Continuing our series, we work our way across the various states, this time visiting South Australia where we have Daniel “warmestRain” Bell from Adelaide. Daniel has quite the history with ARMA and has recently posted some amazing results including a dominant victory at the inaugural Adelaide Open, and a respectable 6th place finish at the Australian Riichi Mahjong Open in 2024.
Q: What is your name? How did you get into mahjong and how long have you been playing?
Hey, I’m Daniel Bell also known online as warmestRain and aesthete. By trade I am an orchardist, so mahjong is a little different from my day to day. I learnt mahjong from my brother in law back in high school, so that was a bit over 10 years ago, but I didn’t think of it as anything special at that time.
I was into board games of all types so I picked the rules up quickly but without competition I didn’t even consider trying to improve. Since I’ve played online in 2020 I’ve slowly been gaining interest in the game, and gaining more momentum in the competitive scene.
Q: Could you explain your playstyle? what type of mahjong do you like to play?
My playstyle has adapted a lot over the years. I would describe it initially as efficiency, then as statistical mahjong, but now I’m exploring something a bit more personal.
What should I call this recent style? Observational instinct, maybe? What I most enjoy in a game of mahjong is the feeling of absolute focus and calm in my mind, allowing me to observe with clarity the whole state of the game. This feeling of mental focus, combined with not judging or fixating but instead just observing everything I can is really fun! But it’s also really draining so it’s hard to do it without the impetus of competition.
Q: You’ve been playing mahjong for a while now, in 2024 alone your Australian Team League team placed top 4, you won the Adelaide Open and you placed top 8 in ARMO24. What do you credit to your success and how have you been preparing for events?
Before the Adelaide Open I was mostly trying to work on stamina, so playing a lot of games in a row was how I practiced. Now that has mostly improved but I am making some silly mistakes when I let my mind wander, so I am now preparing more on the mental side.
I sometimes train by looking through replays of tenhoui games online. I play with hands closed and no grey or winning tiles, going through each discard until I find a point in the game where I believe someone’s hand reaches tempai. Then I recall each discard, whether it is tedashi or tsumogiri and what I think the shape of each player’s hands are. Then I keep on playing through and notice how the tenhoui player reacts. This is hard work but it is excellent for my working memory, and sometimes given enough time I surprise myself.
Before tournaments I am the guy with his eyes closed meditating or visualising in the corner of the room. Sometimes I visualise something as simple as placing down tiles from my hand while still having that feeling of total smoothness in my mind and also my body. I was so worried going into ARMO24 that I would chombo! So I was trying super hard to be aware of all of my movements.
Q: What are you current goals for mahjong?
I think that mahjong is more fun as a way to connect to myself when I take it more seriously, so I am really interested in competitions where I can face that sensation of my inner desires meeting the chaos of my mind, other people, and the real world; despite my skills and hard work ultimately I still need luck to win!
This intersection of both control and chance is always so interesting and unexpected, and I find out both good and bad things about myself. One day I hope to be able to bring other people into this focus so we can all communicate through the subtle signals and explore this game together. For now that is a long way off, I’m so distracted with my own mind when I play!
Q: Why are you trying to qualify for WRC and what would it mean to you if you did?
Qualifying for WRC would give me the opportunity to take my mahjong much further and get more experience with in-person competition which is difficult to do in Adelaide.
On top of that, qualifying for WRC would be an open door that would encourage me to explore further what mahjong might mean for my life and my community. Sometimes I ask myself how much time do I want to spend on mahjong? Well, if I’m heading to an international world-class competition, probably… a lot? Otherwise? We’ll just see how it turns out.
As of the writing of this article, Daniel is currently ranked 10th/22 is the Aussie WRC Qualifier League. He has also qualified for the closed AusRML A-League qualifier for the upcoming Asian Pacific Riichi Championship. Daniel’s journey has been an interesting one to follow and we look forward to seeing Daniel come more into his own and continue to develop his unique style of mahjong.
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