Mr Incredible Recieves His Prize...

I received very precise instructions from the Secretary of the Central Committee of the Cock's Eye Mahjong Club appertaining to the procuring of a suitable prize for the 2008 Japanese Three Player Champion, who happens to be Mr Noda, for the third year in succession.

The prize had to be:

• Not too expensive
• Something he could actually use

So bald eagles rampant upon craggy rocks were out this year, then.

To those criteria I took the liberty of adding two more:

• Nothing that would NOT prove odious to the discriminating sensibilities of Mrs N
• Something with some reference to the abilities of our doughty champion

The result, after much searching in the basement of Book Off, which is a veritable treasury of discarded junk, bald eagles rampant upon craggy rocks, sumo wrestlers cunningly fashioned clay and so forth, I found something to satisfy all parties, even Mr Noda...

A Mr Incredible Mobile Phone Strap

With Plastic Model Of Mr Incredible Attached

(price, 105 yen, inc. tax)

As you can see from the photo, Mr Noda, dressed in his customary winter casuals (see Jan 2008, Jan 2007...), received his prize in good spirits, commenting that "size doesn't matter".

Well done Mr Incredible, you are the mahjong champ for the third year running...

DH
http://japanese-mahjong.com/

Ray Keeps His End Up And The Pussy Down

Here are the results for the last game of 2008...
Friday 12th December

Noda had won the competition so long ago that it is really not worth commenting upon. There were a couple of questions to be resolved further down the table, chiefly among the foreign players...

• Would Jaime's remarkable run of luck enable him to finish the year in the black?
• Would David's miserable fortune keep him nailed to the bottom or would he manage a dead cat bounce?
• Or would Ray keep his end up and keep the bouncing pussy down?

Here is the second page of the score sheet. I am not sure what happened to the first page, but seeing as how this game was played about six weeks ago, it is a wonder I still have any record of it at all:

Page 2 of the Scoresheet

Jaime (+26), +62, +24 = +112
Noda (+62), --, --, = +62
===
David (-47), -10, 0 = -57
Ray (-41), -52,* -24* = -117

* Double Ron

As can be seen, Jaime came top and so finished the year in the black.

Meanwhile, David and Ray shed points, more or less by the same rate in the first half of the evening, but then Ray got clobbered with Double Ron in two games and sank to the bottom for the evening, while David "recovered" by only shedding 10.

Ray had done enough by not losing even more to avoid coming bottom for the year.

David, second place, in the black and top foreigner last year, picks up his second plastic duck in three years.

DH

http://japanese-mahjong.com