This Season’s Featured Players Part 4
As part of our quest to bring you closer to the best mahjong players in the world and get a little bit more inside their heads, Jenn and I have each chosen a couple players in particular whose performance we’ll follow a little more closely. I’m following Takizawa and Miyauchi Kozue. Who knows, maybe we’ll learn a little something from them too. By the way, Takizawa is mostly known endearingly throughout the league as “Takki”, which is what I’ll be referring to him as here too.
Kazunori Takizawa
“Even though I won the first game of the day by the end I was down 40 points. Somehow I’ve found myself in a battle to not move down a league.
I think that one of the requirements of being a pro is to be able to adapt to every rule but I’m afraid that this time I didn’t choose a good strategy for JPML’s A-rules. Perhaps it’s because I haven’t prepared enough.
In the past 9 years I have never been in a position where I had to worry about moving down a league but for some reason I’m not very upset about it. On the contrary I find the thrill almost exciting. (Maybe I found my real cause?)
For the last session I need to prepare and condition my body for the game…”
Hisato Sasaki “In the end I lost the points I had saved up but it was all because of the 13 Orphans hand I threw in the 4th game. I was ready with a concealed Full Flush, Inside Hand and All Sets and just concentrated on myself, not even looking at the other players’ hands. On the final discard I drew and discarded 1-bam and my opponent said ‘ron’. I reconfirmed that bad results await those who discard without a plan. I was about to move up to the next league but instead I’m now in danger of moving down. In the last session I’ll fight with nothing to lose.”
“In the first game I lost a race and took last with 26,900 points.
In the second game too I discarded 2 winners for 5200 and 3900 to put me in a difficult spot but in the last hand of the East round I drew the Big Dragons hand!
（２３４５）発発発中中中 ポン白 ツモ（５）
I easily took first place that game and continued to win the next 2 for a score of 72 for the day! If I win this much in the next session there’s a chance I can move up to the next league! Wish me luck!”
Kozue Miyauchi
“I started the day in first place. Part of me wanted to protect my points, but aiming to win my league, today I racked up points instead.
The first game: I started in attack mode but was shot down at every chance I took and lost the game. In the second game I kept the same strategy and attacked but I sunk again.
I was down 40 points for the day. It was looking to be a bad day.
Going into the 3rd game I figured that I had to play tight and make sure I didn’t lose anymore points! Funnily enough, in the first hand of the East round I got an Inside, Peace hand with 3-Colored Runs and 3 Lucky Tiles for 18000 points and took first place in the game with no trouble. In the 4th game my good run continued and I got first place again.
In the end I was able to pull a positive score again today and keep my lead in the league. If I can just get past the final session I’ll win the league!
This season I’ve been taking a very aggressive approach but because of that I put myself in a lot of dangerous situations. In the last session I want to play more carefully.
I’ll do my best to go for the win in the last session.”
All 4 of our featured players can be found as featured pro’s on Ron2 and Mahjong Fight Club.
