Author: Flowingcloud
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Introduction
Welcome back after the somewhat long delay. This episode will be a 2-part series where I start with an easier-to-understand hand, then next week, we’ll explore a slightly more complex hand.
Note that this example will have discards that are close to always objective correct and that other decisions are not ideal and efficient. For an experienced player, these two posts might not be as helpful, but try to follow along and see if you would make all the same decisions as the pro do. Additionally, try to come up with all the reasonings for making certain decisions and see if your thought process compares to a pro.
By the way, the new Saikouisen season has insane production quality. They stream on Abema and Youtube. Check out their content.
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Today’s post is going to focus on capitalizing on good haipai (starting hand) and playing basic textbook mahjong. The pro player we are focusing on is Aruga Riki, a relatively young Saikouisen pro player. The 27 year old (as of March 2024) pro started playing professionally in 2017 and would have been promoted A1 if they did not take a year hiatus in 2023. Once again, similar to my previous post, try to see what you would discard before clicking to see what Aruga-pro discarded.
Gameplay
Match: https://abema.tv/channels/mahjong/slots/8rW9yYkDk7RwXV [Abema premium required]
Clip: https://youtu.be/TyhYHm5chpk
Ruleset: Saikouisen (aka-nashi; 10/30 uma)
Player: Aruga Riki
This is the very first hand of the hanchan of the third match of their set. The season has just started and there is no need to play towards any position conditions yet. It is East 1 and the dealer is Aruga. Aruga starts off with the West dora pair and relatively good blocks overall. While pairing up either floating yakuhai tiles in his hand would be very good, his blocks are pretty much set in stone and the 7m floater is just simply too good, so he cuts Chun (over East since Aruga is dealer and he’s double East).
Aruga connects the 7m with a 8m draw and East is the obvious cut as the dealer wants to get to tenpai as fast as possible and leaves the 2468p shape for 3-5-7p acceptance.
Aruga draws the 5p and fills the 2468p triple kanchan (middle wait) block. With the shape becoming 2-456-8, Aruga needs to pick either the 2p or 8p, however, there is one tile that is much more favorable than the other. If you look at the blocks in the other suit, there’s a 56789s block that can be treated as one or two blocks depending on future draws, and a 78m ryanmen block. The chance of a 678 or 789 sanshoku can easily happen if Aruga can connect the floating 8p tile.
Although 7p does not give tenpai, the 7m draw is the ideal tile that improves the potential value of the hand. First, the hand goes from 15 tiles of ukeire (tile acceptance) to 19 tiles of ukeire. Second, the hand easily has a chance to build sanshoku. Cutting souzu (bamboo) is the most efficient cut, but which tile should Aruga cut?
Although it does not matter which souzu Aruga cuts in terms of efficiency, since 5s, 6s, 8s, and 9s are all equivalent in terms of tile acceptance, it is important to note that there is generally only one tile that allows for even more potential value.
The 678 or 789 sanshoku I mentioned earlier can happen as long as you look at the souzu you need to cut: 56789s. Cutting the 5s allows for you to maintain both 678 or 789 sanshoku chances, depending on which block you fill in on the other sides. If Aruga draws 3p, 6p, or 6m, then he can easily cut 9s for a 678s. Or if Aruga draws the 9p or 9m, he can easily cut 6s for a 789s.
Aruga draws into tenpai the turn with the 9m. Since he cut the 5s earlier, he is able to maintain his 789 sanshoku chance. Like I mentioned earlier, there is only one correct cut here, and that’s the 6s. With a pinfu + dora 2 hand, with a sanshoku chance, the hand is minimum a mangan if Aruga declares riichi. Naturally, Aruga declares riichi with a three-sided wait and potentially expensive hand on the right tile.
While Aruga does not tsumo the 9p for sanshoku, he does easily tsumo the 3p for an explosive dealer mangan (riichi (1) + pinfu (1) + tsumo (1) + dora 2 = 5 han) to start off the game in East 1. Although Aruga did not win on the expensive end, he did a magnificent job of constantly leaving the sanshoku availability open.
Conclusion
The first thing to do when looking at your haipai (starting hand) is to formulate a plan to play around. Aruga clearly identified a potential sanshoku chance on the upper tiles and played towards those conditions. Even when he had a dora pair, playing for all the value you can get while not sacrificing efficiency is extremely important in getting hands that seal the deal in the beginning. Being positional ahead is crucial since that allows the player to play more flexibly, as well as put pressure on other players to build value in their attempt to overtake. Sometimes, a sanshoku will not happen as naturally as it did in this example, however, leaving floating tiles for sanshoku or iitsu (straight) chance is a powerful tool when building expensive hands.
Common Mahjong Terms Used
Ankou: A closed triplet. An open triplet would be a minkou.
Chanta: A hand that has all parts containing an outside or honor tile.
Chiitoi: Short for chiitoitsu (seven pairs). Must be closed and must contain seven unique pairs.
Iishanten: One tile from tenpai.
Junchan: A hand where all parts have a 1 or a 9 in them. Not to be confused with Honroutou.
Kamicha: Player sitting on the left.
Kanchan: An edge wait. (i.e. 8-9 waiting for a 7)
Kutsuki: Generally refers to a floating tile that is easy to create a new block with. (i.e. A floating 6 has 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 acceptance to create a new block.)
Penchan: A middle wait. (i.e. 4-6 waiting for a 5)
Ryankan: Two kanchan shaped taatsu (block) merged together. (i.e. 3-5-7 waiting to fill either 4 or 6)
Ryanmen: A two sided wait of a sequence. (i.e. 5-6 waiting for a 4 or 7)
Shanpon: Two pairs; the third tile of either will complete the hand.
Shimocha: Player sitting to the right.
Suji: The general inference of discarded tiles utilizing the principle of “mahjong intervals”.
Tanki: Waiting on a single tile to complete a pair.
Tedashi: To discard a tile originally from hand.
Toimen: Player sitting across.
Toitoi: Short for Toitoihou (all triplets).
Tsumogiri: To immediately discard the same tile you have drawn.
Yakuhai: A triplet (or quad) of dragon or round/seat wind.
Tile Notation
#p: x-number of pinzu (circles)
#s: # x-number of souzu (bamboo)
#m: x-number of manzu (characters)
East, South, West, and North may be abbreviated as E, S, W, and N respectively.
Haku: White Dragon
Hatsu: Green Dragon
Chun: Red Dragon