ARA Meeting 7/20/26

Board Members In Attendance

  • David Bresnick

  • Harrison Corp

  • Nathanael Kozinski

  • Claire Hernandez

  • Jenn Barr

  • Jai Srivistav

  • Laura King

  • Tamas Erdos

  • Luke Morgan


Working Group Updates

  • Education

    • Tiles sent over to rules/judging and comms 

    • Asking Jenn to help with the text and formatting for publishing.

    • Red 5 differences planned next

  • Tech

    • A bunch of new features have been added! 

    • Quality Point scores updated but need DNF numbers and will have a reupload feature soon

    • Database is live with QP but slightly inaccurate so please hold while they get updated

  • 2028 WRC Qualification Cycle

    • Discussions around NAO

    • May or may not have a seat associated with it

    • Multiple clubs could host it

    • Invitational is fairly similar to ERMC; we don’t seed in other countries’ players, but it is the pinnacle event

    • NAO also traditionally a 3 day tournament and the WRC seat helps it

    • Needs something to differentiate it from any other open

    • What is an incentive for a club to run an NAO? 

      • It’s just another open

      • It’s just a rebranding of an existing open effectively

    • There are so many other tournaments. 

    • Designed to grow the scene and to give the US a prestige tournament

    • Invitational basically has replaced what NAO used to be

    • Last Chance Qualifier to replace it?

  • Community engagement

    • Tag Laura in photos.

    • Basically a tournament every weekend at this point! 

    • Send Laura the details so she can promote it, even 1-day tournaments like the Colorado one day.

  • Communications

    • WRC rankings up to date.

    • Vancouver to submit soon, as they have 2 weeks to submit as they just finished yesterday

    • Running into a couple of bugs regarding the spreadsheet and website not matching, so we’re getting there

    • Agenda and minutes, etc. 

    • Need some assembly member updates

  • Rules and judging

    • Steve has no updates

    • Should we get an FAQ?

      • Here’s a guide on rulings in certain situations and why

  • Incorporation

    • No updates for now

  • Professional Organizations

    • Saikouisen

      • Shinjinousen (rookie tournament) happening

      • American League is happening

      • Pinfu Center is now open in NYC!

    • WRPM

      • WRL - rankings!!!

        • Based on your best consecutive 16 games

        • 27/189 current participants that have 16 games

        • A lot of people have 12+ games just, need a few more games!

      • M League event was successful!

      • We had a signing ceremony between WRPM and JPML, NPM, Rengo, and RMU as a reciprocal partner agreement

      • Sending Amy to play in Japan 

        • Expect your WRL ranking to have some impact on that selection

      • 2027 WRL cycle in planning 

      • Full pro title match (in planning)

      • JPML has a dispatch program

    • ARML

      • Corak 3x champion fo A1 (and taking a hiatus)

      • 176 active players (219 including hiatus) over 38 states

      • 500th player just got added, round of applause for ARML!!!

  • Election

    • 1 more spot open; nominate yourself!

    • Next meeting, all nominees will get a chance to speak

      • Steve will be running this election as he’s officially on the board now.

  • IORMC

    • 5 am eastern 

    • If you are interested in participating, you must be a citizen or permanent resident of the US. You can use your legal name or a nickname

    • Qualification system 

      • 4 qualifiers, must play in 3 out of 4

      • There’s a tournament every weekend in August

        • Apologies to toronto open. 

      • September dates are open

      • Noon start pacific (3pm eastern)

      • 4 hours ish as it’s 4 hanchan

      • Standard tenhou rules.

    • In the past it used to start 8 am pt / 11 am est

      • Wanted to make it easier for the highest number of people to participate.

    • Previous years may have been citizen only, but this year, PR is okay. 

    • Edwin has been compiling the entire history of previous IORMC

    • Your name could be on the roster for this year!

Event Announcements/Reminders

  • WROTL

    • Not too late to sign up! 

    • A 1 year or 6 months ron2 account, check your spam folder

    • Marimo has been having a lot of fun on ron2

Open Discussion

  • Recertification is done

    • Arizona submitted the cert form, not recert, but for the most part everyone’s recert is done

Closed Session

  • Discussion about process to streamline putting clubs on the database map

    • Need to change or streamline email and approval process

  • Certified several tournaments

  • Discussed reaching out to a certified tournament about a potential issue that might occur to them

  • Discussion about if Thurs/Fri tournaments would be able to be eligible for certification

  • Next meeting August 17th

ARA Meeting 6/15/2026

Board Members In Attendance

  • Laura King

  • Harrison Corp

  • Tamas Erdos

  • Nathanael Kozinski

  • Steve Augistin

  • Jai Srivastav

  • Bichen Wang

  • David Bresnick

  • Jenn Barr


Elections Update

  • Three incumbents that applied for election, Steve, Bichen, and Claire, automatically repeat their seats

  • One special seat up for election coming July

    • Going to talk to the assembly about whether to delay the election or not


Working Group Updates

  • 2028 WRC Qualification Cycle

    • Nobody else has signed up for hosting the 2028 ARA invitational 

    • It’s been 6 months, so we are going to do an up/down vote to host the invitational at PML in 2028

  • Community engagement

    • Send pics of your events!

    • Congrats to Kaden for winning the Saikouisen Shinkisen tournament!

  • Tech

    • Tech still working on things, going to iron out small features over the coming months

    • Merged Claude for the coding side of things

  • Communications

    • Discord roles updated

    • Consider giving some boosts to the ARA discord server!

  • Education

    • Education got images in for the tile set, thank you for submissions!

    • Expected to be submitted by next meeting

    • Made handshuffle writeup and handed over to the rules and judging group

  • Rules and judging

    • Still working on ruleset tweaks and standardized penalties for an ARA guidelines

  • Incorporation

    • Kyle put together some pros and cons for options, expect more updates in the future!

  • Professional Organizations

    • Saikouisen

      • Pro exam - 21 new members. 

      • Shinkansen last weekend (Saikouisen pro only tournament). Congrats to Kaden for winning it!

      • Pro AMA won by Kristy. Going to japan to compete among all the Pro AMA winners

    • WRPM

      • Huge event at the end of June is coming up!

      • New pros rolling around the world right now

      • Lots of engagement with WRL

      • Quincy won WRL 2025!!!

    • ARML

Open Discussion

  • Scoring software released by Kyle from BAMS

    • Recommended to talk to Rules and Judging as well as Tech on its ability to be used at certified tournaments, as technology at the table is a tricky issue

  • Assembly Recertification

    • Done first pass. Got responses from everyone basically. Probably be done shortly. A couple of assembly members who are switching. Making sure everyone filled out the form, etc.

Event Announcements/Reminders

  • World Riichi Online Champions League week 3 coming up 

    • Of the US teams, DC, Riichi Nomi, and MARs (Boston) are all still in the tournament 

    • Next round this Saturday!

  • WROTL sign ups are now open!

  • Airi has finished the Extra Life Open charity stream. Reached over double the goal!

  • IORMC happening at the end of the year. We are eligible and will be beginning the process for a team selection

  • DC’s Mega Mahjong Tournament 2nd Saturday of August (8th)

    • American, Hong Kong, and Riichi Mahjong for one big super tournament

  • Philly June monthly tournament is Sunday June 28th

  • Seattle happening end of September


Closed Session

  • Discussed certification of several tournaments

  • Discussed a complaint about a non-ARA related event

  • Charm City applied for Assembly

  • Next meeting voted on to be July 20th post meeting

ARA Meeting 4/27/26

Board Members In Attendance

  • David Bresnick

  • Bichen Wang

  • Max Suddendorf

  • Claire Hernandez

  • Laura King

  • Luke Morgan

  • Nathanael Kozinski 

  • Steve Augustin

  • Jai Srivastav

  • Jenn Barr

  • Harrison Corp (Towards End of Meeting)


Working Group Updates

  • Professional Organizations

    • World Riichi Pros

      • Finals for 2025 WRL Cycle in June

      • Pro exams coming up!

      • Many WRLs coming up, both Majors and Minors!

      • M league event in June!!!

      • Early bird ends May 15th!

    • Saikouisen

      • Saikouisen pro exam June 6th

      • Shinkisen happening soon, for new people

      • Ryuousen mid May

    • ARML

      • 2028 WRC Cycle

        • Point totals based on A1

        • Beginning of 2026 until summer 2027 so there’s time to plan to go to the invitational

      • ARML numbers relatively the same as last seasons

      • 37/50 states represented

      • Roughly 50 different groups/clubs.

      • Third of members listed as unaffiliated

      • Sign up for summer now! (also looking for subs)

  • 2028 WRC Qualification Cycle

    • No current updates

  • Community engagement

    • Assembly reverification

      • Vote passed, form will go out

      • Give them a month or two, maybe coincide with the annual meeting

    • Please continue sending photos to #local-clubs

    • If your club is doing exciting things, please share!

    • Shot some content about tile shuffling in Mexico

  • Tech

    • Non-tournament events can now be added on the ARA database

  • Communications

    • ARA points updated

      • Please be patient when changes are happening as they could be temporarily inaccurate

    • Working on more accurate tracking with tournament deadlines for submitting whatever is necessary (observer report, tournament report, rankings, etc)

    • Some general website updates

    • Updating club contacts and ways to disseminate information

  • Education

    • Still working on tile image information

      • There is a thread to collect images on the discord, please feel free to contribute to it!

      • Especially if there are any non-standard tiles or weird stylized ones

  • Rules and judging

    • Filmed some videos about tile shuffling in Mexico

    • How to pay for hands (number of tenbo per person)

    • Ryukyouku being early/late and rules clarification about it

    • JPML rules - recently changed shouhai/taahai to be dead hand

      • Gives ARA other example of ruleset to be able to make it no longer a chombo with a hand reset

    • Observer reports uploaded

    • Have some blog post ideas

  • Incorporation

    • Starting now and moving forward with looking into different types of incorporation

      • Reach out for more info or if interested in providing support!

Open Discussion

  • Comms to push RFP for the ARA invitational to June

  • Discussion on multiple events being on the same weekend

    • More organizers are hosting events, so some events will be closer to each other and people will have to prioritize events

    • We encourage organizers to work with each other and to try and reserve weekends in the ARA DB for weekends they will host their event

    • ARA is not doing a schedule enforcement

  • Annual Meeting

    • Annual Meeting is May with the annual working group updates

    • Also will review who is up for re-election and how many seats there will be

      • This includes a call for nominations and applicants

      • Candidate introductions are June, elections for two weeks afterwards.

      • Board members installed in July

Event Announcements/Reminders

  • Riichi Nomi Open signups open at 9 pm eastern THIS WEDNESDAY!!!

    • Cap will be announced tomorrow!

  • 10 ish seats left for North Texas Open in August, sign up while you can!


Closed Session

  • Next meeting May 18th

    • It’s the annual meeting, have a recap ready!

  • Certified several events

  • Adding a checkbox to the event certification form for the event to also intend to be eligible for ARAbux

  • Planning to reach out to clubs that do not have an assembly member even though they have plenty of people to apply

  • Starting plan to reach out to club contacts to make sure they are active and still best point of contact for clubs

  • Starting to discuss plans for IORMC 2026 with frequency of events in normal qualifying time period

  • Discussed a complaint about a community member

  • Discussed penalties and what we can suggest for fair rulesets that align with community rule friction

ARA Meeting 3/23/26

Board Members In Attendance

  • Steve Augustin

  • David Bresnick

  • Harrison Corp

  • Tamas Erdos

  • Laura King

  • Nathanael Kozinski

  • Luke Morgan

  • Claire Pozniak

  • Jai Srivistav

  • Bichen Wang


Working Group Updates

  • 2028 WRC Qualification Cycle

    • No responses currently for invitational hosting

      • There are several difficulties for this, including trying to price out an event two years in advance and committing to a venue that far down the line as well

    • Comms to circulate form for hosting trying to increase candidates by May meeting

    • Choosing the host can be later, e.g. Jan 2027

  • Tech

    • Pro Organizations now represented in the DB

    • Saikouisen has 9

    • WRPM only 3, make sure to sign up!

    • If people are asking where to play in person, point them to the website! (Props to Tamas!)

    • Are there any plans to unify the two halves of the website (webpage and DB)? If you go to one of them, it can be confusing to get to the other/what information can be found on what part

      • Pull requests are open. Please provide some feedback to streamline the user experience!

    • Confusing for certified tournaments that aren’t on website and/or DB yet

      • Check the discord! It should have been announced in the event announcements for ARAbux to count.

    • Action items: Accurate calendar, and getting this new tournament submission process streamlined

  • Communications

    • Oklahoma and Virginia Beach reportings completed!

    • Proposed Assembly recertification process: 

      • Assembly members will fill out a form once a year checking several things 

        • Does your club exist, have 12 people, etc.

    • Jai to run form

    • Discussion on what to do about assembly members who aren’t voting

      • Discussed idea of having minimum participation for voting

      • Discussed possibly emailing club to say that assembly member has been inactive

      • ARA wants it to be easier to have clubs be represented

    • Harrison missed the Newsletter for February, hopefully one out this month since DC will be done!

  • US Rankings

    • On hiatus, still looking for a new Working Group head!

  • Education

    • Player code of conduct done and ready for ratification 

    • If your club uses a nonstandard set (not Amos, ymi, or taobao), send pictures to Luke for reference please!

  • Professional Organizations

    • World Riichi Pros

      • WRL schedule is basically full!

        • April is PML, Sparrows Nest, and NTML

        • May Vegas and Online majors

        • June minor Cincinnati NTML

        • July Major Philly, minors Vegas & Seattle

        • August DC minor, NTML major

        • Sept sparrow nest major, Seattle minor

      • Mleague events tickets starting Friday!

        • Details coming in the next 24 hours

    • Saikouisen

      • Ryuousen tournament registration is open! (deadline May 1st) and the event is two weeks after that

      • June 6th and 7th pro exam (registration deadline May 5th)

    • ARML

      • Season went pretty well but still some growing pains with scheduling

      • Not that far behind on games

      • Next season starts on April 6th!

  • Rules and judging

    • Lower penalties updates still pending

    • The Working Group will have guidance soon around this

  • Community engagement

    • Gonna make some content soon!

    • Differences between ladder and sks/wrc rulesets/environments 

  • Incorporation

    • On pause until May, if you’re interested in helping out you can reach out to Comms before then!

Open Discussion

  • N/A

Event Announcements/Reminders

  • DC Open this weekend!!!

  • PML Invitational and Team Tournament approaching soon!


Closed Session

  • Ratified and discussed several tournaments

  • Discussed swiss scramble specifics with DCO TO and Head Judge

  • Player code of conduct sent for review

  • Post OKC Open Riichi Discussion

    • Problem occurred where players could potentially manually try to deal in to a furiten wait, baiting player to chombo if they especially have a more complicated wait shape

    • Discussion around this topic, with potential problems and solutions

  • Next Meeting April 27th!