another gameplay question

[or2az]

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ok, some easy questions, I think? Games are hanchan and its early in the matches.
#1) Do I claim the from south, discard the , and aim for open tanyao OR, do I pass on the tile and stay concealed?
Would it matter if I wasn't EAST or if I didn't have the red five?
What about if it was late in the match and I was still ahead in the score?

#2) Do I claim the from EAST for tenpai or do I pass on the tile and stay concealed?
Would it matter if the were not dora tiles?

#2A) I decided to open the hand above.
NOW, do I claim the from NORTH, for the extra yaku and dora, and have a tanki wait, OR, do I pass on the dragon in favor of the double sided
wait? Notice here I am behind in the score.

[Masa]

#1) I don't claim the pon of five. it is not critical point in your hand. if you go to open-tanyao, 6p-8p is critical. If left player discard the 7p, I would open as the first.
and if you pon right now, only 2p will be the head most likely, it is not good. also you have 4b. you can wait 3b and 6b.

#2) Also I would do that as you see 9b is 3rd one. it is almost last chance to declare.

#3) I make pon and discard 7p. it can stop other players hands due to it is difficult to discard white dragon for shosushi. then if you draw other 1,9, honor just change it from 8p.

[Ozball]

#1) I don't claim the pon of five. it is not critical point in your hand. if you go to open-tanyao, 6p-8p is critical. If left player discard the 7p, I would open as the first.
and if you pon right now, only 2p will be the head most likely, it is not good. also you have 4b. you can wait 3b and 6b.

#2) Also I would do that as you see 9b is 3rd one. it is almost last chance to declare.

#3) I make pon and discard 7p. it can stop other players hands due to it is difficult to discard white dragon for shosushi. then if you draw other 1,9, honor just change it from 8p.

I agree pretty much with what Masa said above. Though for #2) I'd add that grabbing the 9b here gives you the possibility of Chanta as well (while if you picked up a 6b or 7b later you'd lose that possibility).

To go into a bit more detail for how I see #3): You're currently sitting at 3 han minimum with a good chance at 4. Though with the 4th (chanta) you'll still be short of Manga (unless you use the rule that rounds the 7700 and 11600 hands up to mangan). If you pon the green dragon you're immediately at mangan. (Yaku, yaku, dora 3) If you then get a good terminal/honour that you can swap out the 8p for then you can push yourself up to haneman with the extra yaku from Chanta. (or even baiman if you manage to get a white dragon before the third is discarded, but as Masa said, don't count on them dropping the fourth for you.)

Also Masa: Do you mean Shousangen rather than Shousushi? The latter is the Yakuman that is made up of a pon of three winds and a pair of the last.

[Masa]

Haha I'm stupid.. how come shosushi from this hand !!!! yes, shousangen I meant.
Also I was more stupid that I forgot Hatsu is dora!! in #3. I will add comment again.
If you pon of green dragon(dora3), they would be drop from this game. probability of winning is going to less. but this hand include the potential to go to baiman as Ozball said.
But 3,900 or 7,700 can expect from your hand still. and consider the current point, 3,900 and 7,700 is enough, Still south is remain.
If you want have dream of baiman, you can go ahead to pon. For me ?? I like dream and if fail can get 3,000 point from others.

[or2az]

Ok guys, very good comments and explanations. I understand all the possibilities and "what ifs" and "maybe then" but just for the moment, lets stick to the facts and the initial decision that has to be made because it's still a little unclear to me. Let me summarize. (Q.#3)
A) PONNING THE GREEN DRAGON: I will have yaku-yaku and 3 dora. Discard will be either and I will have a tanki wait of 4 available tiles.
B) NOT PONNING THE GREEN DRAGON: I will have yaku and 2 dora and a ryanmen wait of , a total of 7 available tiles.
(if I get the , extra yaku of chanta)
REMEMBER, you only get all these wonderful points IF YOU WIN and the ryanmen wait almost doubles your chances.
So, is it A.....or B?....................................................(both of you seem to favor A, is that correct?)

[Ozball]

There is no one really right answer to be honest. It will come down to your own play style. For me, you're only 6,400 points behind first and you still have the whole of the south round to go. You know when three of the Dora are and the 4th is useless to anyone else (barring Kokushi). So the chances of you playing into a large (mangan+) hand is reasonably low, and you'll get some warning when they reach to raise their score potential. So for me there is no rush to secure the points with a lower score, and would try for the higher score. (with or without chanta)

[or2az]

Found this question in a 5 year old post. Nobody answered it. I seem to always pon them too so I've often wondered the same thing. Any comments?

When you have a pair of any dragon, or multiple pairs of them, should you pung it when you have a chance for that yaku? It's a give and take kinda situation, if you pung, you get your one yaku however you lose out the chance to Riichi (Yes I already know that Riichi isn't always the choice) and your hand becomes open, which makes you lose out on many other hands. Another problem is that you usually have to choose early on, so you can't really tell if your hand is heading the way of a good concealed hand, unless it's already semi-set up early on. I found that hands that win with a punged dragon aren't really worth much unless you get lucky with dora bonuses. Computers ALWAYS pung them though...winds and dragons. {tang, 7/16/09}

I have a similar question:
Suppose you have a really bad starting hand that doesn't look like it's going anywhere except that you have a pair of dragons or value winds. Is it ever a good idea to start calling everything in sight in anticipation of getting that 3rd dragon/wind (atozuke is allowed) and try for a possible quick win, or do you fold and start playing defense from the first tile?

[Ozball]

Found this question in a 5 year old post. Nobody answered it. I seem to always pon them too so I've often wondered the same thing. Any comments?

When you have a pair of any dragon, or multiple pairs of them, should you pung it when you have a chance for that yaku? It's a give and take kinda situation, if you pung, you get your one yaku however you lose out the chance to Riichi (Yes I already know that Riichi isn't always the choice) and your hand becomes open, which makes you lose out on many other hands. Another problem is that you usually have to choose early on, so you can't really tell if your hand is heading the way of a good concealed hand, unless it's already semi-set up early on. I found that hands that win with a punged dragon aren't really worth much unless you get lucky with dora bonuses. Computers ALWAYS pung them though...winds and dragons. {tang, 7/16/09}

I have a similar question:
Suppose you have a really bad starting hand that doesn't look like it's going anywhere except that you have a pair of dragons or value winds. Is it ever a good idea to start calling everything in sight in anticipation of getting that 3rd dragon/wind (atozuke is allowed) and try for a possible quick win, or do you fold and start playing defense from the first tile?

I was going to answer these separately but they actually have similar answers.

Usually when you first look at your starting hand you should have some idea whether you want to stay closed or not. Worst case scenario where you have absolutely nothing other than the pair of honours you're actually usually better off dropping them and aiming for Pinfu since the value is the same and with Pinfu you have the option on reaching as well. Also if you do call then you're left with less tiles to play defense with if someone else reaches. What you'll see a lot of people do is wait for the second one to be discarded before calling. This gives you, in theory, more time to see where your hand is going and also keeps open the possibility that you will draw the last one yourself.

While they haven't directly said it I don't think, there have been a couple times on the podcast something to the effect of "a had a pair of dragons and a pair/triple of dora so figured I'd go for it" (winning the hand) To me this implies that it's not usually winning hands that are just a yakuhai. There are certain cases where they have their place. Eg you're top and you want to try to end the game quickly, or your south and you want to get your turn add dealer etc

Note though that I'm mainly talking about single yakuhai hands above. If you have two or even three pairs of value winds or dragons then things change a bit as it becomes a lot easier to get yaku like honitsu or chanta on top of your yakuhai.

As for folding from the first tile, I don't think it's EVER a good idea. Sure your hand might be crap to start with but you could get some good draws and make it work (had it gave a few times). But that also doesn't mean you should go for it every time. Everyone has a folding point, where they will start playing betaori (fold), it's depends partially on your risk aversion as a player but it should also be influenced by your hand at the time. If you have daisangen sitting in your starting hand you're hardly going to fold when someone declares reach. However if you have a crap starting hand, while you should fold straight away your folding point should probably be quite low.

EDIT: just to clarify when I say you shouldn't ever fold from your first discard I mean that you shouldn't decided to fold based on your hand alone. If, say, the dealer Double Reaches and your hand is crap then you might very well want to fold from your first discard.

[or2az]

Here's a situation that I'm sure occurs quite often: (I was not the dealer and had no dora tiles)


Normally, I would riichi, discard the , and wait for the for the win.
Lately, I've been experimenting with not calling riichi at every opportunity I got, so I didn't. I decided to go for a better wait.
Someone discarded the . I couldn't call it. No yaku. Two turns later, another discard. Still couldn't call it. No yaku.
Finally, I drew a , called riichi, tossed the , and picked up an EAST for the win. Got lucky.
I was hoping for a ryanmen wait, but settled for a shanpon.
My question, Should I have called riichi initially? Should you always call riichi if you don't already have a yaku in your hand? I'm a little confused. I had no yaku and no dora.
I read a strategy article by Gemma 4/26/13 that stated:
Examples of when you should reach:
-You have no yaku but several dora.
-You have three or more possible winning tiles.
Examples of when you shouldn’t reach:
-You are ready, but you don’t have any dora.

[Masa]

If I just to see your hand only.(I "almost" don't consider any situation like other opponent hand, point, south or east etc)

IMHO
1. If you no one tenpai and you don't see 2 more 6p in the pond and before than 7-10turns-> riichi
2. If someone already riichi or high possibility of tenpai or if it is later than 13turns-> No riichi

Situation-1
Basically in any case if you have menzen tenpai, you better to do riichi immediately(ippatsu, uradora expectation).
And normally the reason for waiting the change is aiming more higher point, you better to do as long as you can expect many change candidate tiles.
But in you case, only 5p and 7p(2kinds 6 tiles) increase your point(shanpon yakuhai). ryanment does not. 6 tiles is not enough to wait and increasing point is small. Also dduring waiting change, other player will have tenpai. So that no need to wait anything for changes.

Situation-2
This is big disadvantage already. even if you do riichi now

Conclusion is
Basically you should riichi. and there are some exception depends on the situation. let's say "Offensive Non-riichi" and "Defensive Non-riichi"
Situation-2 is "Defensive Non-riichi". but your case does not match "Offensive non-riichi". it is too small hand to say it.

[Ozball]

I agree with what Masa said. In short I probably would have reached with that hand immediately, assuming that no-one else had reached. As Masa said, the chances of changing your wait are lower than a middle range kanchan wait , eg a 3-5, where the possible changes can occur in both directions. ie become a 23, 56. Also the ryanmen wait doesn't actually give you anything new other than extra possible tiles to win. If it had given you Pinfu then it would make more sense to wait to reach, since even if someone had declared reach in the time it took to get the ryanmenwait tile you then have a choice to reach or stay dameten and just aim for a silent ron, with the ability to bail out if you draw a really dangerous tile.

On the podcast they actually did one that covered when to reach (can't remember the date sorry ). The main thing I took away from it is this rule of thumb: "If you hand is in it's final shape then Reach. Otherwise wait." Now you have to make the judgement as to whether your hand is in it's final shape or not, and how easy it is going to be to change it to a better shape. But it's useful to remember and consider when you're unsure whether to reach or not.

[or2az]

Wasn't quite sure on what to discard in this situation.
It was South 2 with 19 tiles left and I was 27,000 pts behind.
Everyone still concealed. No red dragons showing. WWYD??

[Shirluban]

• It's pretty safe against North and East players since they have discarded a 5.
• It's pretty safe in general because you hold three of them and you almost have a wall of 3, so it can be called only if someone is waiting on the pair with the last remaining 2 or for a shuntsu with the last remaining 3.
• You'll be ii-shanten with many ways to tenpai (3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, Red).

The other option is :
• 100% safe against East, but not really against North (nor South).
• It's also pretty safe in general, for similar reasons than the 2 (only one left, almost a wall of 2 and 5). (2 is still safer.)
• You'll also be ii-shanten, but with significantly less ways to tenpai (1, 9, Red).

In conclusion, I believe is both the safest tile to discard and the faster way to tenpai.

[Referee]

Hmm, ideal final hand is riichi, honitsu, ikkutsukan, iipeikou, dora 1 for baiman, 16000, so you still need a direct hit. Am I missing something? (barring a lucky uradora, that is)

[or2az]

That was my choice. I discarded the .

I then drew the from the wall and discarded the and that was all she wrote!
I got "ronned" for 12,000 pts.
Did I make a mistake tossing the . What else could I have done at that point?