Riichi vs. Zung Jung

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Gamegrunt
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Riichi vs. Zung Jung

Post by Gamegrunt » Sun Aug 15, 2010 11:34 pm

Who among you who plays Riichi regularly and also has played a significant amount of Alan Kwan's Zung Jung? I was intrigued by the simplication of his system but in one partial game (a two player with dummy hands) I didn't find it engaging. As an example, the one point "chicken hand" mechanism seems to be particularly problematic. One of the great things about the Japanese game is the yaku requirement - going out with any sort of combination of sets seems a bit of a buzz killer in the ZJ rules.

Any thoughts out there?

Gg

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Re: Riichi vs. Zung Jung

Post by burke » Mon Aug 16, 2010 4:58 am

I have played with the Zung Jung rules and found much the same thing. You could do like the WSOM and skip the chicken hand.

I also found the "everyone pays at least 30 points" rule problematic, since many hands won't be worth more than that. Having everyone pay regardless of who threw the winning tile, really destroys any attempts at defensive play. You might as well go for broke every time. Of course this is easily rectified by borrowing the payment rules from Riichi.

But, after making these changes, why not just play Riichi instead? ;)

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Re: Riichi vs. Zung Jung

Post by Gamegrunt » Mon Aug 16, 2010 11:52 am

burke wrote:I have played with the Zung Jung rules and found much the same thing. You could do like the WSOM and skip the chicken hand.

I also found the "everyone pays at least 30 points" rule problematic, since many hands won't be worth more than that. Having everyone pay regardless of who threw the winning tile, really destroys any attempts at defensive play. You might as well go for broke every time. Of course this is easily rectified by borrowing the payment rules from Riichi.

But, after making these changes, why not just play Riichi instead? ;)
Good points, burke, good points all. Mainly my interest in Zung Jung is as a gateway to Riichi - get 'em hooked on the basic play of Mahjong and familiarize them with most of the various patterns, because ZJ and Riichi have much in common there, without the complexity that is daunting for young players especially.

I don't see Zung Jung replacing the way my wife and I play with 136 tiles and I will continue to advocate for the Japanese system.

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Re: Riichi vs. Zung Jung

Post by Torgo » Mon Aug 16, 2010 4:00 pm

Gamegrunt wrote:... the one point "chicken hand" mechanism seems to be particularly problematic.
I have not played a lot of riichi. I have played on Gamedesign enough to win two consecutive hanchans, and a little on Mahjong Time. I learned European Classical first, then MCR, then riichi, then Zung Jung.

I am a fan of Zung Jung and have taught about 50 people to play that style. Alan Kwan has written much on why his rules are they way they are, and about the problems he sees with riichi. I happen to agree with much of what he has to say. I don't know if he reads this forum, but I'll try to distill some of what I think, and I hope perhaps a bit of what Mr. Kwan thinks, though you can read what he has to say on his own site.

He has an issue with any minimum score. If the minimum is high (as in Hong Kong, WMFed, or even perhaps MCR), the game can become boring and there will be more drawn hands (MCR gets around that by adding a bunch more ways to score). If the minimum is low (as in riichi), I think he feels that the minimum becomes a target, and hands that are worth more than that are rarely attempted... or perhaps just not as much as they could be.

In Zung Jung, a chicken hand scores a token point, and the disincentive to just go out is that going out with chicken hands will not win you a game. It is almost certain that someone will complete a middle-point hand (say 30 points) quickly during a game, and you do not have 30 hands to make that up before the game ends. OTOH, the chicken hand can be a good way to go if the end of the game is near and you are in the lead.

There are other issues he has with riichi, but that's the one you asked about. Alan Kwan also suggests that you can add a minimum score simply like the WSoM did, and just require anything on the card to go out. After all, he says, Zung Jung is just a set of house rules.

Chris

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Re: Riichi vs. Zung Jung

Post by zzo38 » Tue Aug 17, 2010 5:28 pm

Torgo wrote:He has an issue with any minimum score. If the minimum is high (as in Hong Kong, WMFed, or even perhaps MCR), the game can become boring and there will be more drawn hands (MCR gets around that by adding a bunch more ways to score). If the minimum is low (as in riichi), I think he feels that the minimum becomes a target, and hands that are worth more than that are rarely attempted... or perhaps just not as much as they could be.
Hence the "ryanhanshibari" rule in Japanese mahjong, which means sometimes the minimum is 2 han but it is usually 1 han. I like this rule.

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Re: Riichi vs. Zung Jung

Post by Torgo » Tue Aug 17, 2010 5:44 pm

In my own experience with Zung Jung, inexperienced players start by getting chicken hands (which usually annoys me quite a bit), see a couple 50 point hands, and realize they cannot win - it helps if you have the new players keep score.

Very quickly, the new players begin to attempt impossibly difficult hands, and soon after that settle in to try to find their own balance. It works out pretty well. Last night, I played 7 hands, and two were draws. There were chances for a chicken hand, but after the first such win, no one else bothered with it.

I can't say I'm completely opposed to a minimum score on principal, though. I think it has two main benefits. First, it nearly demands that new players learn the yaku. Second, it makes the scores change faster (excellent for a gambling game). It also slows the game down, and encourages more drawn hands. (If a wall game is threatened, someone can decide to take their chicken hand and start a new hand.)

As for the 30-point "par" score (as I call it), I think it's OK to penalize players a little for losing even if they did not discard the winning tile. After all, they didn't win. 30 points may not be the right number - perhaps 10, 15, or 20 would work better... and perhaps that number should change with the experience of the players.

Right now, I think there is no perfect mahjong style. Zung Jung is no exception, but I think it is an excellent way to play so far, and I look forward to even more improvements in it. Since Alan Kwan is the sole keeper of its rule changes, I think it can change much more quickly than riichi could ever hope to.

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