Half Flushes, Part 1
We continue this week with xKime’s translation of Puyo’s blogs. We also have professional input from JPML’s Garthe Nelson, adding to the depth of the conversation. Hopefully some of these issues will bring some good conversation to the forums as well.
From: http://blog.jpmahjong.net/read.php/520.htm
Right now in Japanese mahjong, Half Flushes and Full Flushes are called “somete” (dyed hand). Along with Reach, All Simples and Value Tiles, it’s one of the four most important yaku/hand in Japanese mahjong.
Sure, a Half Flush is a 2 han (HP) yaku, relatively easy to complete, and it can be combined with value tiles. However, since it’s a yaku/hand easy to build, beginners really love to aim for it, so much as to try to go for it every hand…
Let’s view a few hands where beginners mistakenly aim for a full flush.
1) Half Flush Disease
I saw this starting hand in a game room in tenhou. At this time, the player in his dealer turn, unexpectedly discarded 5 of bamboos!
Was only able to see a characters or dots Half Flush? He may as well be mahjong short-sighted, he needs treatment.
Just think, there are three types of number tiles: characters, dots and bamboos, this means it’s possible to draw a character tile about once every three draws. Right now, you only have five character tiles, you need at least five more to aim for a Half Flush, this means it will take you about 15 discards. A round only has about 17 discards, do you still have time to win the hand?
With this hand, we cannot consider making a Half Flush, it’s okay to discard any of your guest wind tiles.
Generally speaking, you can consider a Half Flush if you have at least 8 tiles of the same suit or more.
2) Possibility for other yaku/hands
Of course, just having a lot of tiles in the same suit doesn’t guarantee that aiming for a Flush or Half Flush is a good idea.
Even though there are 10 dot tiles in this hand, no matter what go-around this is, we should discard 1-3 of dots.
This hand’s final shape should be Reach, All Simples, Peace, Double Run and not Full Flush. With Reach, it’s a guaranteed mangan (8,000 or 12,000pt) hand, and with a little luck it can go up to haneman (12,000 or 18,000pt).
On the other hand if you go for a Full Flush, in most cases it ends up being a mangan, there are not many chances for it to become haneman or more. Moreover, we only have three sets in dots, we need a fourth set don’t we?
This example also comes from the hand of a beginner, at that time he discarded the bamboos, he is as well short-sighted. Afterward, he picked up a pair of the guest wind North, and called the 8 of dots from the player across from him.
(Pung )
What remains is a tenpai (ready-hand) of 2000 points with a bad shape, there is a huge difference with discarding 1-3 of dots.
Another example
dora:
Look at this hand, many people may think, “Isn’t this the time to go for a full flush?” and a lot of them will be convinced and discard the 3 of bamboos. But in my opinion, even here we should discard North first.
In this hand too Half Flush is not the only thing we can aim for, if we discard North first we can have the following options:
a. Draw 3 of bamboos. The goal is Red Dragon and 2 dora or a Double Run and 2 or 3 dora.
b. Draw 2 or 4 of bamboos. If this happens we can pursue a concealed hand, Reach, a Double Run and a dora. Not bad.
If we discard 3-bams, we may have:
c. Draw North and end up with Red Dragon and a Half Flush or only a Half Flush.
There are many chances for situations a and b occurring (theoretically, the chances for a and c occurring are the same), and the point difference is also high, therefore discarding three of bamboos first is, in comparison to discarding North, inferior.
In reach mahjong there are many other roads besides the Half Fush. For beginners who want to improve, the most important point is enlarging your field of vision.
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A word or two from Garthe:
Oh how I wish I could rain down my wisdom upon you as if I was a player immune to Half Flush’s half baked charms. Alas it’s not just beginners who mistakenly aim for it when there are better options. I go for it far too much and it is a sign of weak and lazy Mahjong that needs to be fixed.
Remember my comment on the last column, “mentanpin” (Japanese abbreviation for “Reach, Simples, Peace). The second hand shown is a prime example of why you should repeat that mantra 100 times before you go to sleep and again when you see these tiles in your hand.
While closed it is a 3 Hand Point (HP) hand, the majority of Half Flushes will require at least one chow or pung, dropping it down to 2 HP and making reach impossible. Add to that the fact that I’m probably discarding valuable tiles in the other suits making other players reluctant to discard those tiles I need to chow and pung from them. It just becomes a more and more difficult hand to win.
And for what reward? If I could make Peace one of my HP, it means the hand is still closed so Reach is still a possibility and there are the Half Flush’s 2 hand points made up for right there. Add to that the possibility of Concealed Self Draw, (First Turn Win and Hidden Dora if using those rules) and the possibility of winning the hand and it becoming a monster are much better than with the Half Flush.
Same with Dora out of suit. With one in my hand that I couldn’t use in my Half Flush, I need only one more to get 2 hand points again, getting me right back to where I probably am if I discard Dora and go for the flush. Similarly, if I can use Dora in a run and Reach, there are the two hand points made up for again already. Not to mention the dangers of discarding Dora, which other players are likely to want.
When going for Half Flush, we should have a good start in at least 3-4 of our final groups and and at least one or two of them should be Value tiles or use Dora to really make it worthwhile.
So as I drift off to sleep, I’m going to say it again a few times now, men-tan-pin, men-tan-pin, mentanpin, mentan….
