HAMbaiman Riichi Open 2025

It still felt kind of surreal, but we actually made it! The HAMbaiman Riichi Open 2025 was successfully held on the weekend of 8 - 9 November, with 84 participants from 12 countries in Europe, making it the biggest EMA Riichi tournament of the year! After the 3rd World Riichi League Event in January, we felt that we were ready to organise a bigger tournament again in Hamburg, and the idea of organising an EMA tournament came. It began on 4 March when our tournament's main organiser, Tessa, presented the tournament plan and convinced the German Mahjong League to let us apply for the EMA certification. From March to November, our club has also been constantly growing, that eventually 8 members of Peicha Hamburg, including Kenneth, Maike, Danila, Kseniia, Michael, Marvin, Orla and Max, participated in the tournament, whereas Miłosz, Bryan, Maximilian, Ulrike, Ly, Mirela, Jana and Julian helped with the organisation, and Julius served as the head referee.

Many participants already arrived on Friday evening for some rounds of social play, but the tournament officially started on Saturday morning. Before the games started, the special prize was announced: the first person who wins a Sanbaiman hand, from which our tournament name was derived, will receive the title of Mr./Ms. HAMbaiman and a huge 1 kg chocolate box. Sanbaiman, 11 Han or more but not a Yakuman hand, sounds easier than it actually is, especially because the red fives are not used in the EMA rules. Apparently an "easy" way to achieve the goal is to make multiple Kans in the game and hope for the new Doras, but does everyone want to take the risk of also losing to a hand full of Doras by doing so?

As Julius - also serving as the gong itself - announced the start of the first Hanchan, dices were rolled and everyone started to draw their tiles. 11 Han is indeed difficult to achieve, but perhaps a hand with 10 Han without a single Dora is even more difficult. Already in the very first Hanchan, such a hand was won by Ben Thomas with the Yakus: Toitoi, Honroutou, Yakuhai x2, Shousangen, Honitsu. A beautiful 10 Han Baiman hand without a single Dora, by which we were so amused that we decided to give the special prize to Ben if no one could win a Sanbaiman hand throughout the whole tournament.

Baiman was obviously easier than Sanbaiman, and Chombo was apparently also easier than Baiman. Before the start of every next Hanchan, Julius updated the statistics of big hands and Chombo penalties. While no Yakuman hand was won in the morning, the Chombo count kept increasing after every Hanchan and due to various reasons: most commonly Furiten Ron, as well as winning without a Yaku, discarding a tile from the hand while in Riichi, Noten-Riichi and so on.

In the fifth and very last Hanchan of Saturday, a Yakuman hand was finally won by Silke Bansemer: Kokushi Musō! She won the hand after her 7th discard, making the hand virtually impossible to defend against and looted 32000 points, placing her at the 9th place overall after the first day. Debbie Chan had four first places and one second place on the first day and was ranked first with 134500 points.

Unlike on the first day, when players were seated randomly with different opponents, the seating on the second day was arranged according to the current standings. The game started at 08:30 on the second day, with the HAMbaiman special prize still yet to be won. Instead of a Sanbaiman, another Yakuman hand was won already in the morning by Heidi Ludwig. She waited on 3-Pin and 9-Pin for her Suuankou in the All Last game and drew the 3-Pin, winning the Yakuman hand and the first place in the game.

In Hanchan 7, Max from Peicha Hamburg finally saw his chance and called Riichi... and soon, Tsumo! Riichi, Tsumo, Yakuhai, Sanankou, Honitsu, Dora 3... 11 Han! Here it is! "Referee!!! Sanbaiman!", he yelled. Everyone in the room cheered and clapped for him, while Julius handed the Mr. HAMbaiman sash to him. It was already the second time for him in the tournament waiting on a Sanbaiman hand, and this time he made it! Yes, Dora does make a difference, a huge difference indeed, not only for the special prize but also for the strategy of Riichi mahjong. With Dora being an essence of Riichi mahjong, the randomness of the game increases with your adrenaline every time the Dora, Ura-Dora and Kan-Dora are revealed... as well as the amount to be paid.

The final two Hanchans were played with interval seating and the top four players played at the same table. Yaephra Wang who was on the leaderboard on the second day has been sitting at Table 1 for several Hanchans facing different opponents. Before the last Hanchan, she had 209700 points while Dean Wang in the second place was 48900 points behind. With the Uma system in the EMA rules, it means that the "easiest" condition for Dean to overtake Yeaphra is that Dean has to win the first place while Yaephra needs to be the last, with a point difference of more than 18900 points, which is not particularly harsh, but absolutely not an easy task. As Dean won a dealer Baiman hand in East 4: Riichi, Tsumo, Rinshan, Tanyao, Sanshoku, Dora 2, on the closed wait of 3-Man, the goal seemed to be reachable. Afterwards, Dean chose to play rather defensively, or precisely speaking, even more strategically, as he also tried to feed the other two players at the table, in order to have Yaephra in the last place. In the All Last game, Taiki Ando finished with a Pinfu, Tsumo, Dora 1, 3 Han 20 Fu hand, and ended up merely 800 points behind Dean and concluded the game. Dean got the first place with 37700 points with that single Baiman hand, while Yaephra was unforunately Yakitori in this Hanchan and took the last place with 15300 points. 

In the prize ceremony, goodie bags were given as a token of appreciation to the EMA observer, Vasile Gherman, to the three referees, Julius, Kenneth and Junyu, as well as to the Berlin Mahjong Club for their technical support in using the Pantheon system to track the game results. A consolation prize full of sweets was also given to the player in the last place, Chris de Roock. We also had the honourable mention for the two Yakuman hands from Silke and Heidi, and for Nadine König for having the best single Hanchan with +69700 points after Uma. We then presented officially the title of Mr. HAMbaiman and the huge chocolate box to Maximilian Axmann, who defended the title for Peicha Hamburg. Finally, for the winners' stage, with the point difference of 22400 points at the table, Dean's condition was fulfilled and he overtook Yaephra to become the first overall, winning the HAMbaiman Riichi Open 2025 tournament. Yaephra, who played nicely throughout the weekend with 180000 points overall won the silver trophy and Ben Thomas won the bronze trophy with 138300 points.

With the winners receiving the trophies, the two-day HAMbaiman Riichi Open 2025 tournament with 9 Hanchans was over. While many players who had to catch their trains or flights started to leave, many still stayed for more rounds of social play, just because we love mahjong too much.

Many thanks to every player who contributed to every single nice moment in the tournament and to everybody in the organisation team who made this tournament possible, in particular to Tessa who arranged everything with great attention and created a warm mahjong atmosphere for everyone in cold and rainy Hamburg winter.