OK, I'm wondering one thing. You're sitting at east and you pick 14 tiles. Do you form any idea of where you want your hand to go, and how strong is it?
Yes. How far away from tenpai you are, how many han you think you can get from yaku you think you can get with reasonable draws, and how many dora you have are all indicators of how strong your starting hand is. The first few draws also factor heavily into this. At some point, you will reach a state where you no longer have any worthless tiles (tiles which are nowhere near the rest of your hand), and then newly drawn tiles are unlikely to change your goal for your final hand much. What will change your outlook in the late game is drawing unsafe tiles and trying to work them into your hand.
(Note: I bought a book some years ago called How Not to Lose at Spades, and it showed me how the same cards required different bits depending of the score, that's why I'm starting with a neutral situation).
A brief aside to speak to this. Normally, the score should play in to your thought process. However, this depends on the setting. Think about it like this:
It's the last hand of a game, and you are not sitting East, but someone throws a tile you can ron. Doing so will give you a decent hand (3 han), but is not enough to advance your placement. Do you take it? It doesn't benefit you at all this game, so reasonably you shouldn't. However, you are probably playing online. Winning that hand improves your stats, which may or may not improve your rank, which may or may not be your goal. Online, it's often better for your overall stats to disregard the current score (but not the seat positions). This depends on how much the ranking systems values final placement versus points gained/lost versus not dealing into hands.
This is a somewhat annoying starting hand in my opinion, because of the paired hatsu. You can't use them as the pair for a pinfu hand, so if you leave them as only a pair, you are very likely to end up without any yaku and needing to reach if you want to win. Hands with reach as their only yaku and no dora aren't usually a great idea in my opinion.
On the other hand, turning the hatsu pair into a triplet doesn't buy you a lot either. This hand won't easily become a half-flush or toitoi or something which works well with yakuhai, so if you go for the hatsu triplet, you're likely to still end up with only one yaku. Even worse, if you have to pon the third hatsu then you lose the ability to cut two tiles which are very likely to be safe late game, in exchange for advancing a weak hand.
Having said all that, because I am sitting East, I would probably try to go for the quick win and get to my next bonus round. First tile to go is the
. After that, wait to draw or call the third
, and then call tiles as needed to get out. One of the nicer features of this hand that doesn't stand out that much, is that if you draw the dora
, then you can easily bring it into the hand by cutting the
. If you still have unneeded tiles in your hand (or you are not playing with the rule that prevents you from calling to walk a sequence), then you can do this if the player left of you throws the dora as well.
Likely final hand is
I'd say this is the nicest hand of this three. That the paired winds are valueless is a boon for you, because it means you have a shot at pinfu with them, and you won't be tempted to pon them. You're two away from tenpai, which means you have a decent shot at getting to tenpai to reach before you enter the late game. The only major problem is either drawing the
to complete that middle wait, or getting a double-sided wait somewhere else. First tile to discard would be
.
As with the first hand, if you complete the
by drawing
, then later you can bring the dora into your hand if you draw it.
In both this hand and the first hand, I'd keep my on the possibility of walking sequences towards sanshoku in order to sneak in the possibility of an extra yaku.
Likely final hand is
This hand is only 3 away from tenpai, so it's pretty decent as well. There's an opportunity to bring a dora into the hand if you draw it, which is good. I've mentioned this with all three hands so far, because I feel it's an important consideration when you play. In the late game, if I'm tenpai, I always ask myself, "If I draw a dora now, can I work it into my hand? If not, do I have to abandon this hand, or am I confident enough to cut it?" Being able to bring it into your hand without slowing down means you don't have to worry about the harder follow-up question.
The
formation is very useful, because there are 4 tiles you can draw that will turn it into a completed sequence and a double ended wait. One of those possibilities will give you an extra yaku for ipeko, and even if you don't get that at first, you may be able to walk a sequence towards ipeko later.
After that, you just need to pair some other tile and you can shoot for pinfu and reach. If the tile you pair is the
, then you also have a decent shot at tanyao. If you miss tanyao only because you draw
instead of
, then you don't lose out on any han thanks to the dora.
One aside for this hand is that I would probably hold on to the
for the first few turns, to see if I could pair it before any other copies are cut. If so, then I have a shot at double East, which is a pretty nice 2 han for not a lot of work.
Likely final hand is:
