Milestone reached!

Over this past weekend we hit 32 people registered for the inaugural season of the American Riichi Mahjong League.

That is important because it triggers a Beta League where everyone will compete for a spot in the 16-person A1 League, while everyone else will start in the A2 League (or lower, depending on final turnout). For instance, if registration ended today at 33 people, everyone would be randomly split into 2 pools (one 16 players, one 17 players). In this case, there would be a 5 round round-robin season. After the 5 rounds, players would be assigned as follows:

• 1st-6th place - A1 League

• 7-10th place - Playoff Round

• 11th and lower - A2 League

The playoff round is there because of course when players are placed randomly, there is the chance that one pool is stronger than another. This tries to remedy that by having one final round between all participants at the borderline to see who moves into the A1 League. So if you finished 9th say and we just took the top 8 from each pool, you’d be assigned to the A2 League - irrespective of the level of competition between the pools. Instead, you are paired with 8th place in your pool and 7th and 10th places in the other pool for a 1 round (4 hanchan) playoff with the top 2 from each table moving on to the A1 League.

Ideally, this not only provides a more fair way to determine the last couple of participants while also building some suspense in the process as well! (Though registration is still open of course so hopefully by the end we have an even bigger pool of players in competition!) And if you’re one of those interested, have a look around and perhaps we’ll see you at the start of 2022!