With the scores still within a narrow range, there was still all to play for in the final 2 rounds before the playoff cutoff. The top 8 for the most part played nice and maintained their leads through the final 2 rounds to get to the playoffs.
There would be one party-crasher though. Sitting just over 44 points adrift of 8th place, Club Riichi de Montreal's Loic Roberge stormed his way up into the Top 8, at the expense of Mike Lee. He would make it all the way to the finals, joining fellow clubmate Shan Kuang, Andrew McAnally from Baltimore, and local RIT member Bruce Bland at the final table.
As the scores stood going into the final table, Shan and Loic would need a complete victory as both sat over 30 points away from Arthur and Bruce. Bruce just needed to finish ahead of Arthur and the title would be his.
However Arthur, as first dealer, won two mangan hands right off the bat, making the task even more difficult for all those at the table. It would wind up being too much in the end as Arthur claims the 2018 Rochester Riichi Open title. Congratulations!
Rochester's post on the tournament can be found here.
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Rochester Riichi Open 2018
March 3-4, 2018 // Rochester, NY
- Final Table
1. Arthur McAnally +96.0 2. Bruce Bland +73.45 3. Loic Roberge +20.2 4. Shan Kuang -0.2
- Top 8
5. George Liu-Krason +55.2 6. Chris Letourneau +48.55 7. Alex Ng +8.6 8. Michael McLeod -15.4
- Rest of Standings
9. Daniel Moreno +113.0 10. Steve Smith +54.0 11. William Lou +46.15 12. Aaron Ebejer +12.65 13. Gabriel Ocasio +11.8 14. Henry Chen +11.2 15. Patrick Garrity +10.2 16. Ty Kennedy +5.35 17. Mike Lee -0.4 18. Cassandra McClure -2.15 19. Stanley Louie -10.0 20. Derek Purpura -30.7 21. Gaetano Loweecy -34.7 22. Christopher Omahen -35.4 23. Noah Bock -38.5 24. Valliappa Chockalingam -57.5 25. Jaben McCormack -64.25 26. Alexandre Boily -79.85 27. Justin Dilgard -93.8 28. Forrest Shooster -118.0