First Global Mahjong Champions League Begins to Receive Sign-up
The first Global Mahjong Champions League (GMCL) will officially open on MCR Duplicate Online on August 13, 2016. The offline final will be held in Chengdu, China from November 3 to 5, 2016. Meanwhile, the second Executive Council Conference of Mahjong International League (MIL) will also be held.
In order to promote Mahjong into the world mind sports family and show the charm of competitive Mahjong as a mind sport all over the world, Mahjong International League (MIL) has set up GMCL. The first GMCL is team competition, which combines online and offline competition modes. It adopts Mahjong Competition Rules (MCR) issued by the General Administration of Sport of China in 1998 as the basic rule and creatively applies Duplicate Format for Team competition set up by MIL. Then, 16 teams chosen from the MIL members representing different countries and regions will be divided into 2 sub-competition-groups: Asia-Oceania group and Europe-America-Africa group. They will carry out heated competition for the only four qualification quotas.
The sub-competition will be held on MCR Duplicate Online (gbmj.lianzhong.com), the online duplicate platform of MIL certification. The competition will last from August 13, 2016 to October 15. Each sub-group has 8 teams to attend. Preliminary competition of the sub-group will be held in the first 8 weeks. After the preliminary competition, the top 4 teams will enter the sub-group-final that lasts for two weeks. Finally, each of the top 2 teams of the sub-groups will gain the qualification of attending the offline final. Each team will play for 1 session per week. During the sub-group preliminary competition phase, the team confronts the other 7 teams. The scores of each team are the total sum of IMP of each session. The offline final will adopt live competition mode like other electronic competitions.
The teams of the sub-groups that enter the offline final (top 2) will gain the whole-process expense support provided by the sponsor and share the award worth around US$10,000 provided by MIL. The top 4 teams of the sub-groups, the individual MVP of the sub-groups, highest IMP of single session and highest individual IMP contribution of single session will have abundant rewards.
This GMCL will be synchronously live telecast through internet during the whole process around the world. The internet video signal will be open-access for free to all MIL member organizations. All the champion players from different countries have the chance to appear on camera and show their exquisite playing skills in front of the global Mahjong fans.
Time planning, long-distance journey and high entry fee have restricted large-scale international Mahjong competition to be smoothly held as the key factors for a long time. In order to reduce the entry cost of the global Mahjong fans and reduce the various inconveniences brought by the former large-scale offline competitions out of long-distance journey, MIL expects to set up a standardized and new competition mode that combines both online and offline modes through this GMCL. Therefore, MIL entrusts the online operation team of MCR Duplicate Online to develop the network acceleration system (mahjong. pokermonster.com) so as to guarantee that the global Mahjong fans share a fair network competition environment. Players from regions other than the mainland China can enter to attend it through the website above. And players from the mainland China can attend through gbmj.lianzhong.com.
Countries or regions members of MIL have the qualifications to send a representative team of 6-8 members to attend the competition. Other organizations can also submit the registration application to match@mahjong-mil.org and attend the competition when verified by MIL Commission for Tournaments. Up to now, the representative teams are from China, Japan, Singapore, Australia, Canada, Chinese Taipei, Reunion (France), Russia and Denmark. The qualification trial in mainland China will be started on July 30-31, 2016.
GMCL is the first global competitive Mahjong competition based on internet and also the top level online competitive Mahjong tournament around the world. Duplicate Format for Mahjong also provides a fair competition environment for the players to the maximum and reduces the element of luck. MIL believes that the success of GMCL is bound to be favorable for the promotion of Duplicate Format, help form a competitive and standardized global Mahjong atmosphere and help boost the development of Mahjong as a mind sport.