Tournament report - Riverside Riichi 2025
80 players from across the country and the continent came to Bristol for the second largest riichi tournament ever held in the UK!
See the results at the EMA website (click here) or our scoring site (click here).
About six months of planning went into delivering the third and final MERS-approved tournament for the UK in 2025.
I definitely did not anticipate the phenomenal demand which saw the 80 places available fill up in just 8 days. It is amazing to see UK and European riichi in such a healthy state. 28 of these were tournament newcomers - I hope it will not be their last!
With so many players and newcomers, it was perhaps inevitable that we observed the unfortunate total of 16 chombos throughout the weekend. All were received with grace - everyone chombos eventually!
What is much more surprising is that we saw no new entries for our Hall of Yakuman! We definitely had many yakuman ready hands though…perhaps the floodgates will open at our next meetup?
 |
|---|
| Sam calls ron on all triplets, three concealed triplets in round 2 |
 |
|---|
| And Ewen does the same |
After her introduction to our club at the Road to Riverside event in September, it was a pleasure to hand the prize for best hanchan to Kylie Lee, for her score of +59.4 in round 4. Two prizes from two events - kudos Kylie!
Perhaps the best illustration of the fierce competition over the weekend is this table of the leaders after each round:
| Round 1 | Maurin Molle | 41.1 |
| Round 2 | Miou Luo | 81.7 |
| Round 3 | Miou Luo | 132.1 |
| Round 4 | Michael van der Sluijs | 135.2 |
| Round 5 | Michael van der Sluijs | 145.6 |
| Round 6 | Michiko Green | 151.4 |
| Round 7 | Michael van der Sluijs | 146.7 |
It looked a few times like we might have a runaway leader, but fortune seemed determined to bring our pack back together…
Finally finishing in 3rd place, after looking like the most likely winner for large portions of the event, was Michael van der Sluijs. Michael continued an incredible run of form, following up his defence of the Riichi Dutch Open title earlier in the month, to move to an anticipated 2nd place in the Europe-wide rankings. Bravo Michael - it was a pleasure to witness!
Miou “Romeo” Luo held on to his early strong position to claim 2nd place. Romeo made the trip from the Auld Riichi Mahjong Club in Edinburgh to ensure that - out of the 74 UK players - we actually did receive some UK representation on the podium!! A truly excellent result for a first tournament!
Bristol Riichi Mahjong is 3 years old at this point. In planning this tournament, I obviously dared to hope for a local winner. Congrats to Adam (12th) and Joseph (16th) for their great performances.
The winner of our tournament plays under All-Ireland Mahjong but is another long-time Bristol club supporter. A regular face at meetups and a keen student of the game, she is also active in organising her own play sessions allowing people more chance to develop their skills and connect through mahjong. I couldn’t be happier to report that 1st place at Riverside Riichi 2025 was taken by Meghann McKeague!
 |
|---|
| The Riverside Riichi 2025 podium - Michael, Romeo and Meghann |
Of course we have many people to thank for this event:
- our substitute players Daniel, Jamie, Niall and Max
- our EMA observer Linxuan
- our playing referee Martin (fortunately not required alongside the two non-playing referees!)
- Bristol Bridge Club, for hosting us
I’d also like to thank these great Bristol-based businesses who supplied us for this event:
- AHM Catering, our lunchtime caterers
- Pottery by Ester, who produced our trophy mugs
- Hunter Operations, who supplied our eco-friendly lanyards and nametags
And of course, thank you to each and every single player! We hope to welcome you back to Bristol soon!
