Chasing a dream is difficult. Often you don’t reach the top of the mountain on your first try. This week we chat to 2 players who have previously been to WRC and discuss their thoughts on trying to make it back to the base of that mountain to attempt another climb.
Aaron “Cheez” Chee is a long time member of ARMA. Having started riichi back in 2014, he’s been working hard ever since to polish his ability to tanki on chun. Since that fateful year Aaron has created quite the resume for himself including multiple well placed finishes in events including ARMA WRC League, ARMO, and AusRML.
Q) What is your name? How did you get into mahjong and how long have you been playing?
Hi, I’m Aaron Chee, better known as Cheez in the Riichi Mahjong community. My introduction to Mahjong was through Singaporean Mahjong as I grew up watching and playing it with my family.
Around 2014, my friend introduced me to Riichi Mahjong and I absolutely loved the game. I introduced the game to many others while running the Mahjong club at my university in 2015/16 before ranking on Tenhou in 2017 and Mahjong Soul when it came out in 2019.
I have competed in multiple domestic and international tournaments and plan to continue doing so.
Q) Could you explain your playstyle? What type of mahjong do you like to play?
I used to play quite menzen, aiming for higher value hands, however that has changed more recently as I experiment with different ways to approach the game. This is something I wish to continue working on as I play and watch others play.
In casual games, you can find me forcing waits on chun.
Q) What do you do apart from mahjong?
Victorian WorkCover claims manager by day, gacha gamer by night. However, I do generally spend a lot of my time with Mahjong whether it be ranking, competing, running events or mentoring others.
Q) What are your current goals for mahjong?
My general goal is to continue looking at improving with every game I play. Secondly, although I may be regarded by some as a relatively strong player, I don’t personally feel I have a result to show for it so I would like to win some events in 2025.
Q) How do you study mahjong?
Unlike others, I probably don’t put as much time into reading material or understanding statistics. Instead I learn by playing and replaying games as well as watching others. I feel like my decision-making is guided by recognising patterns of information I may have previously experienced. For those who have read/watched Saki, I would liken it to Someya Mako and how her playstyle is portrayed.
Q) Could you describe your previous experience at WRC 2022 Vienna? Has that experience changed the way you look at mahjong?
Being able to meet a lot of the Japanese pros as well as some of the players from other countries I had only known of online was a great experience. The Mahjong however was quite regrettable, finishing 112th out of 152 especially after starting in the top ten after the first two hanchans.
I wouldn’t say the experience changed the way I look at Mahjong but due to the lack of regular highly competitive Mahjong events, it has made me appreciate the Australian Riichi Mahjong Opens that have been held in the past two years.
Q) Why are you trying to qualify for WRC and what would it mean to you if you did?
I would love to represent Australia in one of the many few international competitions that are held and be able to show the strength of the Australian Riichi scene and hopefully make a deep run (and win?).
At the end of week 3 of the Aussie WRC Qualifier League, Aaron is currently placed 10th/22. With only 3 weeks to go Aaron has some work cutout for him but being a world class player he can more than make up the deficit in those remaining weeks. We are eagerly watching to see if Aaron will make it back to the base of that prestigious mountain and wish him all the best in this climb.
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