More from Garthe in Gunma and at Champion’s League
Interesting. I’ve finally had a couple great sessions in a row and I’m more annoyed at mahjong than ever.
You may remember me ranting after league this month about how I don’t get to be a lucky player so I have to keep my game small to have any chance of winning. Well I was right! And I couldn’t be more miffed.
So starting with North Kanto league on Sunday, I went into it thinking maybe I can put together a positive score for once if I just sit around and not draw attention to myself. As it turned out that is pretty much what happened with the exception of the third game. I killed it that game while still managing not to be lucky at all. I had already won reachless mangan and haneman hands in the first two hands when in the third hand of the east round I got to ready with this hand:
Draw:
Dora was 3 so it was already a big hand. I had thrown 六 earlier so it was the perfect opportunity to reach except that my reach is perfectly readable by all players so I again waited without reaching. Of course I drew my winner so it was only 2000/4000 instead of the 3000/6000 it could have been had I been a lucky player who could reach. The next 4 hands I was dealer and every single one I started with at least 2 dora in my hand with good shapes 2-3 tiles from ready. Wow finally a little luck right? Nope. I couldn’t win a single one of those hands including the last one where I ended up throwing mangan to another player’s Half flush. No nagare here!
Cut to the next day, my first entry into Champion’s League for this season. I managed to get positive scores just sitting around quietly again in the first two games but then suddenly again in the third game I broke out. I won few hands early and then the first hand of the south round I was dealer again and got to ready with this:
When another player ponned, I drew my 6 for 6000 points from each player and a huge lead. Actually I had just drawn another tan/pin/tsumo/sanshoku/dora (Simples, Peace, Concealed Self Draw, 4 Colored Runs, dora) hand right before that to end the east round. If nagare or tsuki is a thing, it’s GOT to be coming my way now right?
Sure enough, the next hand I get to ready on the third draw with a mere Pinfu/dora (Peace and dora) but thinking if ever I had a chance to reach, this should be it. Wrong. Dude who’s been throwing mine and others’ winners so far all game suddenly decides that’s his chance to go for it. He plows ahead ignoring my reach, he manages to reach on draw 10 and draw his winner as the hand is about to end. Besides the fact that I was supposed to be in luck mode, certainly he was supposed to be in bad luck mode! I ended up winning only 56 points that game.
OK, putting things into perspective, a positive 56 points for an entire day, let alone one game, is actually a pretty notable accomplishment. I finished in the black with 76 and 92 points in North Kanto and Champion’s, both phenomenal for one day. Of course people were understandably somewhat confused by my disgust but it comes from this: if this luck/nagare/tsuki crap people talk about all the time is really a thing, my situations above should have led to my continuing luck perfectly, but they did not. I know I have always said that this kind of thinking is simply ridiculous, but I have been re-irked of late by the fact that higher ups in the league here and there have blamed my poor performance recently on the fact that I don’t buy into this philosophy. Bullsh-
Ahem. To reiterate then, you cannot determine how lucky you will be this hand, based on how lucky you were last hand. Any review of your play that involves such thinking is simply backward thinking in every stupid sense.
Also, I am still really unlucky.
