OEMC 2007

After last weekend's World Series of Mahjong (WSoM), there is another mahjong tournament to watch out for, and that is the Open European Mahjong Championship (OEMC) 2007, held in Copenhagen, Denmark, this weekend.

In contrast to the WSoM, the OEMC is a more modest affair. There are no big cash prizes, and the registration fee is only €170. Now, this is only about one-twentieth of the WSoM's registration fee of US$5000! All contestants get to play eight sessions, making the most of their registration fees! This is unlike WSoM's knockout format where only the best half of the field progresses to the next round.

There are 136 registered players representing twenty countries: sixteen are European countries; the others are China (including Hong Kong), Chinese Taipei (i.e. Taiwan), Japan and the U.S. For a regional tournament, the OEMC has more diversity than the WSoM in Macau where the contestants come from only eight countries, which are China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Japan, Denmark, the U.K. and the U.S.

As for the ruleset, the OEMC uses the Mahjong Competition Rules, the official ruleset of the World Mahjong Organisation (WMO).

Coincidentally enough, the WMO is also organising a "World Series of Mahjong" which will culminate in the first World Mahjong Championship, to be held end of this year in Sichuan, China. The similarity of the name "World Series of Mahjong" will no doubt cause some confusion to many people. The WMO's World Series of Mahjong has five tournaments which includes the OEMC, while the recent WSoM held in Macau was organised by World Mahjong Limited and consisted only of the one event.