Bluffing Column on Front Page

[HotelFSR]

I can understand why verbal bluffing is not allowed in parlor games, partly because it could enable collaborative cheating.

However, do people use silent behavioral bluffs in Japan? Is it frowned upon? For example, moving your eyebrows, changing your breathing, posture, looking surprised, strong, weak, etc. to throw your opponent off? I would have thought it\'s an important part of strategy.

[Tom Sloper]

A lot of that is unavoidable or unintentional, of course. Most of the time I just maintain an even behavior, but sometimes I notice myself shifting in my seat at turning points. I try to catch myself and make myself stifle such movements. And sometimes I might make myself give intentionally misleading body signals. Breathing, posture, pausing to look at a tile, etc.

I imagine that \"frowning upon\" such body language could only be enforced in extreme cases where someone is being overly overt.

[glasnost]

What about the case where you draw a tile that is already in your hand, and rather than tsumokiri, you discard the older tile? This seems to toe the line of \"quiet bluffs\"; on the one hand, it is an action designed solely to mislead your opponent, but it doesn\'t seem quite as openly disingenuous as, say, pretending to agonize over an obvious discard.

[HotelFSR]

I\'ve seen this on several pro TV videos so I assume it\'s allowed.

[Benjamin]

What about the case where you draw a tile that is already in your hand, and rather than tsumokiri, you discard the older tile? This seems to toe the line of "quiet bluffs"; on the one hand, it is an action designed solely to mislead your opponent, but it doesn\'t seem quite as openly disingenuous as, say, pretending to agonize over an obvious discard.

Thats called "katagiri" I guess you could say its designed solely to fool your opponents, but I\'ve never seen people frown over it. You\'re more likely to get in trouble for doing a hikkake riichi or winning a meaningless hand in the last round, and both of those things are perfectly legal too.

(Yes, shamisen--bluffing--isn\'t exactly illegal but people will consider it incredibly unsportsmanlike at best and grounds for kicking you out of the game at worst. Mahjong is not Poker.)

[HotelFSR]

Winning a meaningless hand is clearly very annoying.

What is a hikkake riichi? Having a kanchan wait on 2 after reaching on a 5? Surely that is a very valid strategy!?


Besides that, are you basically saying that even subtle bluffing is frowned upon? I\'m confused.

[HotelFSR]

Another thing:

If even silent bluffing is considered impolite (which I\'m not sure we have a clear answer on yet), why is draw-switching considered OK? I find that far more \'unsportsmanlike\' if you want to call it that.

By draw-switching I mean the move you often see pros do where they use a quick flick of the hand to switch their drawn tile with the last tile at the end of the hand, making it hard to tell whether they are discarding the drawn tile or a tile from the hand.

[Ruro]

hmm i saw that kind of move too, and it\'s quite common for what i can see in mahjong tv programs (yea on youtube :P hell i want normal quality subtitled mahjong vids :P ) It\'s strange but that move seems to be \"legal\", and looks like to be a behaviour of some players (correct me if i\'m wrong in this).

[Benjamin]

Hikkake-riichi is waiting on a suji on one of the tiles in your discards. It\'s called moro-hikake when the suji is of the tile you used to declare riichi.

Some people really do think that moro-hikkake is a mean thing to do. Personally I disagree, but many people don\'t.

Another thing:

If even silent bluffing is considered impolite (which I\'m not sure we have a clear answer on yet), why is draw-switching considered OK? I find that far more \'unsportsmanlike\' if you want to call it that.

By draw-switching I mean the move you often see pros do where they use a quick flick of the hand to switch their drawn tile with the last tile at the end of the hand, making it hard to tell whether they are discarding the drawn tile or a tile from the hand.

I guess the difference is that you\'re adding false information as opposed to hiding information. Also, katagiri and "draw-switching" are pretty unlikely to be effective. If you\'re paying attention, you can see through both. It\'s also worth mentioning that it\'s impossible to catch someone doing a kata-giri, while you will catch a shamisen every time they win.

You keep on asking for reasons, but it\'s not like there was a committee of people that got together to discuss this; it\'s just what most people think is good manners. Shamisen will get people mad at you, the other two probably won\'t.

[iandstanley]

What about the case where you draw a tile that is already in your hand, and rather than tsumokiri, you discard the older tile?

Been there ... it can be particularly effective against some players if you are the type of player who continually moves tile sets around or plays with an unsorted hand.

You can easily be at tenpai (without riichi) and the player on your left can get disorientated

Also on a similar vein is walking the chow e.g. 2-dot3-dot4-dot drawing 5-dot and discarding 2-dot. You have to be careful you don\'t land yourself furiten (possible if you end up with overlapping chows)

[iandstanley]

Thinking about some of the moves discussed in this thread here are some of the odd habits I find myself performing.

Maybe I am getting paranoid, .... but it is a very common practice in Bridge (contract/duplicate) to not only card count but pay attention to the exact position where the opponents draw their cards from .... maybe this has affected my mahjong playing.


Some expert players play the hand unsorted, but us mere mortals normally have to play with some sorting (though I normally try to keep moving tiles around from hand to hand not keeping say the order of suits the same or splitting up suits when they are not overlapping runs ...

e.g. a pair 8-bam8-bam I would normally keep away from two lower runs like 1-bam1-bam2-bam2-bam3-bam3-bam separated with some other suit or honours

:unsure:Is it considered bad form to switch parts of your hand across the another part between your draw and discard? :unsure:.

Say I have 1-bam3-bam 1-bam2-bam3-bam :east:east:east 6-dot7-dot 9-dot :west red-dot drawing 2-bam.

I would probably leave it were it was on the right of the hand (being close to the end and drawing right handed) ditching the 9-dot.
However, if my hand was less complete maybe only halfway there I would more likely split up the 1-bam 3-bam 1-bam 2-bam 3-bam moving the 2-bam 3-bam across to mid hand pulling the intervening ties across to left or right over the next few turns leaving the runs intact but separated.

If I am collecting hands based on flushes I often place the tile in the vicinity rather than in order. Chows are often found reversed in my hand. Pong/Kong based hands often end up any where.


Sometimes when I am sure that my opponents are concentrating too much on where I a placing my tiles I have been know to move parts of my hand in an attempt to disjoin the placement of my tiles with the collection of them (e.g. the head or two proposed discards over to be next to the tile I have just drawn and discarding a fourth tile ... later breaking up this \"set\" quite openly later in the case of two proposed discard tiles)


Also I do find myself performing katagiri if my hand is ready/near-ready and all I have done for the last few turns is tsumokiri

[iandstanley]

Another thing:

If even silent bluffing is considered impolite (which I\'m not sure we have a clear answer on yet), why is draw-switching considered OK? I find that far more \'unsportsmanlike\' if you want to call it that.

Draw-switching (as shown towards the 1 minute mark in this video http://www.youtube.com/v/S_PA23TaPoE&hl=ja)

:unsure: Would you consider it unsportsmanlike to keep track of where tiles are being placed?

I have never draw-switched in this fashion (with short stubby fingers .. I guess it would need a bit of practising) however I have done a similar thing in large hand drawing card games like Gin ... drawing the card to the right of the hand but then running the card across the face of the cards with my thumb and then sliding it into position whilst the next player is concentrating on their hands. Again this is a habit developed from playing with card players who concentrate on where you are placing your cards rather than on your discards.