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Hey guys, I got this to the forums a bit late, but have at it!!

South Round, 2nd Hand, Dealer, 15,000 points, Lucky Tile: 1-dot

2-crak3-crak4-crak6-crak7-crak8-crak6-bam7-bam5-dot6-dot6-dot8-dot:south:south

Six pin. The hand is mostly formed, the south winds can be used as a head (and deny the yaku from other players). Discarding anything else either breaks up a set, or limits the possibilities for a mixed triple run which could, in this hand, viably be in 567 or 678.

Alternately you could cut the 8 pin if you\'re aiming at a quick, cheap hand using the south winds for a yaku. I wouldn\'t want to do that though, despite dealer, because I might have to steal for it, it devalues the hand, and I\'m rather low on points (though perhaps that\'s a reason to play a fast hand to maintain dealer seat).

Chuck the pair of South winds.
You\'re in the hole, it\'s your deal, and you\'ve got a perfect men tan pin possible sanshoku staring you in the face. So... gotta go for it, right?

I\'m still new to Mahjong, goin on about 6 months, but here is my take.

If you throw the five, it could very well come back to bite you in the ass if thats what you get dealt instead of the 7 when you go out. You gotta make a play, and the best way to do it is to cut the souths. This can turn into a pure money hand, but the souths are standing in your way.

You keep the five, and if you draw another one you can cut a six or the other south if it\'s still left. The fives make your head and if you\'re really lucky, you can be waiting on the bams set to give you the tanyao.

Keeping the souths could give you \"richi, south, sanshoku\" for a marginal mangan minimum, but still good, but by cutting the souths, the least possible hand turns into \"Riichi, tanyao, sanshoku, but you also get the lead into pinfu for at least a mangan and if you get the ippatsu, already a haneman.\"

I really should have considered dropping the souths it looks like.

I am far too set, I suppose, on having my head already formed in a hand and am not eager to take it apart. That, as has been pointed out, exclused two han worth of yaku: pinfu and tanyao.

I think July and Johnston had a much better analysis, though depending on how the board looks, I might opt for keeping them just to get a faster tenpai. Discarding the six gets you to one from tenpai (I believe) with a decent array of tiles that can get you there. Discarding the South puts you at two from tenpai (?). If I think I have time to redirect my hand like that, it\'s worth going for, but otherwise I\'d rather hold dealer seat if I can.

(Also, discarding the South late in the game might be dangerous, so I\'d have to consider that as well).

Since it didn\'t say anything, I just assumed it was the first discard.

I would also say the souths, mainly because it\'s specified that you\'re down pretty heavily (at 15,000 points).

Otherwise I would consider going for the faster tenpai, although I wouldn\'t open the hand except for defense.