8-crak The most obvious reason for cutting 8c has already been mentioned: only two tiles are backfires if we cut it. The natural progression of the hand will be to remove one of the three 4b in order to make two sequences in bamboo, and then remove the second 8c so that we can wait on [4-6]c which i...

Chalk up another one for Saki. I learned how to play so I could follow the anime; although I learned the actual rules from Wikipedia and the like.

2-dot Keeping 2d only buys you something if you later draw 1d (completing 123d towards pinfu) or you later draw 2d (completing 22d towards seven pairs). The first case isn't really desirable because there are only two copies of 1d left, and we'd lose tanyao. In the second case, keeping 2d isn't any ...

Hard to see this any other way. The ittsu isn't any easier than sanshoku junchan, and is worth less. From a more basic standpoint, you aren't improving your tenpai by keeping the 4d either.

9-crak There are no tiles in our hand which are guaranteed safe. Getting rid of 9c moves us closer to tenpai with tanyao, which is callable (I presume), and one way we might get out of this situation. As was already mentioned in less English, we can see three of the copies of 8c, so it is somewhat l...

3-crak I want to keep the seven pairs hand (I like that hand). Obviously I want to keep the double dora if at all possible. Frankly I would have no issue with cutting the 5c or the 6d instead, but cutting 3c has the extremely minor advantage that if you later draw into 5c and, somehow, cutting the d...

8-dot An ittsu in bamboo is worth the same as sanshoku would be, but you won't be able to score both, and the ittsu will necessarily complete before sanshoku, so why bother with the lackluster [-89]d shape? I'd be looking for the ittsu in bamboo, but I'd hold on to the extra 3b for a bit in case I w...

1-crak My reasoning is essentially the same. There's only one 9m left, and even if you get the straight, you lose tanyao, which is only a 1 han difference closed and (if open tanyao is allowed) worth the same open. Just go for the tanyao with two dora and whatever else you can get on the side. I'd o...

I didn't actually do any calculations, but the [2344]b shape looks pretty poor to me. This shape is already down two of the completing tiles by its nature, and there are two 1b in the pond, meaning its waiting on 4 tiles. It's not obviously better than a middle wait to me, and half of the completing...

9-bam I see no reason to take apart your chance for seven pairs (by discarding 3m) just to add a triplet to this hand. Having a triplet of 9b won't buy you much unless you can manage two more closed triplets, which seems unlikely and doesn't pay more han than seven pairs anyways. Additionally, a sev...

4-bam Keeping the 4b only buys you the possibility of getting [234][456][77] in bamboo if you later draw the 5b. However, this isn't any more likely than drawing into the middle of the [5-7] shape in characters, and the 5m is what you would probably discard if you kept the 4b. Since the 5m is next t...

Is there some kind of peak time when people are on? Because I haven't been able to play at all recently. Please include a timezone if you answer.

2-dot Something I very nearly missed before posting my answer is that there is a 3m in our pond. This is important because if we draw 4m later, we'd be furiten for 3/6m. I don't know what our draw/discard sequence up this point was, but I should say I probably wouldn't have discarded the 3m if the r...

@WaveMaster : Is there a reason you choose the 7-dot and not the 4-dot ? It's not hugely important, but if I do riichi within the next few discards, having the 7 in my pond reveals less information than the 4. If the 4 is out, anyone trying to play defense but short on completely safe tiles would g...

7-dot I keep the 9 character to hold on to the chance for iipeko. If you discard 4-dot 7-dot it is true that the tenpai chance is 4 tiles bigger thanks to two 9-crak and two 8-bam remaining. However, even if you drew 8-bam or 9-crak the very next draw, what do you do? "Reach only"? In a flat East 1?...