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or

Drop 7-man in the hope for San Ankou. But it won't hurt dropping the 8-sou either, where drawing 6-sou would be ideal. Either choice leaves 1-shanten, with plenty of waits.

As a near-beginner I'd drop the . What I would be left with would allow me a draw of "lots**" of tiles (I think 4 different... the or or or ) to declare reach.

** "lots" to me means that in my head I see the possibility of several or more good draws - as a beginner and under the time pressure of an online game I can't always see every possible tile that will put me in Tenpai but I can identify "good patterns" in my hand that tend to lead to happy endings... I'm sure someday I'll be able to assess my hands more mathematically.

most definitely.

Looks like a good option to go for San Ankô. And we´re at the start of the hand, so if it doesn´t work, we can manage to get something useful to win this hand.

OK, so discarding is the fastest to tenpai.

Buuut, if you drew or next turn, would you riichi? Or would you stay damaten with no yaku and wait to draw a for dora/tanyao or tenpai for sanankou (or just a tsumo)?

I'm going to go against the flow here and volunteer the before the .

While dropping the leaves you with a more versatile hand, I'm not comfortable with the combination, as it's too open to . If I draw that, any potential tanyao I could get from drawing a goes out the window. Even if I decide I want to push for that tanyao and drop the , then boom - uncomfortable furiten.

While having a group isn't nearly as secure, it's still a double wait (at this point) and it still carries absolutely no risk of violating your potential tanyao.

mrrrx wrote:OK, so discarding is the fastest to tenpai.

Buuut, if you drew or next turn, would you riichi? Or would you stay damaten with no yaku and wait to draw a for dora/tanyao or tenpai for sanankou (or just a tsumo)?

It's east third in a east round game. A plain riichi tsumo moves us from tie-last to 3000 above third place, and we keep the dealer spot. Getting the fastest possible riichi and win is priority here. And even if it wasn't, the hand improvement chances are too low. There's a 50% chance we just draw our winning tile and regret not riiching.

While I also agree with the general consensus of 7m, some of the intentions in the thread are from planet Zorblax.

Excuse me if this sounds rude, but do any of you actually play mahjong IRL as opposed to just clicking tiles on the internet ?


The tanyao crowd is hoping for a possibility that by fuzzy math can only occur one out of three times. (1 - 1/2 * 2/3)
The sanankou crowd is hoping for a possibility requiring draws that don't advance to tenpai, and those that do, require you to ignore it for at leeast one extra turn.

Is it wrong to see possibilities when they can be done, of course not. If the 6p gets drawn, then the tanyao plan can be put into effect, all while not penalizing the rest of the hand's race to tenpai. Is it something to aim for or wait on, no, and it's not really worthy of mentioning. The only time mentioning "well maybe tanyao would be a good idea" is when you can discard the tiles to get there. You can't here. Otherwise, cut 9p and explain why it's a good thing. The problem is the broadcasted monologue of the obvious: it's good to maximize hand value *when possible*, the possibilities are out of the player's control here, thus should not form the basis of a decision.

As for the sanshoku crowd, you're saying after this T-1 hand, if you grab a tile to make a set out of stumps, you would be waiting on a 3-6s wait, but then would be gleefully ready to cut that wait down to a 4s solo wait (5s furiten), I'm not saying you failed the point maximization quiz, but there's so much else to consider, like actually winning the hand. Neglecting speed for fantasy options never works. The chances of it even occuring are slim. If you get a two-stump wait 4488s, or worse, 5588s, then you just took the long road just to get sanankou by tsumo, one chance out of "3 to 4" just for that to occur.

If you are dealing, the choice is obvious. Apparently the reasons why aren't because of false intentions. This is still the truth when you consider that this is an East-only game (!): win fast, and clam for 2nd is a better strategy than letting someone tsumo this turn and make you 4th alone, rather than tied with someone else for 3rd/last.


I implore the whole lot of you to find a game IRL to play. EMA if you have to in Europe (although if you know an open tanyao club, do go there), or within any solid group in North America (that's Montreal, New York, Rochester NY, Michigan, and probably Seattle). Plan your next vacation for it. There are too many people who play online with a desensitized approach to losing that need the shock therapy of playing in a world with no redos, no replays, and no pin-ups for at least a dozen IRL games. You need live players who can actually counsel and teach on what works and what doesn't, because players often summarily ignore advice delivered to them "through the internet" as if they believe their opinion can automatically countermand someone else's. All opinions have value, and zero is also a value. Don't make that mistake hastily.

Seriously, google any of "mahjong montreal", "uspml", "hammergirl mahjong rit", "ddrmtu mahjong" and step it up, today.

Senechal wrote:Excuse me if this sounds rude, but do any of you actually play mahjong IRL as opposed to just clicking tiles on the internet ?

Yes. Though I'll have you know that I play just as poorly in real life as I do online!

Senechal wrote:All opinions have value, and zero is also a value.

Zero is the lack of a positional value. It's a common mistake.

Iapetus wrote:

mrrrx wrote:OK, so discarding is the fastest to tenpai.

Buuut, if you drew or next turn, would you riichi? Or would you stay damaten with no yaku and wait to draw a for dora/tanyao or tenpai for sanankou (or just a tsumo)?

It's east third in a east round game. A plain riichi tsumo moves us from tie-last to 3000 above third place, and we keep the dealer spot. Getting the fastest possible riichi and win is priority here. And even if it wasn't, the hand improvement chances are too low. There's a 50% chance we just draw our winning tile and regret not riiching.

If you draw the winning tile without riichi it's still a win that puts you in 2nd, just like a riichi-only hand would. Plus you've got the added possibility of upgrading to a hand worth at least 7700 to blow past 1st. I think the only thing you're losing is the chance to ron (if you think people will deal in) or the chance to throw other people off their hands (if you think they won't deal in).

I guess I'm playing Devil's Advocate because I agree with you, I'd riichi for the last 2 reasons unless I really HAD to get 1st place for some reason. I've just never really considered damaten with no yaku before though so I wanted to think it through and i'm really slow at thinkin'. (I also heard 2 people mention potential sanankou and I did not consider that at all and was wondering how they plan on getting it.)

Also, Senechal, please tell me where I can play with redos online. I think I will improve a lot because I always discard the wrong tile and then yell at my computer "NO, WAIT, REDO!" but it doesn't work.

mrrrx : To address your desire to play with redos, you can do it on any internet client. When you lose, you play again, under a mentality more appropriate to XBOX or WoW achievements. As long as you win once, even if your ranking averages to 2.85, it counts. This mentality is dangerous to play under. If you were hoping for a client with a back button, well, get coding, you seem to be the only person who cares for it.

wavemotion : Zero is an integer value, equidistant from -1 and +1. Confusing zero with null is not correct, and you know it.

Senechal wrote:wavemotion : Zero is an integer value, equidistant from -1 and +1. Confusing zero with null is not correct, and you know it.

Zero is an integer. Zero does not have value. You're entitled to your opinion. Even if it lacks positional value.

I'll also discard .
We're East, at the end of the game (East 3 in an East-only game), and with almost the same score for 2nd, 3rd and 4th place.
So, I'll go for the fastest hand to stay East.

It's unlikely to make sanankou or sanshoku, since we will be tenpai before that.

@Kanhir: The potential tanyao don't worth breaking the potential 3-side wait.
IMHO, it would be better to discard 7m, draw 9s and reach (East, 2-side wait, the early discard of 5s may let thinks we don't have much bamboos), than waiting for a specific tile to come with a no-yaku hand.

wavemotion wrote:as a beginner and under the time pressure of an online game I can't always see every possible tile that will put me in Tenpai

I'll advise you to take this time for WWYD. Unlike online and IRL games, you're not in a hurry here.
Finding out every tiles that improve the hand is a good training and will help you to analyze your hand faster in real situations.

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@waemotion: What do you mean exactly by "positional value"?

Shirluban wrote:

wavemotion wrote:as a beginner and under the time pressure of an online game I can't always see every possible tile that will put me in Tenpai

I'll advise you to take this time for WWYD. Unlike online and IRL games, you're not in a hurry here.
Finding out every tiles that improve the hand is a good training and will help you to analyze your hand faster in real situations.

Yes, this (along with better reading of my opponent's discards) are two areas I need to work on. And with those two bits of improvement hopefully I'll better know when to take a stand and when to fold. Right now, it's a bit of a crap-shoot.

Shirluban wrote:@waemotion: What do you mean exactly by "positional value"?

This is way off topic and likely bore people to tears but... Hindu-Arabic numerals use a positional value or positional number system. The positional value concept is simple but went largely undiscovered by the Romans and Greeks (for all their achievements they didn't have a numeric representation for "nothing"). Positional value means that the actual value of a digit depends on its position (how far left) within the number and how far from "nothing" it was. In the Hindu-Arabic system, a number like 499 means the '4' does not have a value of '4' but rather '400'. The Romans and Greeks did not have any way to indicate lack of positional value (hence their series of strange additions and subtractions from unique base numbers ... 499 is represented by CDXCIX ... essentially 500 minus 100 plus 100 minus 10 plus 9) - they did not have a zero "placeholder". The Chinese did have a concept of zero but had no real representation for it - instead they considered it "Empty" or "Void" (when ancient Chinese would try to convey this he would simply indicate nothing by the lack of counting sticks though sometimes it would be written as 空 "empty" or "null"). This early concept of "zero" was the the lack of something or the absence of value. In early positional systems (counting rods and similar) a space was often left to indicate lack of positional value and in the extreme case of lack of value, all counting sticks would be vacant indicating "nothing". Later, the Mayans used a symbol to represent this lack of positional value ... likely the first use of 'zero' (I think they used some sort of sea-shell symbol). By itself (i.e. the number 0), zero lacks value. It is the absence of value. Weird things happen when you try to use it as having value - specifically division (you cannot divide "nothing" or "the absence of something" into something else and come up with anything meaningful... and infinity is not the correct answer). I took a shine to the concept of zero in my study of the Chinese abacus and Japanese soroban.

When I say Zero is the lack of positional value I am not saying Zero is not a number. Zero is a number (a fantastic number at that!). Zero is an integer - it is the smallest non-negative number (it is also an Even-number by the only accepted rules of mathematically proving Even -- though there are debaters).

My point wasn't to drill home a lesson in counting systems but to lightly jab at a poster who came across as berating well-meaning discussion. For that, I apologize.