Double your winning…….

Starting Monday 16 May at 00:01 CET, ending May 22th at 23:59:59 : Play and win as much as possible before Sunday 22th  midnight and the player who wins the most will have their winnings doubled! Winner will be contacted via mail.  Real money cash games only, no tournaments, no free tables.

Also don’t miss our Wednesday and Sunday Shootout Tournaments with extra money in the pot.

Congratulations to the following players who won prizes in our March Madness promotion:

• Da1sh1
• yukfung63
• ctin
• chuichui
• rooney88

Their accounts were credited during March with their winnings.

Thank you to all our players that played our tournaments over the Easter holiday. Please see the result below. Also don’t miss our Wednesday and Sunday Shootout Tournaments with extra money in the pot.

March Madness to Americans is the time when the basketball betting goes crazy.  For us here at Mahjong Club its a time for winning crazy money!  Throughout the month or March we will be randomly picking players and giving them extra money – up to $50 a time!  All you have to do to be eligible is to be playing either cash games or cash tournaments.  Be in it to win it!

Shootout Tournaments are an elimination Tournament in which the top 2 players from each table move forward to the next round.  This continues until the best 4 players  meet at the FINAL table. This means that as long as you are in the game you have a chance to win, making the tournament a real thrillride, pushing the excitement to the max!

To celebrate the launch of our new SHOOTOUT Tournaments we start with a $100 VIP FREEROLL SHOOTOUT on Wednesday 2 March 15.00 CET. 22.00 HONG KONG time.

$10 FREEROLL SHOOTOUT, Wednesday 2 March, 20.00CET, 03,00 HONG KONG time.

Do not miss these great Tournaments and the opportunity to win some nice Cash Prices!  All you have to do to enter is to have made at least one deposit.

See the Tournament page for more detailed rules

The december winner of $100 picked from the active players on the site was JJ88 from Singapore.  Congratulations JJ88 – your cash is in your account!

Mahjong Club would like to wish all western players the very best for the new year.  May 2011 be a great year for you all!

For information on online gambling in general please see Lotto Luck.

The results of the November Rake Raffle are now in and winners have received payment in their accounts. A Rake Raffle is simply a raffle where every $ generated in rake is counted as a ticket. So if you generated $5 in rake in the period you get 5 entries in the raffle. At the end of the month we put all the tickets into a pot and pay out 3 winnners.

Winners for November are:

• 1st Prize : $150 – Yukfung
• 2nd Prize : $100 – UFO
• 3rd Prize : $50 – Hoone

Well done to our winners!

Read on for details on our December promo…

December – Winner takes All!

In December we will pick a single winner from all players throughout the month. Once again we will use rake as a basis for the selection – so the more you play the more chance you have to win!

The lucky winner will receive a New Year’s gift of $100 credited to their account.

From now until the end of November Mahjong Club will be running a Rake Raffle.  Rake is the small amount that is kept back from cash table winnings or tournament fees to help pay the bills.  For the rest of November we want to give some back!

A Rake Raffle is simply a raffle where every $ generated in rake is counted as a ticket. So if you generated $5 in rake in the period we will give you 5 entries in the raffle.  At the end of the month we will put all the tickets into a pot and pay out 3 winnners:

1st Prize : $150
2nd Prize : $100
3rd Prize : $50

Remember – like any raffle you have to “be in it to win it”.  To be in the raffle all you have to do is login and play any real money cash game or tournament.  The more you play the more rake you generate and the more tickets you will get in the raffle. It’s that simple!

If you dont want to deposit have a go at winning one of the regular freerolls where you win real money for no cost.

Rake will be calculated for the entire month of November and tickets in the raffle allocated accordingly.

Dan Glimne is a Mahjong expert (living in Sweden of all places) and has consulted to Mahjong Logic on the game design in our software.  He was recently in Hong Kong and got the chance to film (with their permission) these 4 chaps playing a game at a table on the pavement.  It’s wonderful for those of us who are not familiar with the form this game takes to watch the video – note the energy and enthusiasm with which the tiles are discarded!  And also the money changing hands at the end of the game – Mahjong is traditionally played for money.

Chinese games and Mahjong

Board games are popular across Asia, with the like of “Go,” “Shogi” and Chinese Chess traditional favourites.

Go

Go (“weiqi” in China and “baduk” in Korea) originated in China some 2,500 years ago and has many millions of worldwide players. Gameplay involves 2 players alternately placing white and black stones on a 19 x 19 grid, each attempting to control a larger section of the board. Go is popular since despite its simple rules, it calls for a balance between attacking and defensive strategies in order to succeed.

Shogi (Japanese Chess)

Shogi, which originated in 8th-century Korea, is similar to western chess, but has no Queen and extra pieces, namely the Lance and Silver / Gold Generals. Any piece (rather than just pawns) reaching the enemy camp is promoted and the unique ability to return captured pieces to the game board ensures that draws are rare.

Chinese Chess
The Chinese version features some intriguing variations to the western game, including an Imperial Palace and a river.

However, Mahjong is by far the most popular Asian board game.

Mahjong

Originally from China, Mahjong has millions of players throughout Asia. Generally a 4-player game (although 3-player versions exist in Japan and Korea) Mahjong requires a skillful, strategic approach, along with a good slice of luck. It is based around a set of 144 tiles, bearing Chinese characters and symbols. In most types of Mahjong, players initially receive 13 tiles, taking turns to draw and discard tiles until completing four, permitted, 3-tile groups (melds), along with a pair (head). However, although the rules of the game are very similar across its many variants, there are numerous regional differences in rules pertaining to scoring systems and minimum winning hands.

Origins of Mahjong

There has been much debate regarding the creation of the game. Chinese philosopher, Confucius, has been claimed to have developed Mahjong as early as 500 BC, although the lack of evidence relating to the existence of Mahjong prior to the 19th- century Taiping era consigns the Confucius theory to the ranks of myths and legends. Some theorists believe Mahjong to have been created by a pair of brothers from the ancient Chinese city of Ningpo, in the mid 1800s, the game being based on the earlier Ming dynasty Chinese card game known as Madiao. Others have proposed that the game was created as a pastime by Chinese army officers during the Taiping Rebellion of 1850-1864.

The Communist government of the People`s Republic of China, which came to power in 1949, viewed gambling as a symbol of capitalist corruption. Mahjong, a popular gambling game, was banned by the government. However, the game (without any element of gambling) was reintroduced following the Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), with gambling restrictions removed in 1985.

Today, Mahjong is a favourite pastime across Asia and has successfully made the transition to the Western world, especially the United States. Playing Mahjong online has become increasingly popular and could quite possibly exceed the popularity of online poker in the future.