Konno’s Kolumn #3: Discards and Mahjong SuperCup
Hello Mahjong players of the world, this is Shintaro Konno. In my last column I left you with a homework quiz. How did you do? It was a pattern that I didn’t explain in the example so it might have been a bit difficult. Let’s start by reviewing the question.
– – – 
– 
(reach)
The question was: With this discard, which tiles are dangerous?
– – – – (reach)
With this discard you can imagine that the original shape of the hand was 
and so
–
would be dangerous, but the question I asked is the opposite discard. That’s the key. Why is discarded later than ? It was because was more necessary than .
If you have even one in your hand then ~ are connected so you don’t need to discard either (except in the rare exception that you have and discard then ) so there is no in the hand.
Let’s think a little bit more. If is less important than then we can assume that the player has a 
in the hand. So, how many 9’s does he have?
If he only has 1, then hand would have and the player would discard . Then and would both become useless but the player would usually discard first in case they drew a 5. If he has 3 then his hand would have and both and would be unnecessary and again, would be discarded first in case he drew a . With this reasoning, we naturally think the player has 2 ’s.
In case he draws a he can use it with a run, so he keeps the pattern. We’re getting closer to the answer. If we think about the pair in the hand, we can imagine that this player was already 1-away (iishanten) with the so if they draw a this group will not be available for a pair so he must have another pair in his hand (let’s call that a pair of x).
So, with this reach on the there is a very strong chance that the player is waiting for and x and that is the answer.
We’ve come this far and determined that the answer is and x but this is not always the answer. When the hand is 1-away if the player draws a or x then the discards will be the same but the wait will be completely different.
However, there is more information in discards. Reading discards is combining all of this information and trying to solve the puzzle.
Ok, this time I’m going to change the subject and talk about the Mahjong SuperCup that took place in Macau last month.
The Mahjong SuperCup is an international tournament that uses Taiwanese 17-tile rules and you have to make 5 groups or 3 or 4 and 1 pair. The special point is that there are 3 more tiles than in the Japanese rules.
I learnt the rules in Japan, practiced and then went to Macau to play but I was really worried about one thing… The tournament’s common languages were Chinese and English. I can barely speak any English at all let alone Chinese. It might be OK if I’m consumed by the atmosphere of the tournament but I was worried…
At my first table I noticed that the nametags of my opponents showed 2 of them were from China and one was from Hong Kong. Before we started they were talking and laughing among themselves and since I had no idea what they were saying I just smiled and nodded along… Even after the game started it was a small wave I couldn’t ride.
With 2 hands left in the first game I was down to 8500 points (each player started with 10,000) and I would have to draw my winner in both of the next 2 hands to keep from busting out.
Lo and behold I got a hand ready waiting for a 
– and desperately drew the winner. I planned to let the tile go if someone discarded it but somehow I managed to draw the . In the next hand I had the same wait again and again drew the for the win to take first place at the table. Maybe 6 was my lucky tile at the tournament.
I also made it through the 2nd game with no problem. At this point I only had to make it past the 3rd game to advance to day 2 and make the money. This time only the top score at each table and a number of the 2nd place players made it to the next round so it was much tougher.
This was a strenuous battle. My opponents were strong and it was hard to win hands off of them. But, in the 2nd hand of the North round I won a big hand as Dealer and got 400 points from each player to take the lead. This time I was waiting for – and drew the . I though “There’s no way I can lose now,” but that thought was burst in a moment’s time. The player across from me drew a hand worth 850 points each, 4 Concealed Triples.
In the last hand I lost any chance of making it through in 1st place. My only chance was to increase my score a bit to try and make it through as a 2nd place wild card.
The next thing I knew my hand was ready and I was waiting for a . This tile was supposed to be my lucky tile of the tournament. A few draws later I was able to change it to a – wait. It was between me and the player to my right, both of us aiming for that wild card spot. Both of us were at the point of discarding every draw, waiting for the winner to come.
The winning tile that finally came was . However, the person that drew it was the player to my right, waiting for and 
. That lucky tile didn’t come to my rescue at the very end. This closed the book on my Mahjong SuperCup experience.
This was the first time I ever played in an international tournament and I learned a lot. I want to improve my game and come back for revenge.
And that ends my column this month. See you next time.
Shintaro Konno is Grade 4 in the Japan Professional Mahjong League and runs mahjong lessons in the Kanto region. You can find him as a pro on Ron2 and Konami’s Mahjong Fight Club.
