Riichi EC registration complete after lottery

As the last four seats for the European Championship of Riichi Mahjong (ECR) 2010 have been assigned by a lottery, the player list is complete for the time being – players from 16 nations are now registered for the tounament in Hannover from 11 to 12 July.

After Italy had officially called off its participation in the ECR and the quota was already redistributed to Poland and Turkey, at last one Italian player showed up just before the registration deadline – and Giorgio Moratti was lucky enough to catch one of four seats in the lottery, which raffled off the left-over seats of the unused Swedish and only partially used Japanese quota. The other three seats went to Gerda van Oorschot (NED), Wolfgang Hans Franke (GER) and Leevi Rasila (FIN) – the drawing of the lots took place in the famous Gaststätte Kaiser, which will also host the warm-up evening event for the ECR on the Friday before the contest. You can watch the video on http://tinyurl.com/ECR2010lottery. The five less lucky applicants for these last seats are on the waiting list and will be invited to play, if someone from a nation without an internal waiting list will cancel his/her attendance.

The updated share of participating nations is shown on the ECR webpage, as is the complete players list.