New Board Members and Working Groups formed

After reviewing the volunteer applications submitted to us, we're pleased to announce some additions.

We are very happy to announce that we have accepted three new members onto the NARMA board:

  • Steve Augustin

  • Claire Pozniak

  • Max Suddendorf

All are very qualified members of the community, and I believe I can speak for both myself and all the existing board members when I say that we are looking forward to working with them and continuing to help grow Riichi mahjong in the US.

We'll also be establishing two working groups for specific projects over the coming year:

  • A technical working group based around player registration and tracking of WRC Qualification Points

  • An outreach working group for work on communications, public awareness and general Riichi promotion

If you're interested in contributing to either of these groups, please reach out to the NARMA board and we can put you in contact.

It's been great to see so much support from the community and we're excited to have new members on the board and a set of projects to move forward with. The full list of applications will be released to the public shortly.

North American Open Location Announced

After reviewing all submissions, we've settled on the proposal submitted by the Pacific Mahjong League. It was a difficult decision as we received quite a few competitive proposals and we very much appreciate the effort and thoroughness that went into all of them.

We're very excited to have PML hosting the North American Open and hope to see you all there!

Request For Proposal process for NAO 2024 begins

We have opened the doors on the RFP process for the 2024 North American Open! Any organization interested in hosting the event may now submit a proposal via our Proposal Submission Page. The page itself has details about fixed requirements for the event as well as what pieces of information are required to constitute a complete proposal.

Note that all proposals submitted will be released to the public to ensure transparency in the selection process. There will also be at least one clearly posted public meeting during the selection process to ensure that feedback from the community can be heard.

If you have any questions or issues, you can contact the NARMA board via a few pathways:

2021 International Online Riichi Mahjong Competition (IORMC) - USA Qualification

Coming off of arguably the best performance the US has put to date in the IORMC, it is that time for the new USA (or perhaps old) team members to continue the march towards being the best in the world!

As a quick refresher, the IORMC was originally a competition between South Korea and Japan in 2011 that has grown into a worldwide country competition in a short period of time.

Seeing as though both the team and newly formed individual competitions are in such a short format, the qualifying sessions for the USA reflect that format.

There will be 4 sessions in all, held on each Saturday in August at 0900 PDT/1000 MDT/1100 CDT/1200 EDT. Only the first 3 sessions will count towards qualifying. A change this year is that the first spot will be awarded to the individual with the highest single scoring session - provided that their overall qualifying average is positive. All other spots will be awarded based upon their qualifying average.

Registration and more details can be found here.

2020 International Online RIichi Mahjong Competition - CAN Qualifiers

It’s that time of the year again! In cooperation with the Canadian clubs, the CAN qualifiers are now officially announced for the IORMC competition held in November!

What is the IORMC? Originally a competition between South Korea and Japan in 2011, it has turned into a worldwide competition with countries from all across the world! With a short format, it’s not rare to see haymakers thrown left and right as countries (and now individuals!) battle it out for top honors!

This year, there will be 5 qualifier sessions, starting on Saturday, August 8th and for each Saturday afterwards save for a break on August 22 & 29th. More information and the registration link can be found here.

2020 International Online Riichi Mahjong Competition (IORMC) - USA Qualification

It’s that time of the year again! US qualifications for the IORMC competition held in November will be starting soon!

What is the IORMC? Originally a competition between South Korea and Japan in 2011, it has turned into a worldwide competition with countries from all across the world! With a short format, it’s not rare to see haymakers thrown left and right as countries (and now individuals!) battle it out for top honors!

This year, there will be 4 qualifier sessions, held on the Saturdays following the 4th of July. More information and the registration link can be found here.

A word from World Riichi Championship

The World Riichi Championship has selected the five players that will be invited to represent the United States at WRC 2020: Vienna. 

The USA does not currently have a system for ranking its players on a national level requiring a much more informal process for selection. We would like to offer some transparency about the process used.

In January, the WRC began soliciting applications from interested players that fell outside of any national ranking system, including the USA. After names were collected a meeting was held with the North American Riichi Mahjong Association (NARMA) along with a few other trusted leaders of the American riichi scene that would better represent the community as a whole. The following criteria were established and used to narrow the applications down to the final five, along with a short list of alternates.

First, it was decided that the available seats should be geographically spread as evenly as possible across the country, and not isolated to areas with the largest concentration of players by default.

Second, where possible, selections were made in favor of capable players that have not previously attended a WRC tournament. It is felt that these people, and the growth of the US riichi ecosystem, will benefit the most from the experience. 

It should be remembered that an additional seat was awarded through merit at the Salt Lake Qualifier. For the seat quota given to the USA, the greatest weight was not given to who we thought were the absolute best players in the US, but those we felt best represented the US Riichi scene, regardless of geographic or economic privilege.

Thank yous go out to each player that submitted their information for consideration, and it is unfortunate that we cannot offer nominations to every person that wants to attend this year. We hope that some understanding of our process may ease feelings of disappointment among those that will not be able to attend. We also encourage you to work with the organizations that do exist to build and maintain systems to provide more accurate representations of American riichi mahjong in the future.

Further questions and comments can be directed to NARMA (nariichi.org) or the WRC (contact@worldriichichampionship.com).

2020 WRC Application Process - USA

Hello! As the curtain falls on 2019, the stage is set for 2020 and the 3rd World Riichi Championship.

With the date starting to appear on the horizon, we wanted to make sure that everyone is aware of the process for getting a seat this year, as it differs to some extent from what happened when the WRC was on home turf as it were.

As Riichi Reporter has, well… reported, the USA will have just 5 seats available for this iteration. This meant that we were unable to offer seats to regional tournament winners like in 2017. Instead, interested players who wish to participate this time around will need to fill out a form provided by the WRC (link TBD), and they will evaluate your resume as well as your results in NARMA sanctioned tournaments to select the 5 participants to represent the US.

If you’re trying to hash out what your expenses will be like, it was also revealed through Riichi Reporter that the entry fee would be around 400 euros (~450 USD).

When we find out the link to state your interest, we will immediately pass it on to all of you!

Best of luck in the new year!

Request for Proposal for 2021 North American Open

NARMA is looking for a host for the 2021 North American Open.

If you are a club, and you think you can host the 2nd iteration of the tournament, please send a Request for Proposal (RFP) to tournaments at nariichi dot org. Any questions can also be sent to the same e-mail.

Your RFP should include at least the following:

  • Dates, including alternate dates

  • Location

  • Max field size (if any)

  • Tournament Format (including schedule)

  • Staffing Levels

  • Contingency Plans (i.e. substitutes/fill-ins/etc)

  • Tournament Budget (Profit/Loss Statement)

  • Food/Lodging Arrangements (if any)

Tournament Sanctioning Guidelines/Call For Tournament Results

NARMA, in an ongoing process to provide standards that will allow tournaments to be recognized internationally, have revised our sanctioning guidelines to be more in line with established standards. Please refer to the link on our homepage for the new policies. A PDF version is also available for download.

To that extent, we are also putting out a call for tournament results. If your tournament can meet the sanctioning guidelines, and was held in the last year, please register as if you were going to hold a tournament, and one of our members will reach out to begin the process of reviewing your tournament retroactively approved.