Scoring yakuman hands

[essnov]

Hey y\'all,

I was wondering how some of you go about scoring the different yakuman hands in some particular cases... here\'s what I\'m talking about:

Kokushi musou (thirteen orphans):
Yakuman on single wait, double yakuman on 13-way wait?
I play it so it\'s a single yakuman either way.

chuuren pooto (nine gates):
Yakuman on single wait, double yakuman on 9-way wait?
Or maybe... chinitsu(pure flush) on single wait, yakuman on 9-way wait? I prefer playing it where yakuman is only awarded for a 9-way wait.


Shou suushi (little four winds) & dai suushi (big four winds):
Yakuman and double yakuman, respectively?
For some reason, I recoil at the idea of scoring double yakuman hands or higher- that absurd amount of points isn\'t game breaking in the least because of the miniscule chance that such a hand will occur, but I feel like yakuman should be the absolute limit.

However, little four winds is already worth at least a yakuman score, so I cannot think of another way to score big four winds than double yakuman.

Suu ankou (four concealed triplets):
Yakuman on dual pon wait, double yakuman on single wait?
Although having the ability to go ron! on a suu ankou is awesome... I\'m not sure if I should reward it with a double yakuman score? ie should I play it with a yakuman score either way?

I\'ve also heard of some people playing this so that the hand is complete the moment the fourth concealed triplet is drawn. That seems bizarre and not quite worthy of a yakuman score. Dunno!

Open riichi: Do any of y\'all play with this? I personally love it!
I do not however, score it a yakuman if it wins by ron-- just the regular 2 han.


tia

[silent observer]

chuuren pooto (nine gates):
Yakuman on single wait, double yakuman on 9-way wait?
Or maybe... chinitsu(pure flush) on single wait, yakuman on 9-way wait? I prefer playing it where yakuman is only awarded for a 9-way wait.

Hey guys, you know what would be a fun idea? If we took one of the hardest yakuman in the game and lowered its value to a chinitsu! That\'d be great.

[essnov]

I guess you make a point. It is pretty difficult to get that configuration, and even more so to get the 9-way wait without being furiten. I assume you play it so the 9-way wait scores double yakuman?

I\'ve also heard of it being played where yakuman is only awarded on a 9-way wait with the added prerequisite that the player has none of the suit\'s tiles in his pond, as well.

Then again, I have heard people say \"why score a flush with yakuman simply because it looks like nine gates,\" and that\'s basically where I\'m coming from. I\'d be pretty interested to compare the completion %\'s of the different high scoring hands, but I don\'t know if the data is at all available. It would certainly help settle arguments like this one.

Thanks for your input

edit: Just to add a thought:

If we took one of the hardest yakuman in the game and lowered its value to a chinitsu! That\'d be great.

I don\'t disagree with your line of thought that difficult hands should score higher, but I think that hands are sometimes scored based on a certain level of symmetry that is achieved, or some form of symbolism associated with the completion of the hand-- rather than how rarely it is seen. That is to say... saying a yakuman hand is \"hard\" is meaningless, because the game does not revolve around players attempting to produce it.

Any specific configuration for a single suit hand is just as rare or \"hard\" as the nine gates hand. In my opinion, nine gates is special, ie scores yakuman, because the shape allows for the 9-way wait.

Aaanyway, haha, I am definitely putting too much thought into this... but I am bored @ work. :P

[Barticle]

In the game I play you can set an option to choose whether those four cases score as Double Yakuman or not. I have the option on. :)

BTW I think I chucked a Nine Gates hand a few days ago... I was going for chinitsu and didn´t even think about the limit hand but I basically had it. Nooooo! :dry:

I\'d be pretty interested to compare the completion %\'s of the different high scoring hands, but I don\'t know if the data is at all available. It would certainly help settle arguments like this one.

Hotel drew up some stats from the Tenhou site a few weeks ago but only included the more common Yakuman (since that´s what I asked for).

http://preview.tinyurl.com/yakuman

...for the record, I´ve got five named Yakuman since then. whoop! :woohoo: (although I am playing offline)

Speaking of difficult limit hands, I found a corker recently in an old book of Chinese Mahjong (where the flower/season bonus tiles are used of course).

It´s called Heavenly Paradise and the requirements are:

a pung/kong of red dragon
a pung/kong of white dragon
a pung/kong of green dragon

(so that´s Big Three Dragons for starters)

PLUS a pung/kong of your Seat Wind when in Double Wind

PLUS a pair of another wind

PLUS a bouquet (matching set of four) flower tiles!

Apparently for scoring the three losers have to give the winner all their scoring chips and then pay the cash value of the original pool! The hand´s so tough that you score the top limit just for being tenpai with it. :laugh:

[Barticle]

Actually... checking the Tenhou link from Hotel´s post I notice that I can see the kanji now (I´m on a different computer). Here are the completion stats from the first column on the front page - I assume this is the percentage of winning hands with these in.

0.04366 - Thirteen Orphans
0.04286 - Big Three Drags
0.04266 - Four Concealed Pungs

0.01044 - Little Four Winds
0.00855 - All Honours
0.00497 - Four Conc Pungs pair wait (I assume)

0.00239 - All Green
0.00169 - All Terminals

0.00070 - Earthly Hand (Chiihou)
0.00050 - Heavenly Hand (Tenhou)

0.00050 - Nine Gates
0.00050 - Thirteen Orphans 13-sided wait

0.00030 - Big Four Winds
0.00020 - Four Kongs

[essnov]

Wow! Thanks a lot for that link. Very useful.

I can\'t recall how tenhou handles nine gates....

a few weeks ago someone went ron on a discard of mine for it. I\'m not sure, but I think he was on a single wait for the 1 bamboo and it counted as yakuman alright. :side:

[Barticle]

It´s great to see data from such a large sample where even the rarest of hands are included. I can´t read that page now (I´m at work and gaming sites are blocked :S) but I only remember seeing one entry for Nine Gates - so perhaps no-one has made it with the 9-sided wait? Either that or it´s only allowed with the big wait.

There´s a clear division if you wanted to assign Yakuman scores based on how rare the hands are...

Thirteen Orphans, Big Three Dragons and Four Concealed Pungs could be Yakuman.

The next few could be 1.5 x Yakuman and Three Kongs could be included here as it´s just as rare.

Then Chiihou, Tenhou, Nine Gates, 13-sided Thirteen Orphans, Big Four Winds and Four Kongs could be Double Yakuman.

Alternatively the three bands could be Sanbaiman, Yakuman and Double Yakuman.