This month, we are spotlighting Mahjong Time member Enel. Hailing from Hong Kong, Enel is an incredibly skilled and prolific player, having taken 1st place in AM, TW, and HK GMTs in just six month’s time! Enel also holds multiple brown belts and a black belt in EC. Adding to Enel’s impressive list of accomplishments is a third place win in the First Dragon Tournament. Mahjong Time had the chance to ask Enel a few questions:

Q: How did you originally discover multiplayer Mahjong?
A: My elementary school classmates (who play with their family) taught me the bare basics when I was 10 just so they could get a fourth player for a game one day and I've loved the game since. Discovered mahjongtime through a friend.
 
Q: How often do you play online?
A: Everyday.
 
Q: How long have you played at Mahjong Time?
A: 3 years or so in total.
 
Q: What do you like the most about Mahjong Time?
A: It is convenient, both in terms of the variety of styles you can play on one single site, and most importantly, the ease with which you can get a game going at any time of the day – simply because there are enough players from different timezones signed onto the site at any given time.
 
Q: Tell us more about yourself! What would other Mahjong Time players be surprised to know about you?
A: I'm a boring person leading a normal life so I don't really have anything interesting to say about myself. My computer crashes half the time when I type into the chat screen (especially long sentences) and the inability to scroll the chat screen back and forth freely drives me crazy so these days I just end up looking less and less at the chat screen.
 
Q: Which style of Mahjong do you like best? Why is this your favorite?
A: Don't really have one and depends entirely on my mood. Sometimes I get so sick of one style that I don't play it for months at end.
 
MJT tournaments aside, generally I play RCR only when I feel like my skills are deteriorating and I need to go back to basics, TW when I'm in a good mood, EC when I feel like I really want to get abused, MCR when I'm in a slump (because any hand has a shot at winning due to the variety of hands), AM when there are enough AM players around and HK only when I'm feeling extremely lucky or bored.
 
Q: Looking back on your Mahjong Time experience, what would you say was your favorite tournament to play in?
A: Don't have one but I always look forward to the AM GMT tournaments because AM tournaments are rare to come by.
 
Q: What is better: playing live or playing online?
A: Without a doubt – playing live.
 
Q: On the subject of online play, what kind of advice would you give to the online player?
A: I think the majority of the players on MJT play non-cash games so keep it cool and light hearted and remember it is just a game. Always factor in the hazards of gaming/interaction over the internet e.g. disconnections, computer crashing, seeing the same player winning 13 orphans in the same tournament by self-mahjong… twice…. things like that… and try to take it easy.
Don't get distracted by other non-MJT games you may be playing at the same time, get a proper mousepad/mouse and try not to hit spacebar with your right hand because sooner or later, you'll press M accidentally and end up with wrong mahjong.