gambling?

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carl
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gambling?

Post by carl » Sun Mar 08, 2009 3:00 pm

just curious, but how do people gamble in mahjong? do they all put the same amount in and winner takes all, or is it portioned out according to +/- points at the end?

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Re:gambling?

Post by Shirluban » Mon Mar 09, 2009 12:54 pm

It\'s supposed to be calculate according the +/- \"final-final-points\" at the end.
Something like 100 our 1000 yen per \"final-final-point\".

Someone who actualy do or see gambling would give a better help.
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Re:gambling?

Post by carl » Mon Mar 09, 2009 4:25 pm

i guess that would make sense if the players with -points payed a set amount per point to the players with +points.

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Re:gambling?

Post by Poochy » Tue Mar 10, 2009 9:21 am

I\'ve never been one to gamble on Mahjong, but from what I\'ve seen of other people playing Mahjong for money, this is how it usually seems to work:

1. At the start, each player contributes the same amount of money to a pot, based on the points-to-money conversion rate and how many points each player starts out with. (For example, if each player starts with 25,000 points and the rate is 100 points = 1 yen, each player would put 250 yen in the pot.)
2. If someone\'s score goes into the negative, one of several methods are used to compensate (usually decided on at the start):
2a. If there is no rank bonus at the end of the game, the losing player can simply buy points off another player at the original rate.
2b. The game ends immediately, and the \"debt\" is immediately settled with cash.
2c. Continue playing as usual while keeping track of debts.
3. At the end, each player gets his final score (after rank bonus) converted back to money, and takes that much from the pot.

Alternatively, with no rank bonus and no special rule on busting out, hand values can be paid directly in cash. (So at 100 points = 1 yen, a mangan is simply worth 80 yen, and there are no points in play.)

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Re:gambling?

Post by oxoboxo » Sat Apr 04, 2009 8:10 am

I\'m not too sure on the specifics of the rates that are normally imposed in parlors, so i\'m sure someone can explain more; one of the most common rates is \"Ten-go\" which is 1000 points costing 50 yen, and a cheaper alternative is \"Ten-san\" which is 1000 points for 30 yen. Usually at the end of a game, 1st place gets a majority of the money, 2nd place gets some money from 3rd place, and 4th place pays for 1st place\'s winnings and a little bit of 2nd place\'s. Things get different if only one person has a positive score at the end and whatnot, but usually with Ten-san the most you could lose is about 2000-2800yen and with Ten-go 4000-6000 yen. Hope that gives you some idea!

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Re:gambling?

Post by hirohurl » Thu Apr 16, 2009 3:06 pm

If gambling were legal in Japan, this is what some law abiding people might do:;)

1. Fix the rate. I.e. 30 yen per 1,000 points.

2. Agree on the Maru/Batsu (O / X) option, and if you want to play it, fix a rate. I.e. 200 yen per 0/X

Maru/Batsu: There are 6 x Maru and 6 x Batsu. The winners share the Maru, the losers share the Batsu. For example:

1st winner = OOOOOO = +1,200 yen
===
2nd place loser = X = - 200 yen
3rd place loser = XX = -400 yen
4th place loser = XXX = - 600 yen

or

1st winner = OOOO = +800 yen
2nd winner = OO = +400 yen
===
3rd loser = XX = -400 yen
4th loser = XXXX = -800 yen

3. Agree on the Yakitori rule and rate. I.e. if you fail to complete a single hand all game, pay each player 500 yen.


Players would usually opt for just 1, or 1 + 2, or 1 + 3.

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Re:gambling?

Post by Tom Sloper » Thu Apr 16, 2009 4:01 pm

Poochy wrote:1. At the start, each player contributes the same amount of money to a pot
Not in a janso. All money is settled up at the end. Nobody shows any money at the beginning of a game.
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Re:gambling?

Post by oxoboxo » Fri Apr 17, 2009 4:54 am

Well maybe it\'s only in the local ones near my area, but if you play free in some jansous they give you your membership card and a small bin to keep your bills and change; some jansous I know show money at the end of a winning hand, depending if the winner has any red doras, got an ura dora, an ippatsu, or a yakuman, money is immediately dealt for that hand, usually 50-100 yen for each item except the yakauman (some jansous advertise how much you\'ll receive if you get a yakuman at their place)

At the end of each round scores are tallied up and if you are playing free, and end up on 1st place, you have to pay the jansou about 1500-2000yen (another way for them to make money) as part of the free set-up

As far as I know, gambling is not looked at if it\'s under $100 USD.

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Re:gambling?

Post by gartheee » Fri Apr 17, 2009 1:34 pm

It depends. Some parlors especially the higher rate ones will have you make some sort of deposit to ensure that you\'re not trying the old, I\'ll-pay-you-later trick. It\'ll generally be just about the amount you\'d have to pay if you lost the game really badly. But of course that doesn\'t account for chips you\'ll have to pay for during the game.

The two main parts of the way it\'s gambled in Japan have been covered pretty well in previous posts: the rate at which you\'ll be paid based on your score, and the placing bonus generally for 1st and 2nd paid by 3rd and 4th. One thing that hasn\'t been mentioned is that there is usually a sort of ante. In a normal East-South game, everyone will start out with 25,000 points, but the score you must pay will be the difference between your final score and 30,000 points, the extra 5,000 from each player going to the winner. A couple examples might serve well.

One of the places I play is pretty standard east-south \"ten-pin\" meaning 100 yen per 1000 points with a placing bonus/penalty of 1000 and 2000 points. So if you were to finish the game with 0 points you\'d pay 5000 yen. Plus there are 500 yen chip bonuses for first turn wins after a reach, Red Lucky Dragons, and Hidden Lucky Dragons. Those are paid at the end of each hand as they happen. If you win the game with 40,000 points, you\'ll win 5000 yen not including chips.

The place I work is a little different. It\'s east only \"ten-ni\" meaning only 20 yen per 1000 points, which seems very cheap, except that the placing bonus and ante are bigger. The final calculation is still the difference between your score and 30,000 points but everyone starts with only 20,000 so there are 30,000 extra points going to the winner. Also the 2nd 3rd and 4th all pay the bonus to 1st place, 400, 600 and 1000 respectively, except if 2nd place finishes above 23,000, he then receives 250 yen out of the other people\'s bonuses. As you can imagine, it\'s pretty complicated so it\'s nice that the tables are set up to automatically compute the amount each player must pay at the end of the game. If you lose all your points you\'ll have to pay 1600 yen plus a 100 yen penalty to the player who pushed you under. If you win with 30,000 points you\'ll win 2600 yen plus whatever chip bonuses you got which are only 100 yen there.

Yakitori was also mentioned though it\'s fairly rare and I\'ve never seen it played in a parlor for money. Another interesting variation is the \"broken wall\" or \"wareme\" in Japanese. That means that wherever the wall is broken for people to first take their tiles, the player behind that wall is now \"wareme\" and for that hand, whatever he pays or receives for a win or loss or even someone else\'s tsumo, he pays or receives double. It can make for a very speedy game if the dealer happens to win when he\'s \"wareme\" or from someone who\'s \"wareme\". This is also fairly rare, and I\'ve only seen it played for money in a couple parlors in 7 years of playing.

Somewhere there was also mention of paying up at the end of each hand. If he wasn\'t talking about the chip bonuses, that would indeed be pretty strange, unless he\'s talking about a version sometimes played in Osaka. I\'ve never actually played it but the basic premise is that whenever the difference between the first and last place scores is greater than 8000 points the game is over. That can happen just about every hand so it will be common in those games for a new game to begin several hands in a row.

So it can all be fairly complicated, which is why the first 5 or 10 minutes of any private game or 5-10 minutes before a \"free\" game will be spent going over all this stuff to make sure everyone\'s on the same page.

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Re:gambling?

Post by HotelFSR » Fri Apr 17, 2009 2:41 pm

Very interesting and informative posts guys. Man, I really want to play at a Jansou next time I visit Japan!

Can\'t say that Osaka variant sounds like my cup of tea. I don\'t even much like East Only games, since all it does is pretty much double the variance, so if you\'re trying to make money effectively it\'s not actually saving you any game time at all.

Hanchan all the way, baby.

Wareme actually sounds fairly interesting in that it has some effect on strategy, but unless everyone starts with double points I feel like it would end too many games prematurely.

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Re:gambling?

Post by hirohurl » Fri Apr 17, 2009 3:49 pm

Good point about the ante rule - it is so common that I took it for granted.

I first heard of warime when I was in Gifu-ken visiting my in-laws. I have never seen it played in Hiroshima. Down here the yakitori rule is not uncommon.

===

A few years ago we had this crazy situation where we were playing the \"empty tray\" rule plus yakitori, with four players playing our Hiroshima \"3-player\" variation... if you were the fourth player you could get stung for yakitori if the first oya went on a run and emptied somebody\'s tray, even though you had not touched a single tile.

The empty tray rule was dropped, thank goodness.

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Re:gambling?

Post by carl » Fri Apr 17, 2009 3:58 pm

majan3 on the hangame site offers a wareme option, if anyone\'s interested. its the only site i know of that has it.

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Re:gambling?

Post by Benjamin » Sun Apr 19, 2009 3:51 pm

gartheee wrote:It depends. Some parlors especially the higher rate ones will have you make some sort of deposit to ensure that you\'re not trying the old, I\'ll-pay-you-later trick.
I\'ve heard the underground high-rate places do this quite often. The oka (bonus for 1st place) is collected before the game.

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Re:gambling?

Post by iandstanley » Mon Jun 15, 2009 4:24 pm

gartheee wrote:Yakitori was also mentioned though it\'s fairly rare and I\'ve never seen it played in a parlor for money. Another interesting variation is the "broken wall" or "wareme" in Japanese. That means that wherever the wall is broken for people to first take their tiles, the player behind that wall is now "wareme" and for that hand, whatever he pays or receives for a win or loss or even someone else\'s tsumo, he pays or receives double. It can make for a very speedy game if the dealer happens to win when he\'s "wareme" or from someone who\'s "wareme". This is also fairly rare, and I\'ve only seen it played for money in a couple parlors in 7 years of playing.
The only time I\'ve come across wareme/warime is in the mahjong cards sold on MahjongMart and apparently it appears on a new PS3 game Mahjong Taikai IV as an optional rule ... apparently the wareme marker is the blue marker is shown here:

Image[/quote]

I\'ve no idea what the read marker is

I\'ve never seen either markers for sale

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Re:gambling?

Post by hirohurl » Tue Jun 16, 2009 3:11 am

The red marker is the \"Oya\" marker.

In the mahjong parlours the \"Oya\" is sometimes indicated by a light on that player\'s side of the table.

In my Friday afternoon \"Mahjong in English\" class, the hostess uses an old coin to indicate who the Oya is.

I have not come across \"warime\" or \"oya\" tiles for sale either.

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