ARMA: Australia’s National Association

With the clock on WRC 2020 slowly counting down, several additional qualifier events have been arranged. A couple of months ago we shared the announcement that Australia is planning to host a qualifier event in Melbourne this December. I want to dig a little into the national leg of that event by shining a light on the Australian Riichi Mahjong Association (ARMA). To that end I contacted ARMA co-founder Jeremy S., aka “Muller”, from the group playing in ARMA’s home center of Sydney, Australia.

Club: ARMA Sydney
Favorite Tile: Haku, it’s the only tile I can tell by feel.

The Organization

While the ARMA appears to be a recently founded organization, it has actually be registered as an entity within Australia for about 5 years. The inspiration from ARMA started right after WRC’s first tournament in Paris back in 2014.

The World Riichi Championship was kicking off in Paris and I could see how organised the European mahjong community was – they’ve got clubs, national organisations, and even a supranational organisation – but Australia had no such formal structure for national representation or player selection.

Muller co-founded the ARMA, but without an active community to support it growth was limited. The organization remained a simple concept and a website for a few years while they scouted new players and built a network of clubs across Australia.

I stayed on the lookout for fellow Australian players, and gradually we managed to grow and build up our network until finally we could begin to realise our vision of representing Australia on the world stage and selecting players to participate in global events like the WRC and IORMC.

This all falls directly under ARMA’s stated goals. From their “About Us” page:

• Promote the sport of riichi mahjong in Australia
• Create a network of riichi mahjong players in Australia
• Provide training, education, and resources for players and clubs
• Act as the Australian national representative organisation for riichi mahjong and promote Australian interests and points of view in the global community
• Select players to represent Australia in global events such as WRC and IORMC

Who is ARMA?

A loose coalition of players working closely together without formal roles to run ARMA; however each has fallen into areas of activity best suited to their skills.

Anthony tends towards activities across South East Asia, I do some interstate networking, and Kevin and Trevor are most involved with running our local Sydney events and coordinating with the mahjong clubs at our local universities, but there’s a lot of overlap and we all cooperate and plan things together.

Most of the component clubs across Australia organize activities using Meetup in Sydney, Adelaide, and Melbourne. There is also a club operating out of Brisbane. Addtionally, the ARMA holds regular workshops every year at SMASH, a Sydney anime and manga convention, where they introduce the game to people and give hands-on teaching sessions.

WRC 2020 Qualifier

So why host a qualifier now? Representing Australia in the global community and managing player selection to international events has always been a stated goal of ARMA, but the organization didn’t have the capacity to directly contribute. Manpower, experience, connections, and resources were lacking. Until recently.

Anthony and Kevin have brought back some valuable experience from Vegas and the Netherlands, our network has grown a lot lately, and we’ve been able to establish a relationship with the Melbourne Mahjong Meetup Group, who have both the numbers and the willingness to assist in organising things on the ground. [The Australian Riichi Mahjong Open] wouldn’t be happening without the help of Nam and his team, and of course we also owe a lot to Gemma and the WRC Committee for all their support and advice.

The Australian Riichi Mahjong Open is scheduled for December 7th & 8th in Melbourne. Organizing a tournament that meets the standards of the WRC and serves a growing riichi population on the Oceaninc continent is a great contribution.

Australia punches above its weight in a lot of fields, and mahjong is no exception. We may have a small population, but we’re an elite bunch, and we look forward to demonstrating it on the world stage.