Discard while defending

[Mauro]

What would you discard if you want to defend in this situation? are half-suji (9-crak and were discarded after toimen riichied), while is dangerous; but we have three , so if it pass we are safe for three rounds.

[Gnom]

As you state you don't have anything 100 % safe, and I wouldn't bet on 6-man ou 6-sou to be safe just because the 9 were discarded, that's too weak of an info. If those were naka-suji (if the 3s get discarded later), why not.

For now, I'd try my luck on a 8 bambou, since I can see 3 of the 7-sou. It's still dangerous and I would have liked to see all 4, but this seems like the less dangerous for now...

[Shirluban]

Agreed, is the safest tile. And by "safest" I don't mean it's actually safe.

In this situation, you have very few info to defend (riichi on the 5th discard), pretty much all your tiles are as dangerous, it's early in the game (East 1), your hand can progress quickly and can worth quite some points (men-tan-pin, possible 567 sanshoku). So I won't defend at this point.

[Mauro]

If you draw a useful but safe tile (let's say a ), would you defend and discard it, or go on and trying to win? I am far from winning, and the hand isn't so big (riichi, tanyo, pinfu... that's 3900, and pinfu could be difficult because I dropped ; and if I use the set, I lose pinfu, so 2600, barring ippatsu, tsumo and/or uradora), so I'd think about defending.

[Gnom]

My answer of discarding the 8s is intended to earn some time, and see the 3 next discards. It's hard to decide anything until then. Say someone throws away a 7s and it goes through I'd take that opportunity to be safe for 3 turns (unless I pick up some safe tile). But if all is equally dangerous, might as well go towards tenpai.