money, such and EMA or a number of European mahjong associations.

Hungarian champion

64 players participated in the 'Hungarian Open', seated at 16 virtual tables. Not only Juliani played just as strong as in last September, but also 'Dragonka' (Erika Mago from Hungary) did well. Until the last round, Erika was the number one in the classification, but eventually she landed on the 9th position. As the best Hungarian player, she was declared Hungarian Online champion.

During six rounds, winner Juliani scored 18 table points and 583 game points. The runner-up was 'Hwa' (18 table points, 300 game points), number three was 'April25th' (17 - 392).

By Martin Rep http://www.mahjongnews.com/
Monday, 3 March 2008