WWYD Riichi Book I edition

[Mauro]

In his book, Daina Chiba gives this quiz:



and argues that we should discard , because the character block is strong enough; I was wondering about discarding , though: on one hand, it's true this means losing quite a lot of tiles to advance shanten; on the other, as it stands discarding means a riichi dora hand with a possible bad wait, while discarding guarantees pinfu (so a better wait), and all simples if one doesn't draw . Drawing any of also gives another ryanmen.

I'm not sure if this is worth the drop in speed of losing 8 tiles (out of 20), though; if the premise stands, we are East-1 and are dealer.

[Barticle]

Certainly a 3445 shape progressed by any of 2/3/5/6 is exactly the example Daina gives for the efficiency of that shape during hand development (Section 3.3). Here that'd support Pinfu, potentially adding Tanyao (if you don't draw on the wrong side of the 23 Bams) plus the red five in the 55 pair.

Daina's argument (Page 109 in case anyone else is looking) is that four different tiles would give a complete set and a pair from the character tiles. However only two of those directly support Pinfu and you would be guaranteed no Tanyao (instead of potential no Tanyao).

You might favour speed over value if you're east. (It also depends how long the wall is, what tiles are out on the table already, what's the Dora, etc.)