Happy New Year (明けましておめでとう！)
As those in the east coast are turning the calendar from 2021 to 2022, the American Riichi Mahjong League has actually had its inaugural games earlier today to accommodate the players’ schedules!
In Pool B, Table 3 they had their first 2 of 4 games earlier this afternoon. Pacific Mahjong League head Bichen Wang had 5 mangan or better hands and racked up back to back 60,000+ point performances to give him an early +93.8 point head start!
Inaugural Game of the American Riichi Mahjong League!
Bichen continues his rampage in Game 2!
But to recap, the American Riichi Mahjong League closed registration with 74 confirmed participants, easily exceeding all expectations! This meant that our Beta League would consist of 4 pools by which we will begin the spring season with 4 leagues (A1, A2, B1, B2)! The registrants encompassed 18 states, 17 different mahjong clubs, and has 20 participants who actually do not belong to a club! We are happy to see such diversity in its ranks to start.
Each pool here in the inaugural season will play a full or near-full round-robin schedule over 5 rounds. Each round lasts for 2 weeks and each pairing, much like the professional leagues in Japan (JPML, Saikouisen, RMU, etc) each pairing plays 4 games (5 if the pairing has 5 players). Pairings have the freedom to schedule their games as they see fit during that time period (i.e. all at once or broken up between 2 days, etc). At the end of 5 weeks, some players will automatically be assigned to a league, while others who are on the borderlines will have a playoff to see who enters which league (A1 vs A2, A2 vs B1, B1 vs B2).
We here at the ARML are excited to see the league taking its maiden voyage! We are still getting things situated on the website, so currently all there is on the Beta League page are the Pool assignments and the league schedule for the season. We expect soon to have the standings for each pool up there as well as links to games shortly, so please bear with us as we get everything up and running!