IORMC: Qualifying by country
The International Online Riichi Mahjong Championship (IORMC) is a growing annual event coming this November, but participating countries must select their participants long in advance. Here is a list of various qualifying methods from some of the participating countries. A session, if otherwise unspecified, is a period of 4 games played in succession on one day of qualifying, emulating the four-round format of the main IORMC daily match.
USA and Canada
Both countries’ qualifiers are run by the North American Riichi Mahjong Association (NARMA), and are run with identical rules over 5 sessions of 4 games each, both on Saturdays at 14:00 PT / 17:00 ET (21:00 UTC). The now completed United States qualifiers for 2018 were spread out in July and August. The qualifiers for Canada are using the Super Saturday model, every Saturday in September. The rules state that the average of the sessions is determinant, in case byes were necessary if no substitutes were available (byes currently not required at all in 2018). Players must play in two sessions to be eligible for qualifying, and players playing in 4 or more sessions can ignore their worst result.
Qualified Americans: Tina Koshimoto (破顔の楽士), Kinyan Lui (Yukitora), Daniel Pascua (DdR_Dan), Arthur McAnally (Corak).
Qualified Canadians: In progress. After 4 of 5 sessions, Simon Chen (Khold) holds the leading average of the qualifiers, but the other three participants from 2017 are not participating in 2018. New faces expected soon.
France
The French qualifiers are spread out over 10 weeks alternating between Sunday and Saturday qualifiers played at 14:00 (12:00 UTC), with a similar model to North America. Playing in 4 or more sessions lets participants ignore their worst result. However, the sum is used, as opposed to the average.
Extra requirement: Players are free to participate, but qualified participants must have a valid FFMJ licence for the 2018-2019 season to be entered.
Italy
The Italian qualifiers (Facebook) are spread over 3 sessions in September, Sunday evenings (the 2nd, the 23rd and the 30th) at 20:30 (18:30 UTC). There is a participation bonus for winners added.
Extra requirement: Players are competing for 3 places instead of 4, as they have awarded a seat to Filippo Menicucci (bk202) automatically, on the premise of being the highest-ranked Italian on Tenhou.
Brazil
The Brazilian qualifiers (also branded as the 1st National Online Tournament [pt: 1º Torneio Nacional On-line]) are going to last 4 or 5 weeks in September, with sessions being played Friday/Saturday/Sunday (one of the three) at 20:00 local time (23:00 UTC). Two weeks are used as a preliminary phase, if there are enough players, the next three weeks will lead to a Top-2 elimination tournament from 16 players (otherwise, two weeks from 8 players).
Extra requirement: From the final four, 3 will be selected, as it has been agreed that the winner of the South American Riichi Championship (SRC) from this year. There are also late penalties for participants, and all games played will be included in a general ranking (at a later date).