Saki: Nationals Chapter

[Ozball]

For all you Saki fans out there, if you don't know yet the Nationals chapter of Saki stated screening in Japan last week (Monday the 6th). This is the third season and I think it currently has around 12 episodes scheduled.

Rejoice!

[Kyuu]

I plan to watch each episode at least 7 times each.

[Ignatius]

I'm watching the anime with subs, and reading the manga in japanese (slowly).

The anime started with filler, but looks cool.

[Iapetus]

The anime did not start with filler or recap; the first 2 episodes were direct adaptations from the manga, starting where the anime left off. There were a couple filler scenes with some teams, but that's it.

[Ignatius]

Oh, didn´t remember correctly, long time has passed since I´ve read those chapters.

[Ignatius]

The filler parts are based on Sakibiyori or it's just my imagination?

Maybe is my imagination.,

[Ozball]

I'm breaking one of my own anime watching rules with this series. I don't usually watch series' that are ongoing or if I do I watch them in batches (Eg I catch up with One Piece about once or twice a year) but I've broken down and am watching these Saki episodes as they come out T_T

[Ignatius]

I llike this series, looks fun, and almost the same as original Saki or Achiga-hen. I wonder if they´ll do an anime of Shinohayu (another Saki spinoff). Or even Sakibiyori anime...

[AyanamiSan]

I love this series, hope it'll be as good as the first two ^^

btw. (altho i'm not sure if it's the right topic for such question, but it is related to saki ^^" )
What would you discard, given the last hand sown at the end of ep03?



i'd probably go with hoping for sanshoku, possible tanyao and/or pinfu
it's quite early in the game tho, and iirc we didn't see what the dora is;

[Ozball]

I'd probably go for the 8c since you're most likely not going to use the mentzu (meld) as the other ones are all ryanmen (double sided I think in english?). The Sanshoku idea is good. What my plan for the final hand would be this:

waiting on a . Gives you Sanshoku (2 closed), pinfu (1), tanyao (1) for at least 4 han, add a dora or reach and you have at least mangan. Note that a wait would also be nice, but you're gambling on the sanshoku. It would all depend how the hand evolves though, it's in a reasonably nice ryan-shanten (two away from ready)

[Iapetus]

I'd go with 8m. The only backfire from discarding it is the 7m: 4 tiles. At a glance, discarding 4p has also 4 tiles of backfire, 44p88s, but that's not the case. In fact, 1234m345678p8s ALL benefit more from 8m discard than from 4p discard. Some because you'll have to drop the 8m anyways now and are thus missing a potentially useful 4p; some because the choice is to drop the 8m or tsumogiri.

For example, drawing 4m:


The extra 4p is giving support to the 34p shape. Sanshoku is not necessary; riichi tsumo tanyao (ippatsu, ura) as dealer is already good.

VS


The extra 6m has no real purpose in the hand.

As a general rule: If you're 2-shanten with 5 taatsu 1 mentsu, it's better to break the worst taatsu than to weaken one of the stronger taatsus, because this leads to a better iishanten shape.

[Ozball]

In regards to this week's episode (don't worry if you haven't seen it, there's no spoilers): Can someone confirm something for me? Are the nationals 2 Hanchan or 1 Hanchan at their current stage? I think Yuuki only played one but Mako seems to shift seats in this episode. She starts sitting across from Aiesling but in the final hand she's sitting to her right. I think they do play 2 Hanchan at some point but I thought it was only after the first few rounds were finished? (eg Quarters and up) Any thoughts?

[Ignatius]

As far as I know the rules are like the first series, 2 Hanchan each player. Maybe I should look the manga again to confirm it.

[Iapetus]

If you look carefully during the earlier part of the episode, you can see that Suzu and Shiromi switch places as well during the "70 minutes later" skip. All matches in the nationals are 2 hanchan per player for 10 hanchan total. Or actually, I can't find any evidence on the first round, but there's little reason to have a 5-hanchan match if they've got the whole day to play.