Reach Mahjong » Strategy

WWYD 2011/11/2

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WWYD 2011/10/26

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WWYD 2011/10/19

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WWYD 2011/10/12

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WWYD 2011/10/5

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WWYD 2011/9/28

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WWYD 2011/9/21

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WWYD 2011/9/14

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WWYD 2011/9/7

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WWYD 2011/8/31

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WWYD 2011/8/24

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WWYD 2011/8/17

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WWYD 2011/8/10

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WWYD 2011/8/3

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WWYD 2011/7/27

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WWYD 2011/7/20

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WWYD 2011/7/13

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WWYD 2011/7/6

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WWYD

Gemma — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 00:21:42 +0000

WWYD

Gemma — Sun, 30 May 2010 22:08:42 +0000

Dora:

South Seat

East Round

Turn 12

Mahjong Media Review: The Diva League

jamie — Sat, 22 May 2010 00:09:19 +0000

Mahjong Media Reviews: The Diva League

Hello everyone, after a small break, I`m back to review a new mahjong resource. So far in these reviews, we have covered books, games, and even some comics, but today, I want to introduce a new media: DVDs. I`ve recently started watching mahjong DVDs as a way of trying to better my game, and have found it a surprisingly fun, time efficient, and effective way of studying. So today, I`m here to review:

Mondo21`s The Diva League

Introduction

The diva league was an all female pro mahjong tournament (that appears to be taking place every year hereafter.) 10 participants were chosen personally by three mahjong pros, one being Kateyama Masayuki, the creator of Obaka Miko. The participants then trained for an entire year under the three pros, until finally everything came together in the “Queen of Diva” tournament. No, that`s not a spelling miss, it`s just Japanese.

Presentation

What the DVD box set actually includes are the core matches of the tournament. While they do skip over the occasional round, you still get 360 minutes of action spread across 3 dvds. The actual tournament consists of 2 preliminary hanchans, followed by a 2 hanchan playoff with the 4 best players, and finally the winner going on to a “master`s game” where she plays the three pros While they do skip over the occasional round, you do get to see about 90% of the rounds from start to finish. There is a lot of mahjong to be watched here. The DVD set comes in a nice, high quality protective display box which is nice, but not necessary. Considering the already abnormally high price of DVDs in Japan, I’m sure they could have just as well used a regular box and cut the cost down 10 dollars, but it is nice.

Information

Here is the bulk of the content. The best part about this DVD set, is it`s fully commentated by 3 pros. That by itself is very informative, but what makes it even better, is the 3 pros trained the girls personally throughout the last year, so they are very familiar with the girl`s playing styles, tendencies, strengths, and weaknesses. They often talk about these points while the girls are playing. What`s even better, is the pros are very animated in their commentary. If there is a mistake made, you clearly know it. The pros aren`t afraid to call out a bad move or to offer a better move. This is all pure information for the viewer.

While there is no doubt the purpose of this DVD set is the mahjong tournament, on the last disk they also include a “making of” kind of segment that interviews all the players, talks about their journey, and how much they`ve improved over the last year. This was all a nice addition because you get to hear about their mistakes and how they worked hard to improve them.

For the person looking to use this dvd set as a study tool, I’m happy to say this is one of the easiest and bests mahjong dvd sets I’ve seen thus far simply for the commentary alone. Most pro matches are commentated, but you rarely find commentators that are so invested in the players. You not only get the commentary on what is going on, but also you get many personal notes about the players, and most importantly, what the players themselves need to improve on. This is good for the viewer because you know what mistakes you need to watch out for in your game as well just by hearing what they need to watch out for. At face value, this dvd set can also just be treated as a massive what would you discard quiz. I had my remote in my hand the entire time I was watching this dvd set and often I would pause it after a player drew a tile to try to decide what I would discard in the same situation. Also, it`s good to rewind sometimes to try to decide why that player discarded that particular tile.

Comprehensive Difficulty

While the set is fully in Japanese and at times can be hard to understand, for the most part, it`s very easy to follow. 90% of the conversations are purely about mahjong and as long as you`re familiar with the Japanese terms (Reach, Tsumo, Pinfu, Sanshoku, names of the tiles exc.) You should be fine even if you aren`t very strong in Japanese. The pros are so animated in their commentary that even if you speak no Japanese at all, you can still follow when a mistake was made, and what should have been done / discarded. The Yaku are always displayed at the end of a hand along with the score, and the players names are all posted nicely in both English and Japanese.

Conclusion

I really enjoyed this dvd set. If you decide to pick it up, watch it with your remote close by and pause it to think about what you would do. If you were curious about different ways to study mahjong, I suggest you give the DVD sets a try.

The only thing about mahjong dvds are they are particularly hard to obtain and expensive sometimes. This set runs around 5000 yen, and can only be bought online. One alternative though for people living in Japan, is you can rent these DVDs through the various online rental websites. I rented this set through www.DMM.com which offers a month free trial.

WWYD

Gemma — Fri, 14 May 2010 22:44:34 +0000

What is your Mahjong Super Power?

jamie — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 12:00:05 +0000

What’s your Mahjong super power?

Hello everyone, this is Jamie. After reading Konno`s column regarding style, I started thinking about my own style, and the styles of the people I play regularly with. When you have a group of regular players, it’s interesting because you find yourself starting to notice their habits. What hands they like, what tiles they keep in their hands. Pretty much what is important to them.

I titled this column “What is your Mahjong super power?” By super power, I don’t mean like “I want xray vision” kind of super power, but more of, what do you have a tendency of getting or doing that is above normal. Do you seem to get a 7 pairs hand at least once per game? Are you good at hitting Hidden Doras? Do you after attach? Are you good at detecting when someone has a monster hand? What do you do that puts fear in other players?

It’s always interesting to play at parlors, because you see so many different styles. I’ve been going to a particular parlor for about 6 months or so now so I’ve started to notice many of the staffs tendencies. For example, there is a guy that loves calling. Almost every hand has pons or kans and he loves going for chanta. His style reminds me a lot of net play, but his hands are always at least 3900 points or better and are always very, very fast. There is a different guy that always seems to hit hidden dora. Whenever he reaches, that is now the first thing that comes to my mind. He also seems to Tsumo more than is humanly possible. If he goes out, it’s almost always self drawn.

Recently I’ve been making a lot of tweaks to my game. I used to have kind of a gun ho style that had proven to be too risky. I`d either smash the table, or get totally smashed. Like Gemma mentioned last week, I had a tendency of getting either in 4^th or 1^st. I guess at that time, I’d say my “super power” was blowing a good lead. Recently though, I’ve started adopting a much slower paced playing style: defensive and patient. This is part due to last week’s pod cast that emphasized “picking your battles.” If you just took a nice lead, do you really want to risk it to add another 2000 points? That is the question I’ve been asking myself more than ever.

While I’m still adopting this new style into my game, it seems that my tendencies have changed a lot. With the slow play, I have a tendency of calling a lot less. Every time I draw a tile I need, instead of simply asking, “What do I cut?” Now I also ask the question, “What is my escape route?” The other big change in my game is now I find myself perfectly happy sitting in second place. This is not to say that I’d not rather have first, and I don’t take the chance when it comes, but if it’s towards the end and taking first isn’t going to happen without something big (which probably means something risky) I find myself defending my second place position more than ever. On the same hand, if I’m sitting in 4^th or 3^rd place, I find myself aiming for second place a lot more.

I owe this new way of thinking partially to Mahjong Fight Club. Where I live at on Sado, there are no live parlors, so if I want to play more than once every two weeks, its MFC or nothing (I can’t concentrate for more than 1 session on the computer online games). I also started playing nothing but hanchan games on MFC to try and practice my slower pace style. In doing this I’ve really come to like the Orb system. The orbs are how you raise in ranks on MFC. 1^st and 2^nd gets 2 and 1 orb from the 3^rd and 4^th place positions respectively. At first, my goal was to simply not lose my orbs, but then I started to realize that when I have a bad game, if I can sneak into second, I can still make out ahead in both in orbs and points just due the Horse payments (bonus for 1^st and 2^nd place). Because of this in the final 2 rounds if I’m in 3^rd or 4^th, I find myself building a hand that’ just good enough to pull a last second feat of awesomeness to snake a 1^st or 2^nd place. This same strategy also works in live parlors. Usually the live parlors have a 20,000 and 10,000-point bonus for the 1^st and 2^nd place positions, which are paid by the 4^rd and 3^rd place positions. This means even if you are down big in 3^rd, if you sneak into 2^nd, you can still post a positive score most of the time.

While I’m sure this is common knowledge for seasoned players, for me, it’s a very new and very efficient way of thinking that has helped me evolve my game just a little bit. This is something that can’t ever be accomplished without knowing how to score efficiently (which up until about a month ago, I couldn’t do). Without knowing how to score, pulling a come from behind is like taking a shot in the dark. It also helps me keep hope right until the very end. Doing whatever I can to make a 3900-point or 5200 point hand and break someone’s heart. So here is my current Mahjong super power: “The come-from-behind!”

What are your super powers and how do you use them to get ahead of the competition. Do you have any special strategies or ways of thinking that set you apart from your friends or opponents?

Mah-Jongg: From Shanghai to Miami Beach

jamie — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 12:00:07 +0000

Hello everyone,

It’s been a while since I’ve done a book review, so I decided to make sure to fit one in this month. Today I am reviewing Mah-Jongg: From Shanghai to Miami Beach by Christina Cavallaro and Anita Luu. You’ll notice throughout this review that it strays a bit from the normal format. This is because this book is more of a historical account of the game rather than an instructional book. In fact, this book is unique in that it’s one of the best resources on mahjong that I’ve read thus far and it has, for the most part, absolutely nothing to do with teaching you how to play. But if you’re interested in the history and various variations of the game played throughout the world, this is definitely a book for you.

I want to start out by saying that I completely loved reading this book. It’s bright, colorful, and full of character. The book runs about 175 pages but I breezed through it in a day. Over half the book is devoted to just the history of the game. How it got started, some of the various theories on which mahjong was based off of, and even cultural references throughout history involving mahjong.

Throughout your entire journey of the history of mahjong, you’re treated to many bright color pictures, illustrations, and famous quotes that help paint a very good picture of the past, present, and future of mahjong. The book is called “Shanghai to Miami Beach,” and that is exactly how it’s covered. Included in the book is how Mahjong spread throughout the world from china, to Japan, to Europe and to the US. The book also includes a very nice section about how Mahjong got started in the US complete with pictures of the original marketed Milton Bradly box games, the original scoring cards that were first used, and how mahjong was integrated into pop culture throughout its history in America.

The second part of the book touches lightly on the basics of mahjong and its variations. It talks about what the first tiles were made out of, and the differences of the various materials. There is also a very good chart giving the merits / fallacies of all the different kinds of sets you can buy even today. Finally, towards the end, it walks you through a few of the different variations of mahjong including traditional Chinese rules, and American rules. It’s not done in an instructional method, but more of an informative method. Having never really taken the time to learn any rule sets beyond Reach, I found it very interesting to learn than in American mahjong, tiles are passed before play starts almost like in hearts.

This is a very fun read for anyone interested in the history of mahjong and it has become a very big recommendation of mine after having completed it. If I were to put it to a scale, I’d definitely give it a 10 out of 10 for presentation, character, and historical facts.

You can find this book off of Amazon US for under 10 American dollars here, so if you have a chance, definitely pick it up!

Mah-jongg: From Shanghai to Miami Beach on Amazon

What Would You Discard? 3/13/10

Gemma — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 12:00:25 +0000

Go for all pungs or seven pairs… I never know which so tell me what you would do!

I won’t be around tomorrow afternoon to add the forum post so if anyone wants to start the thread, feel free. =)

WWYD 2/21/10

Gemma — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 07:33:59 +0000

This is our WWYD question for this week, but I’m not asking you what you would discard, but whether you would reach?

Go to the forums to let us know what you think!
12th Discard

Seat: South

Reach Mahjong: The Only Way to Play Review

jamie — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 15:43:04 +0000

Hello everyone. I apologize for being late this month on the review. It’s gotten very cold here and as the temperature drops, so does my ability to think straight and accomplish things in a timely manner. Starting this week, I’m choosing a bit of a different pace. For the next few months, I’m going to try to review as many books and resources in English as I can. While most of the books that I’ve reviewed thus far are manageable for people who even don’t speak Japanese, I know it can be annoying to be looking through a resource and not be able to comprehend every part of it. Mahjong is a complicated game enough as it is right? So to kick off the first English book review for the website, I chose to review Jenn’s book.

Reach Mahjong: The Only Way to Play by Jenn Barr
Introduction:
This book is designed with many audiences in mind. It seems to be written as a complete manual not only to learn how to play mahjong, but also understand the state of mahjong in Japan, as well as get enjoyment out of mahjong on many different levels. This book will not only teach you how to play, but also why to play, where to play, and how to have a great time doing it. The book seems to be written in two distinct sections: the section for people who don’t know what to do and the section for people who do know what to do. The former will advance the potential player from newbie to knowledgeable, and the latter will advance the knowledgeable to an advanced level.

Presentation:
Reach Mahjong: The Only Way to Play is a joy to read because it feels more like a conversation than a guidebook. While reading through the book, one can really feel the heart put into the words. Mahjong is a hard game, and because there are so many rules, it can’t help but have an intimidating rule section filled with diagrams and tables and stuff that’s impossible to grasp at first. Jenn’s book, though, seems to understands that and does everything it can to break the tension with random jokes, suggestions, and pick-me-ups throughout that while seem small, really help keep the reader interested. There are many pictures and quizzes thrown in to check comprehension, as well as provide a much needed change of pace along the hard road of mastering the basics of mahjong.

Information:
I mentioned at the beginning, one of my favorite parts about this book is it appears to have been written with many different audiences in mind. The first half of the book is a straight rule book and user manual. There are many examples, diagrams, and pictures to help you along every step of the way. This section is hard no matter where you get the information from, but the pictures and diagrams really do provide a good understanding of what is being discussed. Everything you need to know is here, broken down in a good logical order starting from the first time you break out your new shiny set of tiles, up to where break your friends hard by hitting 3 hidden doras off of a last discard win.

The second half of the book aimed at people who may already know, or have some knowledge of the basics is a section I particularly enjoyed, because it accounts for every kind of player. Are you interested in house games? There is a section for that. Want to keep things interesting with side bets? There is a section for that. Can only get 3 players together? There is a section for that too. There is also a strategy section particularly enjoyed and found quite a few things I could take away from. The only things I kind of missed from the book is an index in the back and one more extra set of easy reference tables on the last few pages, but even without these, it only causes an extra few seconds of debate amongst your game.

Comprehension Difficulty
There is no Japanese in this book beyond the key terms and glossary section. All of the Japanese terms are represented using romaji so everyone can easily comprehend.

Conclusion
Using this book is a lot like having a conversation with someone. You can really get the sense of someone guiding you through your first stages of the game. It’s an accomplishment that few guide books seem to be able to achieve. The book is oozing with personality and good information. If you are looking to get into the world of Reach Mahjong, there is no better place to start than right here.

WWYD 1/23/10

admin — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 07:01:36 +0000

This was meant to be the first WWYD question of the year!

East Round, 1st Hand, South Seat, 30,000 points, 4th draw, Lucky Tile:

WWYD 1/16/10

jenn — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 07:09:24 +0000

South Round, last Hand, Dealer (East), 18,000 points, 7th draw, Lucky Tile:

There are 2 discarded already.

There is 1 discarded already.

What We Got: Transparent Tiles

jenn — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 15:04:24 +0000

One of MahjongMart.com’s most popular products and the hardest one to keep in stock is the Transparent Tile Set. The set is a more affordable version of the set used by Washizu in the popular Akagi comic book/anime.

The set includes 3 transparent tiles and 1 white tile of each type (including 4 seasons and 4 red fives), a full set of small white scoring sticks and 4 white dice. The product as been restocked 3 or 4 times and has sold out each time. Not only that, but MahjongMart’s original supplier even ran out of the product, leaving it out of stock on our site for over 6 months at one point.

Now MM has found a new supplier and the product is back in stock, hopefully to stay. We will be restocking in anticipation of the 2010 Mahjong season (all year long!). The product is popular because many Riichi players started playing the game after watching Akagi. While MM does not normally carry the original Akagi tile set, they do offer special-order services. Inquiries can be made at http://mahjongmart.com/

What We Got: Junk Mat

jenn — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 12:00:30 +0000

My favorite product on MahjongMart has to be the Junk Mat. In fact, it was one of the first products we stocked. I first purchased my own Junk Mat in Japan online the year that I graduated from university (we’ll leave that year out of this article) and I loved it from the instant I opened it.

Not everyone has the luxury or space to buy their own mahjong table and store it. Most of us end up making do with the kitchen table. There are many types of mats you can use to protect your mahjong tiles (and your dining table) from scuffs and chipping, but most are heavy and bulky. The Junk Mat is made out of neoprene (think: wetsuits), making it light so you don’t have to lug it around. And it rolls up nicely you can sling over your shoulder.

During play the Junk Mat proves its worth in spades (or is it dots?). The raised edges keep your tiles on the table and are perfect to use for building the wall and straightening your hand. It’s almost as good as using a table made specifically for mahjong but the Junk Mat takes up hardly any room when you come to storing it.

Another benefit of the Junk Mat is the stick slots. Most mahjong home games call for each player’s point sticks to stay tucked away in the tile trays, making it hard to keep track of your opponents progress (or lack there of). The Junk Mat puts those points on the table and even speeds up the payment process after scoring.

For those of you that read my book, you’ll notice that I modeled the mat in the book after this Junk Mat and that is how much I love the thing. I recommend it for anyone who cares about their mahjong set.

If you’re interested in getting your own Junk Mat, you can order one on MahjongMart.com for $44.99 plus shipping.

Pro Sets are Back

jenn — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 12:00:08 +0000

MahjongMart.com products are so popular that we have to restock regularly, and we have. (Beware, this almost definitely sounds like an advertisement)

The popular Pro Quality “Take” set is back in stock on MahjongMart.com for just $85 USD plus shipping and handling. This set is the perfect holiday gift for your mahjong-playing loved one.

The Pro Quality Take set features white tiles with yellow backs. There are 4 red 5’s (5-bam, 5-crak and two 5-dots). The red 5-dots have sparkly stones in place of the middle dot. The set includes a dealer button, a full scoring stick set and a set of dice. This set also comes with a complimentary mahjong tile keychain.

You can order your Pro Quality set at MahjongMart.com along with any other mahjong goods you might need this winter.

2010 JPML Calendar

admin — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 12:00:02 +0000

The girls are back and this year there are 16 pro’s to guide you through from January to March, Aki Nikaido to Rumi Nikaido.

The Japan Professional Mahjong League released its 2010 girl’s calendar in October after the success of the 2009 calendar last year.

Due to the exchange rate the price in USD is a bit higher than last year ($24) but the product is better too. Inside 16 girls are featured over the 12 months in full-page color spreads. Even RM.com’s Jenn Barr is featured in September.

The 2010 JPML Calendars are available directly through JPML or on MahjongMart.com. If you notify MM.com with your order, you can even get your copy signed by a few of the pro’s. Spend the whole year with the JPML pro’s on your wall.

Order your 2010 JPML Calendar on MahjongMart.com.

Nani wo Kiru?! (What Would You Discard?!)

jamie — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 18:29:15 +0000

If Kindai Mahjong sounds familiar, it’s because they are the same company that put out the bi-monthly manga magazine that I reviewed last time. Like some of their other publications, this is actually a series, and all though fairly old, book one being from 1990, it’s still pretty easy to find. The best part is, it’s dirt cheap to pick up a copy of this publication. I got mine off of Amazon Japan for 100 yen! That’s 1 dollar! That’s less than the price of a coffee! I believe there are around 5 books in this particular series.

Presentation:
There are many good things about this book and I’m sure by the time this review ends, it will seem more like a rave than a review, but I’ll try to keep my utter love of this series in check. This book is very simple. It’s all one shot quizzes. The book is set up so you can read it while you’re on the train, eating breakfast, or not doing your job. Each quiz can be solved in under 10 seconds, and even for people not proficient in Japanese, you can still pick through the explanations in probably under 5 minutes. The book is also small enough to fit in your pocket. There is an example of one of the quizzes to the right here. The following page gives you the right answer and an explanation why. There are also some cases where you get a “Second Opinion” in which another writer debates the first writer’s answer and gives what he believes is his “correct” answer.

Information:
I like this book because it’s great for all skill levels. Even in just doing the first few quizzes I’ve been able to change my opinion on what is the best discard in certain situations. There are also 3 different kinds of quizzes totaling around 100 questions. The first is the simple “What would you Discard.” The second is “Quiz,” in which they show you a hand and ask questions like “What are the different ways this hand can go into tenpai. Or they give you a series of draws and discards and then ask you what the final yaku (Hand Point) is. Finally, there is the table quiz where they show you a picture of a current game and ask you what to discard based on the others’ hands. This is also really good because it gives you some tips on how to read others’ discards. There is a picture to the left here of the third kind of quiz.

Comprehension Difficulty:
This is another merit of this book. Even if you speak no Japanese, you can still do most of the quizzes in this book. While you won’t be able to understand the explanations, you can still at least judge your decisions against what the pros view is the “best” way to get to tenpai. The Japanese used in this book isn’t terrible. A JLPT level 3 person with a dictionary should be able to pick through most of the explanations. The explanations are also usually no longer than a few sentences so you can even throw it in an online translator and get the idea of why a discard is considered the best.

Conclusion:
Given the very cheap price, there is no reason not to pick up a copy of this book. It’s simple, easy Mahjong and I’d recommend it to anybody. On the difficulty scale, it’s a 2 or 3 out of 10. While it includes a list of yaku (HP) and scoring table, it still assumes you already know how to play the game. This is really a book that all skill levels can take advantage of though. On a language difficulty scale, it’s a 3 or 4 out of 10.

Open Your Hands

WorTeX — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 17:37:37 +0000

Last month there was a request on the forums for a column about opening your hand. It’s taken me a few weeks to decide exactly what to write because this subject is completely debatable even between seasoned pros. Even after tournament hands, veterans will discuss over a few beers which tiles they should have called and perhaps which ones they shouldn’t have. So today I’ll take a stab at the subject, but we’ll certainly only be scratching the surface.

My first piece of advice is, don’t open your hand. Don’t pon, don’t chow and don’t call open quads. Aim for Reach and get your Hidden Doras (ura-dora).

Now, I can’t expect that you will really listen to that little piece of advice, but let me back it up a little bit. Most people learn mahjong in steps. First you learn how to make a hand, next you learn a few Hand Points (yaku) and that’s when you’re calling loads of tiles. The step after that will be to learn and aim for the bigger hands. This is where you should stop calling tiles just to get that single Hand Point. Playing your hand closed is not always optimal, but it’s an important part of your training and gives you time to think about the game itself and your own strategies.

Alright, now I suppose you expect me to tell you the next step, when to open your hand. If you want to ignore all that I’ve written above and call tiles anyway, then fine. We’ll start this month with some basic guidelines. Popular and well-respected comic artist Masayuki Katayama (I’ll bet you’ve read his name before) starts in his first volume of Obaka Meeko, story 4, with a section on opening your hand. There are 2 points in that story that I’d like to bring to your attention.

The first is to call from the bottlenecks whenever possible, meaning that you should leave your open-ended waits for later. For example if you have both 二四 and 34 in your hand and you’ve decided it’s a calling hand, try to let the 2 and 5 that the player to your left discards go. Later when the other players see your open hand, they might even assume that you didn’t want the 2 or the 5 since you ignored the chow-option before.

Regarding whether or not to call tiles, Katayama has 2 criteria: the hand should be either fast or high-scoring. He says that you should never call tiles for a cheap hand that is still many tiles away from Ready. Of course, if your hand satisfies both of these conditions, then you should be calling from the start. I’ll leave you with one example of each situation and we will continue this conversation in a future column.

Don’t Call: (East Round)

Call for Speed:

Call for Score: (East Round, Dealer, Dora: )

Kindai Mahjong (Takeshobo)

jamie — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 12:00:49 +0000

This month I have a publication that I really a mixed bag. I walked into a Lawson (convenient store) and happened to see this sitting on the shelf. Never knowing if it’s existence before then, I was very excited to pick it up. Thinking there may be people like me that don’t know of it’s existence, I wanted to review it asap to make it known to the world.

近代麻雀：Kindai Mahjong Semi-monthly Mahjong Manga Publication
http://kinma.takeshobo.co.jp/

Introduction:
近代麻雀(Kindai Mahjong from here on out) is released on the 1st and 15th of every month in Japan. Usually you can find it on the following days at any convenience store or book store for 315 Yen. I will also provide some links of where you can order it online later in the article. All of the manga’s (comics) featured inside of Kindai Mahjong are of course reach mahjong releated. I called this a mixed bag because of the comics contained inside. There is really something targeted at everyone. For example there is a comic called “Mahjong Cos-play” that is clearly aimed at females and younger audiences, but that’s immediately followed by “Hero”, which is a really down to earth tale about a really good player, obviously aimed at people that just want a straight mahjong comic, then followed by Washizu, which will make you hate your own very existence with how much of a violent and twisted person he is.
Note though that for review purpose, I picked up 3 issues, and every time the comics contained within were slightly changed. I’m not sure if I caught the publication at a bad time or if this is a normal habit, but the comics mentioned above are on the website so i’m assuming they are what is currently running.

Presentation:
This is the area that originally hooked me into buying the first issue. Note that I am not a big manga reader. I find about one series a year that I truly enjoy. There are many parts about this publication that even someone who doesn’t normally get into mahjong can enjoy though. Like I mentioned above, there is a very wide range of tales featured in this book. I won’t take the time to review them all, but basically they can be categorized into 3 types: Normal stories about good players, supernatural stories about things that are just not possible, and ultra-yakuza stories, which fall somewhere in between. Usually the yakuza stories involve alot of cheating and tricks, but can still be very interesting.

The other thing that I really liked about this publication, is scattered through the book are “What would you discard?” Quizzes and “Tally this hand.” Quizzes. They come every few pages and are great for mahjong players to test themselves. The following page always explains what is considered the “correct” answer, and provides a nice explanation as to why. Also, it provides an estimate in seconds on how long it should have taken to decide what to discard. This alone is almost worth the 350 yen it costs to pick up an issue in my personal opinion. If you look really hard, you may even be able to find a picture of Jenn and Garthe scattered throughout the pages!

Useful Information:
Unfortunately, this is the area where I came out a bit disappointed. While some of the stories in this book are very interesting, I found myself questioning from time to time how much of this can actually better my personal game. There are parts of the comics that I really, really enjoy. Such as one part in Hero where it gave you a 5 turn breakdown of a player’s hand showing his path from draw to tenpai (ready). This can be very beneficial to a player in order to see new possibilities. Personally, every time a tile is drawn in the comic, I try to decided for myself what I’d discard and then see if the character discarded the same. If you use this publication in this way, there can be literally hundreds of quizzes scattered through this book. Also, whenever a big decision comes, there is almost always a great (albeit sometimes farfetched) explanation as to why a particular tile should be discarded. One such situation came to mind in Hero where a player was able to successfully read another player’s Kokushi Musou (13 orphans) based on his body language. This reminded me alot about Konno’s columns on reach mahjong, and it was nice to see a “real world” application. Obviously though, this is very high level play, which can sometimes be just as frustrating for a beginner.

On the other hand though, there are times where you read something and simply go… “I don’t buy it. ” Then there is the cheating comics. While sometimes interesting, there is very little you can (or should be able to) bring into your game.

Comprehension Difficulty
This will ultimately be the deal breaker for me. This publication is tough to understand. Frustratingly tough. For somebody at around a JLPT2 level, you should be able to grasp the meaning, or at least the flow of what’s happening, but many of the explanations are psychological analysis, and thus very difficult to follow in a foreign language. The Yakuza stories use very difficult Japanese that I pretty much gave up on half way through. I showed a few of them to some of my Japaneses friends and even they were like “oh…” If you plan on using this publication to quiz yourself, then I believe you can still find some enjoyment, but anything short of a native level of Japanese, and I have a feeling you’ll be scratching your brain very hard to pull the meanings out of some of the stories.

Conculsion:
There you have it. A full mixed bag of tricks. I think due to the cheap price and simple shock value, everyone should pick up at least an issue, but it will be up to you if you actually want to follow it. Also note that many of the comics within have been translated online at one time or the other. A few google searches can probably land you upon them. With the translation, this would turn into an excellent source of knowledge for mahjong players, but in the original news stand form, I will give it a 5 / 10 due to the difficulty and sometime far fetched content.

You can track issues for purchase down on various websites, but probably the easiest would be Rakuten

Mahjong Nyumon (Yousuke Ide)

jamie — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 00:05:37 +0000

I’d like to introduce James Johnston. He is living in Japan and will be writing book reviews for ReachMahjong.com each month. If there are any books you are interested in or you have feedback on the column, send me an e-mail and we’ll get the information to James. For now, enjoy his first review! (-Jenn)

Hello, my name is Jamie Johnston. I’ve lived in Japan for a little over 2 years now, and took up Mahjong about 6 months ago so I’m still very much a beginner. Where I live, we don’t have parlors, and games are hard to come by, so in an effort to get better at Mahjong, I’ve taken up reading books about the game. In these articles, I’d like to talk about some of the various books / resources I’ve come across, how to use them, and useful tips that one could pick up from them. I’ll also do my best to provide sources where one can find or purchase these books.

Being that it is the first article, I wanted to go with a light, easy to understand book. This book also happens to be my personal favorite and go-to book when there is a debate in my games.

麻雀：入門 (Mahojng: Nyumon) or “A guide to Mahjong” by Yosuke Ide

Introduction:

This is an introductory book to Mahjong that covers all the basics, rules, and regulations. In its most basic form, it is like any other “learn how to play” resource out there, but where this particular book shines, is its presentation. This book explains all the rules and regulations using manga characters and mini-comics. Mahjong is a complicated game. The language barrier alone is enough to turn off many people, and even if one can get past that, the sheer amount of rules is also very intimidating. The good thing about this particular book is you never feel overwhelmed. In fact, I’ve used this very book to teach three people how to play now.

Presentation:

What I like about this book, is one can tell just from reading it, the author put in a lot of through about how to best relay the information without throwing off the reader. He start off the book introducing 4 characters named 南国 (Nankoku)、東字 (Touji)、北原(Kitahara)、and 西郷 (Saigou)、which is a play on the North, South, West, and East tiles. These characters are essentially narrating the rules of Mahjong. While this book does have many of the charts and examples you’d find elsewhere, the author makes sure to ease you into the harder stuff. Another thing I really like about this book is the mini-comics thrown in after each section. These comics show the 4 characters playing Mahjong and using the rules that you were just taught. The comics are done in a way that you can take a break from the rules, but reinforce what you just learned at the same time. You read about the characters making novice mistakes so you know not to make them yourself. The book is also written in a way that you can both read it like a book, or use it as a manual. I mentioned above that this is still my go-to book when there is a debate over a rule. Most of my friends that play mahjong also own copies now.

Information:

This book has everything you need to get started in mahjong, or to reinforce the rules you may all ready know. It covers the tiles, terms, the set-up, game play, yaku (HP), scoring, and penalties. There is even a section of different variations of Reach mahjong, and a small review of online places to play. The book also goes in-depth with each Yaku (Hand), devoting a page to each Yaku (Hand). During the explanation of each Yaku, it also provides 2 or 3 example hands, restrictions on that particular Yaku (like if you can steal or not), and what I found the most useful, which particular Yaku combinations appear the most. For example, the page explaining Tanyao (All Simple), shows you an example hand of it being combined with Pinfu (Peace Hand), and another of it being combined with Toi-Toi (All Sets) also. In the back of the book, there is also a straight chart information section designed so you can cut it out and keep it on reference. There are references pages for scoring, terminology, and Yakus. Another great feature of this book is the quiz section. There are quiz sections for scoring, and for determining the wait of hands in tenpai (Ready). The tenpai section is a little short, but the scoring section is very nice. It provides about 20 problems.

Comprehension Difficulty:

Being that these books are in Japanese, I wanted to add this section in to help explain how difficult the book is to people that speak little or no Japanese. I would say someone able to complete the JLPT 3, should have just the slightest difficulty with this book. If one knows katakana and hiragana, this book could still be very useful as a reference manual. There is a bit of kanji in this book, but it’s all mahjong related kanji. This book appears to be aimed at high school / college Japanese people, so the book is very inviting, light hearted, and easy to understand.

Conclusion

All in all, I’d recommend this book to anybody that is interested in Mahjong, or looking for a good user manual. It’s not too difficult, and very easy to reference during play. On a scale of 1 to 10 easiest to most difficult to understand, I’d rate it a 1. On the Japanese ability you need to appreciate the information, I’d rate it a 3 or 4.

A Game of Mistakes: My lesson from Masters (part 2)

garthe — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 12:00:14 +0000

Last week we started Garthe’s story of his first JPML Final table at the celebrated Masters tournament. Now the conclusion. You can read last week’s story here.

The second game he really started getting out of control, on his turn as dealer he chowed 789 of dots and then ponned the 4 of bamboos. The Lucky Dragon was 8 of bamboos and after all the useful letter tiles had come out, I decided that the only thing he could possibly be going for was 3 Colored Runs and gave up my hand when I got an extra 8 of characters I was worried might be his winner. Of course, I eventually drew what would have completed my hand. Just before the last draw he drew the last Lucky dragon for a kong (meaning he already had 3 lucky dragons in his hand!) and then when he opened his hand at the end, he had no possibility for a hand point except for a miracle like Last Tile or King’s Tile Draw.

WHAT AN IDIOT!!!

To waste a point-getting opportunity like that! He did manage to win a couple hands as dealer to put together a lead going into the final hand, though I don’t remember what they were because he was obviously not worth paying attention to any more. I was not going to let his goofy play distract me from claiming my Masters title.

On to the last hand of that game, I was dealer and my hand showed promise early except that he reached on the 7th draw. What is this crap!?!? There were no letter tiles in his discards so I started thinking 7 Pairs was a likely culprit and letter tiles would be a little dangerous. When I drew the first visible East I put it in my hand for a draw or two just in case maybe I could draw another one. But I didn’t and I started getting possibilities elsewhere and besides, I thought, “whatever he has it’s probably just Reach, 7 Pairs. 3200 points or 8000 if he has Lucky dragons. Besides, on his turn as dealer he reached with any ready hand, no hand points and crappy wait. It may even be just 1000 points. I’ll still be in 2nd for this game, even losing that much.

Whatever. Here. Have your East, you dork!” Big mistake.

In a voice, louder than his usual already crackly too loud I heard 32,000 points. Huh? East completed his 13 Orphans hand, and even after my win the first game, that tile popped him from last into 1st and me from 1st to last in one fell swoop.

Various buddies tried to cheer me up. Even Setokuma (A1 league) said it couldn’t be helped, there was no way to know. But I DID know. I put East in my hand because I knew it was dangerous. You always want to play so as to keep players guessing about what you have. He went one better. He actually got me to stop guessing even when he actually had a monster. And what a mistake!

Needless to say, he controlled the next 3 games too, playing the rest of us like the orchestra conductor he is. Given my reputation as a poor loser, it probably isn’t too much of a surprise that I spent the evening after telling anyone who’d listen how awfully he played but won anyway. As my silly ego simmers down, I must now give unqualified “Congratulations!” to Makino, winner of this year’s Master’s tournament.

Materfully played! May we meet again and may I be a better non-mistaken opponent that time.

P.S. After I wrote this, I went to work yesterday and who should come waltzing in the door for the first time there but Makino himself! My chance! Of course, Okino, our manager made absolutely sure we never ended up at the same table. I did watch him play a couple games when I wasn’t playing. That guy really is crazy, but it doesn’t seem to stop him from winning. It seems there is a method to the madness.

Garthe Nelson is Grade 2 in the Japan Professional Mahjong League. You can catch him as a featured Pro on Mahjong Fight Club.

A Game of Mistakes: My lesson from Masters (part 1)

garthe — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 12:00:46 +0000

It’s sometimes said of poker and I think it’s true of Mahjong too: it’s a game of minimizing your mistakes. And from that it follows also, that you want to capitalize on your opponents’ mistakes. Well sure, that seems pretty obvious, so how to really make use of this idea? The key I think is in the second part, other people’s mistakes.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, these games are not really that hard. A little bit of experience and we should get pretty good at making the correct moves and avoiding the obvious mistakes. Poker: don’t bet your whole stack on Ace 4 suited; don’t pay too much to see the river holding just pocket 6’s with 5 7 9 9 and 3 clubs already on the board. Mahjong: don’t pon or chow if you have no hand point; generally, choose open ended waits instead of closed ones; throw safe tiles after another player reaches. For anyone who continues playing much for any length of time these ideas become second nature pretty quickly.

But once we all know these basic ideas, how do we get a leg up on each other again? In a game of 4 strong players, of course everyone knows what mistakes to avoid. If everyone is just playing optimally all the time, then the game just reverts back to a simple game of luck. What to do…What to do…how about: we need to create other people’s mistakes.

I did this in a big poker tournament a while ago and of course got chastised roundly for my play until I stacked so many players there were none of them left to keep complaining. Earlier I’d gotten caught raising with marginal hands like Ace4 suited or pocket 6’s and there was so much discussion about what an idiot I was that when I raised all in with pocket kings I got a player to call with just pocket jacks. It wasn’t a push or fold situation either as we both had more than 100 big blinds and were the two big stacks at the table; clearly a mistake on his part to have risked his whole stack on that seemingly worthwhile hand. He must have thought his jacks were good because the guy he was playing against was too dumb to be beating jacks there. Ouch, big mistake. I outplayed the crap out of that guy and I let everyone know it as I started taking their stacks too.

How to help our opponents make mistakes in Mahjong? Well one trick I think most of us have probably tried before is using “piano keys” or “suji” in Japanese. Like I said before, we should choose open ended waits over closed but if we end up in a situation with a bad wait, one way to get a player to throw our winning tile is to have the piano keys tile in our discards. For example, when I discarded the 6 of dots yesterday, one player took that as a sign that the 3 was safe and threw to my waiting 2-4 of dots, but actually it was part of a Simples, 3 Colored Runs, Lucky Dragon combination, on my turn as dealer. Ouch. Big mistake. I outplayed the crap out of that guy and I let everyone know it as I started taking their stacks too.

After my experience at the final table of Masters this week, I think maybe my above mentioned poker tactic may be just as effective in Mahjong too. I had played against Imazato and Asakura in earlier rounds so I knew they were good solid players and I was going to need to play good Mahjong to beat them. The other guy at the final table was this kind of goofy weirdo who chowed and ponned every other tile in a crackly voice which was always just a little too loud. I won the first game and it seemed I was on my way to my first tournament title. Wait a minute, hold the phones!

Look forward to the conclusion of Garthe’s experience at masters next week on ReachMahjong.com!

Garthe Nelson is Grade 2 in the Japan Professional Mahjong League. You can catch him as a featured Pro on Mahjong Fight Club.

JPML Girls Count the Days

jenn — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 01:41:30 +0000

At the start of October, 12 girls from the Japan Professional Mahjong League got together for a day of costume changes and poses. The photo shoot was for the JPML 2009 Calendar and you can get yours at MahjongMart.com.

In 2007 JPML released its first calendar featuring Rumi and Aki Nikaido, Kozue Miyauchi, Yukiko Izumi, Rinka Tamura and Ikue Watanabe with 2 months for each girl’s pose. This year there is a different Mahjong Pro for each month of the year and in addition to the 6 displayed in the 2007 calendar, you’ll also see Kaori Shimizu, Saki Kurosawa, Yukari Nakagawa and Reach Mahjong’s very own Jenn Barr.

It was a full day of shooting and one of those rare opportunities to see the girls outside of their normal serious-tournament mode. I had a great time getting to know some of the new girls and also some of the older ones that I had never talked to before.

Calendar sales will begin in November so don’t miss out! I was shot in a men’s white button-up shirt and nothing else! Yukiko Izumi (remember her from last month’s interview?) is in a swimsuit and the other girls are all looking their best too. This is a rare opportunity to get another exclusive glimpse at the Japanese Mahjong community and it’s brought to you exclusively by the Japan Professional Mahjong League and ReachMahjong.com.

Check MahjongMart.com in November for your calendar!

Just not in the cards, er, tiles

garthe — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 17:28:50 +0000

EEK!! I (Jenn) posted this article, but actually it was GARTHE that wrote it!! My article is coming later today, after I put up my PokerStars Japanese blog, get a swim and get into the APPT Seoul room. So please read this article again, but knowing that it is GARTHE that is talking, not JENN! Welcome to the World Series of Mahjong! It was an exciting first day as the first day was given over entirely to WSOM’s first ever Reach circuit event. This year saw 12 brave souls testing the water so what a chance for that group of entrants to snag a WSOM title.

With only a limited amount of time, 1 day, the tournament format required that we change the rules a little bit to ensure that we finished in our allotted time. So we were playing East round only games which quickens the pace a lot, and then to really speed things up, there was no continuation for the dealer, no matter what.

Excuse alert: I have to say those rule changes really threw me off.

Because there was less time, I decided my game plan was going to be aggressive to the extreme and I would really be trying to win just about every hand.

In the end I’m surprised how much that strategy didn’t kill me, though in all honesty, it didn’t help much either. In fact (another excuse alert), I’m not sure any strategy would have helped me given what I had to work with. I remember perhaps 1 starting hand the whole day that got my heart racing as soon as I saw it.

What a start! And I went for it (3 Big Dragons) but when I got to ready after Ponning the green dragon, I still only had a lone white dragon so I let go my chance at the limit hand for a ready Half Flush-All Triples-East-Green Dragon-Red Dragon hand. Only 12,000 points but it would still put me in first place for that game, what I really needed to move on to the next round. Of course two more white dragons came later, and neither my 二 nor 六 came and the hand ended in a draw. Well I guess it was in the tiles I just didn’t play it that way, bit I still think it was the right play at the time.

For those who believe in luck, it should come as no surprise that after passing up that lucky chance, there wasn’t going to be any more. But in the interest of learning from ones mistakes, I suppose I should look for those too and not just the excuses.

I won 2 games all day, one where I stole tiles 4 times down to where I just hand one left and a poor Reacher ended up having to throw that last tile when he drew it. That of course was dumb luck in my favor for once. The time I played well to win was a game I decided from the start that I was not going to open my hands anymore after the failure of that strategy in earlier games. When I got to ready I reached, and even with bad waits it worked out well, the hands turned into big winners. And in the end I wish I had played like that more. True, I didn’t have many chances to do that. However, the times I could have but opened my hand instead, might have been larger game winning hands instead of small point hands I turned them into.

So with reach heavy on my mind, I move on to a tournament where there is no reach and again I think I’m leaning toward my just-go-for it-all-the-time strategy. The Main Event is here! Let’s see how that works out for me….

Learn to Lose

garthe — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 12:00:48 +0000

Welcome to the World Series of Mahjong! It was an exciting first day as the first day was given over entirely to WSOM’s first ever Reach circuit event. This year saw 12 brave souls testing the water so what a chance for that group of entrants to snag a WSOM title.

With only a limitted amount of time, 1 day, the tournament format required that we change the rules a little bit to ensure that we finished in our allotted time. So we were playing East round only games which quickens the pace a lot, and then to really speed things up, there was no continuation for the dealer, no matter what.

Excuse alert: I have to say those rule changes really threw me off.
Because there was less time, I decided my game plan was going to be aggressive to the extreme and I would really be trying to win just about every hand.

In the end I’m surprised how much that strategy didn’t kill me, though in all honesty, it didn’t help much either. In fact (another excuse alert), I’m not sure any strategy would have helped me given what I had to work with. I remember perhaps 1 starting hand the whole day that got my heart racing as soon as I saw it.

What a start! And I went for it (3 Big Dragons) but when I got to ready after Ponning the green dragon, I still only had a lone white dragon so I let go my chance at the limit hand for a ready Half Flush-All Triples-East-Green Dragon-Red Dragon hand. Only 12,000 points but it would still put me in first place for that game, what I really needed to move on to the next round. Of course two more white dragons came later, and neither my 二 nor 六 came and the hand ended in a draw. Well I guess it was in the tiles I just didn’t play it that way, bit I still think it was the right play at the time.

For those who believe in luck, it should come as no surprise that after passing up that lucky chance, there wasn’t going to be any more. But in the interest of learning from ones mistakes, I suppose I should look for those too and not just the excuses.

I won 2 games all day, one where I stole tiles 4 times down to where I just hand one left and a poor Reacher ended up having to throw that last tile when he drew it. That of course was dumb luck in my favor for once. The time I played well to win was a game I decided from the start that I was not going to open my hands anymore after the failure of that strategy in earlier games. When I got to ready I reached, and even with bad waits it worked out well, the hands turned into big winners. And in the end I wish I had played like that more. True, I didn’t have many chances to do that. However, the times I could have but opened my hand instead, might have been larger game winning hands instead of small point hands I turned them into.

So with reach heavy on my mind, I move on to a tournament where there is no reach and again I think I’m leaning toward my just-go-for it-all-the-time strategy. The Main Event is here! Let’s see how that works out for me….

Hold Your Horses!

jenn — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 17:39:23 +0000

We mentioned it in the most recent podcast (#6) and I think it’s important enough to warrant its own strategy column. It’s something that is in high demand, low supply and not for sale. It’s patience and I’ll bet that you could use some more of it.

Mahjong is a 4-player game and by simple statistics, it should be obvious that one player cannot win every single hand. Yet, there are many players that still push every time, trying to win against all odds. The good point is that if there is only one player doing this, their chances of winning goes up by default with other players giving up their chances. On the other hand, pushing too hard with cheap hand can lead to deep traps and big losses. Every player needs to have a bit of patience in their bag’o’tricks and it will take some practice to figure it out.

Let’s take a look at a few examples.

It is the 8th discard, your opponent has reached and your hand is going nowhere. So why fight it? Just let the hand go. You have plenty of safe tiles to keep you floating while the others try to win and hopefully drown themselves in the process. You also have enough points to keep you alive if your opponent happens to win the hand by draw. I know the hand looks lovely and you want to keep going, but this isn’t a do or die situation. Just let it go.

Patience is not only important for defense, but for offense as well. Since offense usually means aggression, this may be a hard concept to accept, but think about this hand:

[edited] If you pull an 8c or 5c then you’re hand is ready, it’s early, you have 3 winners out there waiting for you. But what if after that you draw a 4b. Or an 8b. Or a 6d? There are lots of winners, but there are also lots of things that bring this dinky little Reach+Lucky Tile (dora) hand to a guaranteed 8,000 point hand or more.

What about in this case?

Dealer, South Round 1^st hand, have 35,000pts, Lucky Tile:

Your hand is already worth 18,000, you’re the dealer, you’re Ready and your wait is good. Go for it no matter what you draw!! Right? Maybe. But don’t rush to conclusions. Take a few seconds to think about the hand. Just a few seconds. One reason, is that if you Reach right away with your big hands, but not with your cheap or bad-wait hands, then someone will pick up on that and know when to fold to you. Also, remember that you are the Dealer. If you win, you will continue as the Dealer and that gives you more chances at the big scores. So why not keep this one closed and let someone walk into the trap unknowingly? You risk someone else getting lucky and winning with a cheap hand, but chances are at this point, that someone is going to be pushing their hand and will easily pass you the winner. On the other hand, a Reach might scare them off and at this point, it’s very likely that they have plenty of safe tiles to ward you off.

It doesn’t mean that Reach is a wrong move in that last situation or that there is a correct answer for anything. I’m just saying that you should take the time to think about your decisions, even in retrospect, to get a better idea of how you play and what works. Things that take time take patience and that might be just what you need to kick your game up to the next level.

Red fives? Pshaw!

garthe — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 17:40:47 +0000

Response to the red fives poll has been overwhelming. The people have spoken and they are……..ambivalent!

And that’s as it should be. Red fives are going to be a small factor sometimes but there are usually only 3 of them (sometimes 4 if there are 2 red 5′s of dots) out of 136 other tiles so they shouldn’t need to figure too largely into everyone’s thinking. While we’d like to be able to use them if they come, we shouldn’t tailor our play to the point that we actually make it more difficult to win just because of the possibility that they might come.

Let’s begin by looking at a situation where you should just let it go. You’re dealer in the first hand of the East round and a few draws in you wake up with a nice hand (Note: we’re currently missing red five images so you have to imagine that the 5 of bamboos is red):

What are you gonna do here? Throw the 8 and wait for just the 6 so you can use the red 5? Throw the 8 and wait for the 4 so you can get an open ended wait and then reach? Throw west and hope another 5 comes so it’s now your new head? Something else ridiculous? Or do you play like an adult, throw the red 5 and reach? (Did I load that question just right?)

Of course you drop the Lucky Dragon and Reach. The open-ended wait means you also have Peace so you’ve already made up for the hand point you lost by dropping the Lucky Dragon. The hand already has a Double Run so with Reach it’s already at least 5800 points, maybe more with a little luck. Actually, throwing the red 5 will make other players think that tiles around it must be safe and they may even throw the 6 on the first draw. BLAM, 12,000 points!

Alright how about a different sort of hand. On Fight Club (2 red fives of dots), it’s the second hand of the east round, we’re in the South seat and our hand looks like this on our 7th draw:

What to do here. Well it seems like we’re going for 7 Pairs here, yes? Normally for such a hand I would like to keep Honor tiles and singles on the outer side of pairs I have in my hand as those tiles are more likely to be difficult for other players to use. However this time, I think I might throw one of them in favor of keeping the not even red 5 of dots. Why? Two of the remaining 5′s are red Lucky Dragons so I feel like the risk of waiting for such desirable and useful tiles is outweighed by the reward when one of them comes especially if I’m playing at a mahjong parlor where red Lucky Dragons are worth a little extra money too.

Well, now that we have a couple examples, at least of the way I think, let’s hear some thoughts from our strongly ambivalent readers. The Lucky Dragon is East on the 3rd hand of the South round, you’re 4300 points out of 1st place with a hand like this(again, you must use your imagination to picture the redness of the 5 of characters):

What would you do here, and would your answer be different if the 5 of Characters was not red?

P.S. Sorry I forgot, you’re in the North seat.

How Many Away

jenn — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 17:42:52 +0000

In Reach Mahjong’s second Jong-cast, we brought up the “Away” concept. The idea is keep a count of how many tiles away from Ready your hand is at all times and make decisions based on this basic concept. It doesn’t mean that it will always be optimal to make sure your hand is moving towards Ready, but it is an important basic strategy and skill necessary to improve your game from the beginning to the intermediate level.

Let’s look at a normal starting hand:

This hand is 2-Away from Ready. Tiles that will move it closer are , , , , and .

There are other ways that this hand might get to Ready, but the shortest route is 2 tiles with and being discarded in the process. In general, a winning hand will be between 2-Away and 4-Away from Ready at the deal. 4-Away or more and you should immediately think of an escape route to give up on the hand although, usually you won’t need to start giving up until the 5th or 6th discard.Making decisions is the hardest part of the game. One of the classic dilemmas is, “Should I pon/chow or not?”. Let’s look at some obvious situations for emphasis. For example:

This hand is 2-Away from Ready. In this situation, chowing something in the cracks to make a run won’t get you any closer to Ready. A chow with a discarded to make >will still leave you 2-Away. On the other hand, a chow with a , , or will get you 1tile closer to Ready as will ponning a , , or . For those of you that have full memberships at Ron2, try going back on your Hand History and see if all of the called tiles in your hands got you closer to Ready. < One of the most common situations that players ignore the "Away" concept is when going for half-flushes. Take a look.

This hand is 1-Away from Ready. Any , , , , or makes the hand Ready. That’s 20 tiles. Depending on the draw and the point status, you may need to go for the Half-Flush to win the game, but if you draw a tile that makes you Ready and then discard the instead, you’re taking a Ready hand and making it 1-Away but with the risk of a Missed Win (furiten).

That’s a lot of steps to catch up if your opponents are going for speedier hands.Next time you’re playing, try to consciously consider how many “Away” you are from a Ready hand. You should see improvements to your game imediately.

Garthe On Tournaments

garthe — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 17:33:12 +0000

I spent an engaging weekend at the Asian Pacific Poker Tour in Seoul last weekend and had the good fortune of observing the final table sitting next to poker Pro David Saab. Fortunate not only because he is a wealth of information on poker and tournament play but also because he shares it so freely with whomever happens to be sitting next to him. It’s possible he may have only been sharing with the hot chick sitting between us, (even more good fortune for me) thus, another lesson learned: the importance of using hot chicks to loosen up the poker players around you. He made some interesting comments about tournament playing style, and with one of Japan’s biggest Mahjong tournaments, OUI, right around the corner, it seems like a good time to remind myself of what he talked about.

I had been chapping a buddy about how he always built up a big stack early and then somehow donked it off in the later stages. He lamented back how strange it was indeed that I always outlasted him when I was always so short stacked. David remarked that my style of play was that of a survivor. That was interesting to me for a lot of reasons, not least of which the fact that no one who has ever seen me playing Mahjong would ever classify me as a “survivor”. Mahjong Fight Club classified me as a white tiger meaning, it thinks of me as an attacker. And pretty much every Thursday night study session, Jenn and my mentor has to again remind me, “Dude, slow down sometimes!” I really can’t resist the temptation to try to win all the time. And not just every game, even every hand.

How I managed to learn this lesson in poker first before figuring it out in Mahjong is beyond me. However, I am indeed to mahjong exactly what my buddy is to poker. I often find myself in fairly comfortable position midway through the tournament, and if I could only slow down for a second and just “survive” to the next round, I could go much further. How about a look at 2 recent tournaments where I really could have usefully applied this lesson.

Let’s begin with my performance in the Champions League one session ago. In qualifying for the semifinals I had won the intial 5 sessions running away from the pack and was a bit giddy with how strongly I had separated myself from the rest of the field. However, 15 other players had survived their way through the initial field also and we all began the semifinal from the same point again, zero. Those 15 plus the previous champion separate into 4 tables and play four games to narrow the field down to 8. The first game I didn’t get crap but also managed not to throw any big hands until the last hand when I was dealer. I managed to collect 3 lucky dragons and the winning hand to take first for the first game and a nice lead. The second and third games were won by other players but I managed to take close seconds in both of them to retain a comfortable lead on our table going into the final game. I only needed to survive the last game to take first or second for the table and move on to the next round of the tournament. The first hand of the final round was my last as dealer and I was in a pretty comfortable spot, positive score and in second place. I wanted a few more points to seal up my win and was dealt a pretty promising starting hand but after drawing nothing useful in my first 6 draws I decided it would be best to get off the hand. Alas, that draw was already one too late, and that very draw I threw a big winner to the current 3rd place person and one of the players I needed to stay ahead of to move on. My position was now quite tenuous, losing to one of the players I wanted to stay ahead of and two hands later, I again had a promising hand that would have probably sealed the win for me, but in going for it I again threw the big winner to the other player I needed to stay ahead of. With both of them in front I needed a big winner, and now THEY needed only to survive. They played extremely safe, some of the weakest Mahjong the world may have ever seen, and yet it was all they needed. I was cooked, the hand ended in a draw and they moved on to the next round while I was left to go drink a beer, one day earlier than I had hoped.

I had a very similar situation in the 10 Levels tournament earlier this year also. In the third round, I played perfect survival Mahjong until just one mishap. I won a couple big hands early but one woman at the table was unstoppable winning the first 3 games handily for a huge lead. Still, I had managed positive second place finishes in each of them and held second pretty comfortably after 3 games. I needed only to continue in survival mode to keep from losing any big points to third or fourth place. With three hands to go, I was still neck and neck in that game with the table’s 3rd place player. He was obviously going for an expensive half flush in dots, but around about the 14th draw, I suddenly had 3 Lucky Dragons in my hand and the hand was ready! If I won the hand, it would put me comfortably in second and I wouldn’t need to sweat the rest of the game. The fourth place player had just thrown the 3 for Reach, and the 9 was in both of their discards. I reached, throwing the seemingly safe 6 of dots but sure enough, it was his winner (he was waiting with 5777, the 5 was the lucky dragon) for 8000 points, and blam! Just like that I was in fourth place and falling.

That one discard was in stark contrast to my play earlier in the round and also in the second of the tournamenｔ where I had also played the survivor perfectly. There I was despondent after 2 straight games of absolutely nothing, but then it came on the third hand of the third game. I drew the White dragon to complete my 3 Big Dragons hand and propel myself into fourth from first. With everyone else playing catchup, I coasted to first in the game and then first for the table. My conservative “survival” play had kept me alive until my chance came and that was when I pounced.

So come this month, I’m looking to apply some of my recently hard earned Poker knowledge at the mahjong tables. I have to admit, I really hate that style of play: letting other players go on the attack and steal all the glory while I wait in the shadows like some wimpy caterpillar (That’s one of my favorite expressions from Japanese). But then, we can’t all win like Michael Jordan. Some of us have to win like some guy whose name we don’t remember because he never did anything spectacular but just always survived in the shadows until his chance came. And sometimes the tiles or cards just don’t come. Or they come early and then dry up for a while. Next time that happens, I hope I have the wherewithal to flip that survivor switch in the back of my head and sit back and wait for my chance to come.

OUI is a nation-wide tournament held in Japan open to all players, amateurs and professionals. The qualifiers for amateurs are in October and happen all over the country. OUI is run by JPML and uses JPML A-Rules (no first-turn wins or hidden dora). JPML runs another nation-wide tournament each spring called Masters which uses JPML’s B-Rules (includes first-turn wins and hidden dora). For more information see JPML’s Website (Japanese).