Tournament
Introduction
I personally LOVE this mode. While the word 'tournament' may conjure scary images of mahjong maniacs unleashing their killing auras, Tournaments in Riichi City are mostly a casual affair. This game mode is a sort of 'asynchronous multiplayer', where the goal is simply to Win as fast as possible. There is an "on demand" daily Tournament mode, as well as a daily Grand Prix mode that requires everyone to show up at a specified time. You can win a special currency, TP, that you can use to buy specific decorations and items, as well as pay Voucher entry fees in an attempt to win Lucky Tokens. This is also where you can find User created leagues and tournaments. Lets go through the mode in depth, starting with the simplest incarnation: Daily Tournaments.
Daily Tournaments
From this page, you can pretty much instantly queue up for the Tournament game mode. Tournament play occurs in 4P and 3P forms. The entry for the 8/9 player Tournaments is 500 Coins. The entry for the 32/27 Player Tournaments is 10 Vouchers. In the Coin tournaments, you have to win twice in a row. In the Voucher tournaments, you essentially have to win 3 times in a row. In 4P mode, the winner of the hand and one other player advances. In 3P, only the winner advances. There is no Ranking or Rating awarded from Tournaments, so don't feel pressured! In the Daily Tournament modes, you really should only focus on the quickest hand you can make. There is no difference between winning with Yakuhai Nomi and Triple Yakuman in Daily Tournaments. Even dora is completely useless! Just go as fast as you can.
Grand Prix
This is Riichi City's 'appointment' game mode. In it, up to 256 people attempt to play in a special asynchronous mode to try and reach the top. It runs every day at the time specified (in your own time zone.) Currently, this game mode only fires in a timezone that's optimal for Eastern audiences. With an increased western playerbase on the app, I hope they would offer the Grand Prix in prime time for Western audiences as well.
During the week, the Grand Prix on offer is a 5000 coin entry fee with prizing for the top 64, and a winning prize of 300 TP. The weekend Grand Prix has registration available during the entire week. The weekend Grand Prix is a 30 Voucher entry fee with prizing for the top 64, and a winning prize of 10 Lucky Tokens. The format of this event is incredibly interesting!
First, it starts with an East only round, no dealer retainership. Your goal is to place in the top 2 to continue into the Grand Prix proper. In this format, defense and scores DO matter. You will carry an ever increasing percentage of your winning score with you throughout the event. From here, you will play up to 4 1 round sessions, like the Daily Tournaments. You will advance if your score is still within the top 2. If you make it to the final table, one more East Only game will decide the final winner of the Grand Prix.
Lets say, for instance, you landed a dealer Mangan for 12000 points in the first East Only part of the grand prix. When you go to stage 2, the first 1 round portion, your starting score should be 31,000, or (12,000 * .5= 6,000) + 25,000.
If you don't end up winning the next hand but still move on, your starting point total should be (6,000 * .6 = 3,600) + 25,000, or 28,600. As you can see, without wins your score will decay, so make sure you keep aiming for high point totals that can move you through multiple berths of the 1 round portions of the event.
If all this seems hard to manage, don't worry! Grand Prix requires early birds and a lot of time. I have been able to find a lot of enjoyment from just the Daily Tournament section of the Tournaments page. I find it almost turns the app into a fidget spinner or Rubix Cube i can pay partial attention to when watching TV or having a conversation with my wife. Learning to maximize tile efficiency is such a vital part of mahjong, and the Daily Tournament mode allows you to essentially practice tile efficiency without worrying about dealing in. Consider it a sort of "training room" for your tile efficiency.