European Mahjong Association
The European Mahjong Association (EMA) is an organization whose purpose is "to encourage, disseminate and coordinate the playing of mahjong in Europe". Its membership currently consists only of national Mahjong organizations located in Europe, each nation being treated equally during procedural votes. Players are technically members of their national organizations and not directly of the EMA. The EMA does coordinate pan-european initiatives such as a coordinated registration and player database and the ranking system for members of the various national organizations. While a best effort is made to try to disseminate and coordinate the release of multilingual documentation, the default language is English. The current president of the EMA is Tina Christensen.
Membership
The EMA was created in 2005 with 7 original members. At present, there are 19 members:
- [01] Austria: Österreichischer Mahjong Verband (2005)
- [03] Denmark: Mahjong Danmark (2005)
- [04] France: Féderation Française de Mah-Jong (2005)
- [05] Germany: Deutsche Mah-Jongg Liga (DMJL) e.V. (2005)
- [06] Hungary: Magyar Mah-jong Szövetség (2005)
- [07] Italy: Federazione Italiana Mah Jong (2005)
- [08] Netherlands: Nederlandse Mahjong Bond (2005)
- [02] Belgium: Belgian Mahjong Association (2009)
- [09] Sweden: Svenska Mahjongförbundet (2009)
- [10] Spain: Federación Española de mahjong (2009)
- [12] Portugal: União de Mahjong de Portugal (2009)
- [14] Finland: Suomen Mahjong-liitto (2009)
- [15] Russia: Russian Mahjong Federation (2009)
- [17] Slovakia: Slovenský Mahjongový Zväz (2009)
- [11] United Kingdom: United Kingdom Mahjong Association (2011)
- [19] Poland: Polska Liga Mahjonga (2011)
- [16] Switzerland: Association Suisse de Mah-Jong - Associazione Svizzera di Mah-Jong - Schweizerischer Mah-Jong Verein (ASM-SMV) (2013)
- [21] Ukraine: Ukrainian Mahjong Federation (2013)
- [22] Czech Republic: Česká asociace mahjongu (ČAMJ) (2013)
Member number 13 has not been designated due to usual superstition surrounding the number, as well as numbers 18 and 20 for some unknown reason.
Future Membership
At this time, it is unknown if new member organizations will be welcomed into the EMA for the next General Assembly.
Participation
As of July 2014, there are 306 active players (players with 2 or more Riichi tournaments played within the last 3 years)
| Code | Country | Players |
|---|---|---|
| 01 | Austria | 22 |
| 02 | Belgium | 1 |
| 03 | Denmark | 23 |
| 04 | France | 51 |
| 05 | Germany | 23 |
| 06 | Hungary | 0 |
| 07 | Italy | 1 |
| 08 | Netherlands | 44 |
| 09 | Sweden | 11 |
| 10 | Spain | 0 |
| 11 | Great Britain | 20 |
| 12 | Portugal | 1 |
| 14 | Finland | 3 |
| 15 | Russia | 59 |
| 16 | Switzerland | 0 |
| 17 | Slovakia | 9 |
| 19 | Poland | 28 |
| 21 | Ukraine | 2 |
| 22 | Czech Republic | 3 |
Rulesets
EMA currently uses two rulesets; one for Japanese Mahjong and another for Chinese Mahjong. For Chinese Mahjong, EMA uses MCR ruleset that is regulated by Chinese authorities and used in the Chinese Mahjong World Championship. For Japanese Mahjong, EMA has their own Riichi ruleset that is based on Dutch and Danish customs. Notable features include the lack of Kuitan and Kuikae and the inclusion of Aka dora and Ryanhan shibari. EMA has estabilished a Riichi Rules Committee to consider refinement and possible revision of the ruleset.
Tournaments
Each national organization can apply to EMA to have their tournaments officially ranked. Each member country can hold one national championship (MERS-2) and two other events (MERS-1) per ruleset per year. An exception is France; the Reunion Island located in the Indian Ocean has its own quota of tournaments, but is otherwise considered part of France. The qualifications for a national championship are stricter than those for other events. EMA also admisters European Championships, held every 2-3 years, for both rulesets.
Ranking system
EMA's Mahjong Europe Ranking System (MERS) has separate ranking lists for Chinese Mahjong (MCR) and Japanese Mahjong (RCR) rulesets. Both operate in the same way. From each tournament a player participates in, they receive a rating from 0 to 1000, where 0 corresponds to last place and 1000 to first. Then their overall rating from 0 to 1000 is calculated as a weighted average of the tournament results. [1]
The weights used are
- The value of the tournament
- 5 for European championships (MERS-5)
- 2 for national championships (MERS-2)
- 1 for other events (MERS-1)
- The age of the result
- 100% for tournaments less than one year old
- 66 for tournaments over one year old
- 33% for tournaments over two years old
- 0% for tournaments over three years old. Tournaments this old no longer contribute to the ranking.
A player needs at least two contributing tournaments to appear on the ranking list. For players with less than 5 contributing tournaments, ghost tournaments (rating 0, value 1, age 100%) are added until the total of 5 is reached. This means that players with few tournaments will generally have their rating increase for every tournament they play, and that MERS-2 events are very valuable to new players.
The overall rating is the average of
- the weighted average of all of a player's tournament results (including possible ghost tournaments)
- the weighted average of a player's 3 best tournament results (including one ghost tournament for a player with only 2 tournaments)
Quotas
For Championship events, EMA will allocate seats to each member country with their quota system.[2] Firstly, free seats are distributed:
1. Every member country gets one seat 2. Every member country with any players whose rating is over 700 gets another seat 3. The top three countries of the ranking list get a third seat
The remaining seats are then distributed mathematically. Each country gets a rating that is the average of that country's portion of the total ranked players, and that country's portion of the players whose rating is above 700. This average is multiplied by the amount of seats left, and gives the amount of seats the country will get in this phase.
A country cannot have more seats than they have players whose rating is above the average of the ranking list. Leftover seats are distributed to top countries by the EMA. As one can see, having a rating of 700 is important to increase the country's seat quota.