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I'll discard the , it's only helpful for 456 sanshoku which seems quite far away, or 234 iipeikou which is not close either.
Discarding any tile else than 4s will lower the agari% too much* for a too uncertain reward, and since I'm East I'd like to keep the renchan.

* 5m won't lower the agari% (5788 and 4677 are equivalent), but it' helps to get the 4m dora, and we need it if we go for sanshoku 456 anyway.

Indeed so. No matter how I look at it, .

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 to the dora, I'll hold onto it and drop the 4b.

Perhaps a more devious question: do you discard the 4b you drew, or the one from your hand?

Discarding the 4s is also better for getting tanyao. And it technically has the widest path to tenpai because of the discarded 8m. All factors are in its favor.

However, discarding the 4b and then drawing the 9m is where it gets interesting. I would drop the 8m.

Yeah, but which suusou do we discard?

Referee wrote:Yeah, but which suusou do we discard?

Same question I thought of when looking at the picture.

I hardly think there is a problem in that department.

Tsumogiri. Obviously, you don't want to pointlessly inform that you have shapes around souzu.

If you discard 4s from inside the hand, even if you draw the ideal 6m right away, 4s and 7s tedashi just makes your opponents more aware of 58s (ura suji+matagi suji).

If you tsumogiri the difference is very marginal, but still in favor, as it sends the least information.

I can't believe some people karagiri every single time they can. Sometimes it's a valid strategy, but most of the time you're either:
a) Sending a message you don't want to send.
b) Wasting everyone's time as it takes you a little longer to reach for the tile inside your hand.

There are also other very delicate times when you must think if you'll karagiri or tsumogiri (when you have 667 or 6677 or similar shapes in your hand, hide your tenpai smell, give people in betaori a hard time making them know that the tile that just passed may not be safe anymore, etc), but you'll have the least losses by tsumogiri'ing when in doubt.

I see no reason for discarding the 4s from the hand.

Make your opponents think that your hand is closer to tenpai, or maybe in silent tenpai?
It's only the 5th discard, so they would certainly think you're not in silent tenpai yet. And if East is tenpai on the 5th discard and not reach, he must have a bad wait, so they would probably keep attacking anyway. Such a move have no frightening power at this point.

Point them out that you had keep the 4s that long?
At best they would conclude nothing, since even a lonely is more interesting than .
At worst they would focus on it, which is bad if you end waiting for 58s.

In this hand as dealer I just want the fastest Ready/tempai. I'm not looking at sanshoku (three colors) or dora, so I want to discard the

Maybe this is why Garthe has final tables and I don't, though. I wonder what he would discard from here.

I agree with Jenn that 5c is fastest to tenpai and it's probably what I would do if dora were not 4c.

But in this situation it just seems so early to be giving up on both 3 Colored Runs (sanshoku) and using dora.

True, if we draw 8c or 7b, we miss getting tenpai but it's still only Simples, just one hand point. Obviously, we wouldn't reach until we had a better wait, but if we're going to end up waiting anyway, why not aim for the bigger hand in the first place. This could be Reach, Simples, Peace, 3 Colored Runs, dora. With Concealed Self Draw, First Turn Win, and Hidden Dora also possible, this could easily turn into Baiman, 8000 points from everyone.

BTW, right on with the tsumogiri comment xkime. I have been chastised in study groups pretty much every time I do it and for those very reasons. You are almost certainly not sending the message you think you're sending. I remember it working once when I was playing a match with Takizawa on TV, getting him to throw my winner. Afterward, the other pros chastised him as much for being fooled by it as they did me for doing it. Keep your hand secret, don't give away free information.

How are we working out how fast we make tenpai? Because i could've sworn that the 4b is just as fast as the 5c (though pretty poor at mahjong).

The 4b doesn't only go for the 4677 shape. It also fits in the 2344 shape. If we draw 1b, 4b or 8b the hand becomes an excellent iishanten shape for a pinfu hand that uses two 4bs as the pair.

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 tiles are terminals in which case you don't have tanyao anymore.