Friday 25th April: Noda's Hat-Trick

Mark this date down for posterity; on the feast day of St Alda, the 117th day of year 2008 Noda secured the Hiroshima Cock-Eye 3 Player Mahjong title with (spookily) a winning total of +117. His lead is such, that only a biblical disaster along the lines of Noah and the Great Flood will prevent his inevitable third consecutive title. The race for the basement position and runner up is the only one left to be run. At the end of this night’s play, Noda’s lead is but a trifling 626 points over Kenyon in 2nd place. The fat lady has broken the glass and retired for the year. The contest is done, dusted, finished, over, it has ceased to be, it has shuffled off its mortal coil… it is an ex-competition. It was a particularly painful night for Jaime, who once more followed a victory (last week) with a crushing defeat. Sometimes as a player you have to accept it is not your night. The Gods, the Ides and the banshee in the wind has decided that this night one's fate would be be a pitiful one. You have to accept that this comes with the territory of playing games. What is unacceptable however is just not concentrating on what is happening in the play. Just like last week, Jaime made two dumb chombo that combined with his abandonment by Erebus, led to a very expensive night and has sunk into the bloody red of defeat in the overall grand table. It was a night that no matter what the circumstances or state of play, Jaime could confound the odds and either start with bugger all and no chance of a hand or brilliantly choose the precise tile needed by another player to complete their gargantuan hand. Sometimes you just have to role with the punches…. Kenyon, making an appearance from his home in the wilds of Miyoshi, was more fortunate and followed minor triumph with respectable defeat. He, although still in the red has jumped to 2nd place after Jaime’s Dieppe Raid like calamity, which relegated to him 3rd, wedged above Dionysus (Hurley’s protector) who cleverly has avoided the skirmish of the MJ baize and rests comfortably 17 points adrift. Six games were actually played and Noda was top in three of them, Kenyon the remaining three and Jaime, failing even to reach the black at all, -1 being the ceiling to his heights. A theory proposed originally by Jaime, predicted that a player’s mahjong total was in direct opposite the result of his own beloved football team. Thus, Hurley victory on the Friday night was the sealing of Leeds Utd’s doom come the Saturday’s match. If Jaime is right, and frankly it can be the only shred of comfort to be taken from tonight’s debacle, then the thumping manner of his own defeat should be turned into a brilliant victory for United in both the league game against Abramovic FC and the European Cup semi-final against Barca on Tuesday. Please let it be so…he needs something to wash away (preferably in beer) the lightening of his wallet through mahjong defeat. As of Monday morning that theory seems to be up there with alchemy and intelligent design in the pantheon of scientific accuracy... Noda +39, +7, +38, -26, +62, -3 = +117 Kenyon +8, +45, -29, +27, -19, +31 = +63 === Jaime -47,** -52, -9#, -1#, -43, -28 = -180 **Yakitori #Chombo