World Riichi Championship

The World Riichi Championship (WRC) is a worldwide competition of Japanese Mahjong (also known as riichi) held every 3 years since 2014. The competition is nominally open to people of all ages, men and women alike. Participants generally consist of Japanese professional Mahjong players and foreign amateur players selected by national organizations from Europe, North America, and elsewhere around the world.

History edit

The first edition of WRC was organized by two brothers, Quentin and Valérian Thomas, founders of Tri Nitro Tiles (TNT), a French Riichi Mahjong Club in 2014.

On July 16–20, 2014, the 1st Championship was held in the Mairie de Puteaux (city hall), in the Paris, France region.

The second edition was organized by the United States Professional Mahjong League (USPML) in 2017. On October 4–8, 2017, the WRC was held at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA.

The third edition will be hosted in Vienna, Austria. The original date was in August, but concerns over the coronavirus pandemic prompted planners with postponement. The third edition was finally held at the Intercontinental Hotel Vienna in Vienna, Austria on August 25-28, 2022.

The fourth edition will be hosted in Tokyo, Japan in 2025 to be organized by the Japan Mahjong Professional League.

Qualification edit

General qualification varies by country and association. Players from various nations refer to their national organization for qualification.

List of World Riichi Championships edit

Year	Host country	Host city	Organizer	Winner	Runner-up	Third place	Countries	Participants	Ref.
2014	France	Puteaux	Tri Nitro Tiles (TNT)	Hiroshi Yamai (JAP)	Kazuhiko Nishijima (JAP)	Jun Nishikawa (JAP)	23	120
2017	United States	Las Vegas	United States Professional Mahjong League (USPML)	Masaharu Tomotake (JAP)	Ryūichi Masuda (JAP)	Hiroyuki Yamada (JAP)	25	224
2022	Austria	Vienna	Kasu	Keijun Nara (JAP)	Satoshi Fujisaki (JAP)	Valentin Courtois (FRA)	34	152	^[1]
2025	Japan	Tokyo	Japan Professional Mahjong League (JPML)