The final stage of game play for the 2008 World Series of Mahjong took place on Friday with thirty two players vying for the top spot. The Series started out with 302 players from fifteen different countries competing to be crowned the champion of Mahjong. But there could only be one winner and that person is Ho Kwok-Hung from Hong Kong.

Kwok-Hung never thought he would win the competition and believed he just had a lucky hand in the final round. During the sixth round, Kwok-Hung was chosen by computer drawing to play on the stage. This made him nervous. Kwok-Hong was also not familiar with the automatic mahjong table, which caused a few problems. He dropped and illegally exposed his tile to the other players when drawing.

During the final round, Kwok-Hung beat Shigeru Aono in the last two hands. Aono had been leading from the first few hands. Aono would finish in third place. Second runner up was Lam Ho-Nam and first place went to Tong Kam-Wing. Kwok-Hung scored 180.38 points in his victory and won $500,000USD and a $150,000HKD necklace.

The tournament was shorter than last year but players managed to have higher score averages than last year. Players were not as tired after this year’s tournament. The World Series of Mahjong was created by World Mahjong Limited in 2006 and every year since then the tournament takes place with $1 million in prize money and the title of World Mahjong Champion up for grabs.


- 2008-09-29