Learning From Pros Episode 4 – Oohira Aki: Female Saikouisen B League

Author: Flowingcloud

Please contact Flowingcloud if there are any typos, issues, or input. All feedback is welcome!

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Introduction

The past few posts, I have been mainly identifying how to maximize hand potential and capping out value. This post, I thought I’d take a completely different approach and take a look from the POV of someone who notices something irregular going on. Playing from defensive is generally harder to play from offense at times, and we’ll explore how a player’s discards can give A LOT of information and strategies you can use to defend against most players. 

WARNING! This post is targeted towards intermediate and advanced players. The content is VERY dense and rereading a few times might be required to process all the information. Feel free to reach out to Flowingcloud if anything does not make sense. 

Today, we’ll be taking a look at Oohira Aki’s gameplay in her Female Saikouisen B League game. Oohira Aki is a hugely successful female pro who went pro with Saikouisen in 2014. She has won three back-to-back Female Saikoui titles (14th-16th Female Saikoui), and had just been promoted to B1 of the main Saikouisen league as well for her first time. 

 

Gameplay

Match: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4uKLaoYirM [Channel membership required]

Clip: https://youtu.be/v_tcIM05nn8 

Ruleset: Saikouisen (aka-nashi; 10/30 uma)

Player: Oohira Aki

Situation: The hand is East 2 of the first hanchan of their 4 game session. Oohira won an explosive haneman tsumo in East 1 to start things off and she is now in the lead. 

 

Turn 9

Note: Kayamori Sayaka (dealer; toimen) has just declared then cut .

Kayamori’s discards after . The first 2s was tedashi (from hand) and the second 2s was tsumogiri (drawn and discarded).

Let’s begin with the analysis with Oohira’s hand, then explore the inner workings of what she can analyze with her opponent’s hands. 

First, Oohira immediately is presented with a difficult decision and that’s drawing the fourth 6m. There are currently several options she can do:

1. Declare an ankan (closed kan). 
2. Keep the 6m for an ankan later and discard another tile. 
3. Tsumogiri 6m.

Oohira overall has a solid hand for value. Let’s start off with exploring whether she should kan or not. The basic reasons to kan: 

1. You want to create more dora (generally because you have none).
2. You want an extra draw. 
3. You kan for fu. 

Reasons not to kan:

1. You can potentially create many dora for others.
2. You’re first (and you don’t want to create more value for people).
3. You lose 3 tiles to defend with.
4. You lose efficiency. (You would be unable to go chiitoi anymore.)

This kan would create a lot of potential value for Oohira most importantly because she would get a bump in fu in her hand. By declaring kan on the 6m, she would generally have enough for an easy mangan. 

Ron: Riichi + Hatsu + 1 = 3 han 60 fu = 8,000 points (kiriage mangan)
30 (base fu) + 16 (6m ankan) + 8 (Hatsu ankou) = 60 fu (54 rounded up)

In this situation, Oohira does NOT decide to kan and decides to tsumogiri the 6m after a good long thought. Why does she do that though? 

(Kayamori’s discards after .)

Let’s start exploring the discards and what she sees from Kayamori. The most striking thing that should grab your attention is the 5p discarded the previous turn. Why was 5p discarded before the 4s? This is the million dollar question. These are the main reasons why this could occur:

1. They are perfect iishanten.
2. They are going toitoi.
3. They are tenpai on 5p and shifting their wait with 4s.

There are several reasons for the early 5p discard into 4s discard after pon. A common reaction for most players is that Kayamori was perfect iishanten (see below shape) a few turns ago. 5s is now the pair and Kayamori is now tenpai for what looks to be only tanyao or hidden/atozuke yakuhai. Looking at their discards, the 4-7m suji seems to be the most dangerous due to aida-yon-ken, however, this is not the case since Oohira has all four 6m in her hand and a 56m ryanmen is not possible for Kayamori.

Perfect Iishanten Shape:
+ another ryanmen

Considering that Kayamori looks tenpai and no dora is visible for Oohira, she decides not to kan, as that maintains her chiitoi 2-shanten, and allows her to mawashi if she draws a dangerous tile.

There are other situations that may arise, such as going toitoi, and that is something that most players need to be aware of. However, there is not enough information available, thus the most sensible thing for Oohira to do here is to tsumogiri the 6m since it’s relatively safe since 3m has been discarded making the 78m waiting on 6-9m the only way to deal-in which is unlikely if this hand is tanyao-nomi. Additionally, 6m cannot deal into a toitoi hand.

 

turn 11

Since Kayamori cut 5p in advance from the 6p shape, it is clear that she needed a head.

3-6s suji wait:
or

Kayamori may have cut from the shape since it means that her original shape was where she cut 5p to determine her shape to be . After the pon and 4s cut, her hand would be something similar to + another ryanmen + . This scenario, however, eliminates the chances of the shape to lead into a ryanmen. General textbook play is to play 2 heads (pairs) at most and determine ryanmens. 

If she had instead, she would have cut her 4s earlier to solidify the ankou of 5s (and still means she would have an extra pair lying around in her hand). nobetan is also not possible since she would have cut 2s and 4s with the shape (her initial shape would have had to been ).

Let’s also consider the scenario where you have the perfect isshaten: ) + another ryanmen. Kayamori generally is not cutting 4s with the perfect isshanten because if Kayamori had cut 5p from this shape leaving her with , then there would be no reason for her to pon 6p then cut 4s leaving her headless. She would pon 6p, then cut 5s if she had the perfect isshanten with another ryanmen.

5s-8s suji wait:
or

This also cannot occur because her hand would have been why would there be a need to leave the 4s in the hand when you have the shape in your hand? If Kayamori had the shape in her hand, she would be tenpai for 3s-6s and there would be no need to pon the 6p. nobetan is also not possible since Kayamori would have cut from a and thrown away a three-sided wait. 

 

turn 15

Note: Kayamori (toimen) has tsumogiri every single draw after her pon.

Oohira has been pushing relatively safe tiles, but she draws the 9s. Kayamori (toimen) has provided a lot of information with her discards now after discarding the 2m and 7m after the pon. Now, the 2-5m suji and 4-7m suji have been cleared, which leads into the following question: What suji’s left?

Let’s take a brief break and introduce the concept of counting suji, or in Japanese terms: suji counter. This is actually a relatively newer defense method that has been gaining popularity within the last few years. The concept of the suji counter is to count the possible amount of sujis in the game. There are a total of 18 sujis in the game (6 sujis in each suit) and the concept is that once around 50% (or 9 sujis) has been cleared for a player, pushing is generally much harder as the likelihood of one dealing in with a live suji becomes increasingly higher and higher. Generally, it is recommended to fold after you need to push a live suji where a small percentage of suji is left.

Let’s start counting how many suji have been passed so far in each suit:

Manzu (Characters): The 2m, 3m, 4m, 7m, and 8m have all been discarded by Kayamori (toimen) herself, and Oohira (player) has cut 6m herself. This clears all the manzu sujis.

Pinzu (Circles): Kayamori (toimen) has only cut the 5p (2-5-8 suji) herself, but Oohira (player) has other info that makes other sujis safe. Oohira sees a kabe (wall) of 4p and 6p, so the 3-6p and 4-7p suji is cleared. Also, 6p was passed by her shimocha (player to the left). This leaves the edge 1p-4p the only suji left.

Souzu (Bamboo): Kayamori (toimen) has cut the 2s, 4s, and 8s herself and Oohira (player) has cut the 3s. This means the remaining sujis left are 6s-9s.

There are only two suji left in the game. 1-4p and 6s-9s. These are tiles that are pretty much impossible to push at this point in the game. But this leads to the question: 

Why would Kayamori (toimen) open and call for a tanyao atozuke wait and not just maintain her perfect iisshanten?

The answer would be generally, she has a hidden (or atozuke) yakuhai or she is going toitoi. The only possible yakuhai for Kayamori (toimen) are East and dragons. Kayamori (toimen) cut East herself, chun is three cut, and there is a hatsu ankou in Oohira’s own hand, Thus, haku yakuhai is the only yakuhai left available. Considering that Kayamori (dealer) with dora 3 is extremely dangerous, Oohira (player) needs to be cautious in her decisions since a deal-in is minimum 12,000 points. 

There is also the point to make is that if Oohira (player) assumed that Kayamori (toimen) was tenpai in the first place and declared 6p pon to change her wait, then the 4s discard would be extremely telling. The discard would mean that she discarded from a and shifted herself to a ryanmen because she would still need her pair somewhere and it would be in her post-pon shape .

Although she is currently iishanten for suuankou, this 9s is extremely dangerous to cut considering that there are not that many sujis left in the game. Additionally, if Oohira (player) draws the haku later on, she would have the chance of still achieving tenpai by going haku tanki for chiitoi tenpai. After evaluating that the 9s is not worth the extremely high risk of a minimum 12,000 point deal-in, she decides to shift off going a normal hand and goes chiitoi by cutting the cleared 6m. Additionally, there are no more 4p left so it is unlikely for her to win the hand even if she does get tenpai for suuankou, or even calling for toitoi tenpai. 

 

turn 16

Oohira now draws the second dangerous suji we mentioned earlier. The 1p will likely not get dropped from here and she has been rewarded for shifting to chiitoi. This is another perk of going chiitoi since this usually allows a player to keep maintaining the same shanten (tiles from tenpai) while drawing dangerous tiles. Naturally, Oohira discards her safe hatsu to maintain iishanten while hoping to pair up the 1p or 9s for tenpai.

 

turn 18

Oohira draws the 1p for chiitoi tenpai. Oohira (player) needs to make a decision whether to push for tenpai or not since 9p is shonpai (a tile has not been discarded). While 9p can possibly deal into 9p shanpon wait for toitoi, 9s can deal into both the 78s ryanmen and 9s shanpon wait. Additionally, let’s not forget that Kayamori (toimen) has tsumogiri every single tile so far after the suspicious 4s discard. This means that she had to be waiting for 9p toitoi shanpon tenpai the entire time after that wait, which is unlikely given that she is one call tenpai with just 6p pon and 4s discard afterwards. Her had would be toitoi only waiting on the 5s-9p shanpon. If she had a haku dora ankou, she would be prioritizing cutting to make ryanmens to maximize win rate. Although possible, a hand would not be too expensive if you deal into toitoi (2) + houtei (1) = 3 han (likely 30 fu) = 3,900 points.

Toitoi Assumption:
→ discard →

If we assume that Kayamori (toimen) is not tenpai, she cannot even pon 9p for tenpai since this is the last discard. You can consider haku atozuke, however, it’s important to consider that her wait is likely to be a ryanmen as well. 

Pushing for tenpai is extremely valuable since it looks like everyone else is folding out. If she completely folds, she loses a 4,000 point swing to Kayamori closing the gap between them to 15,000 points → 11,000 points, putting her nearly in range for a 2,600 (+100) all tsumo to completely close the gap. By pushing for tenpai, Oohira can maintain the 15,000 point gap on Kayamori while increasing her point gap by 1,500 points on the two other players. Since the risk is pretty minimal and the point swing is pretty huge, Oohira elects to take tenpai on the 9s.

 

ryuukyoku

Ryuukyoku: Kayamori (toimen) and Oohira (self) tenpai

The 9p push goes through and Kayamor and Oohira are both tenpai. Oohira perfectly mawashis the hand and is rewarded to find out that Kayamori was indeed on the 6s-9s wait with the haku ankou and not the tanyao-nomi that the hand looked like initially. 

 

Conclusion

By piecing together small tidbits of information, you can form a wider idea of a player’s hand. By analyzing all the possible combinations of yaku possible, and predicting possible waits via logical progression of a hand, a player can easily identify dangerous tiles and safely progress their hand and obtain points where usually not possible. This post is also a classic example of why building good awareness for reading discards is important, and how to think about the progression of another player’s hand. Although this seem like a lot to intake all at once, this is not meant for someone to instantly be able to take away something. Read this over a few times, think about how the hand can progress via the discards in Kayamori’s discards, and see if you can implement this into your usually gameplay.