Ryuukyoku

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Robert
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Ryuukyoku

Post by Robert » Wed Apr 01, 2009 7:31 am

I do not like ryuukyoku much at all.

I do not like the idea of just basically waiting out a hand.

If I ran a mahjong parlor in Japan, I would have no table fees... but I would have a house rule that all \"no-ten\" payments would go, not to the \"tenpai\" players, but to the house.

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Re:Ryuukyoku

Post by carl » Wed Apr 01, 2009 12:54 pm

what about ryuukyoku don\'t you like? theres not much else to do if all the tiles are drawn and nobody\'s won. i understand if you dont like some of the ways a ryokyoku can happen though, like the 9 terminals. i was actually triple ron\'ed once and was glad for the ryuukyoku.

as far as no ten payments go, i think they\'re a nice little reward for not throwing your hand just to deal tiles you know are 100% safe towards the end of the round or after someone else has declared a riichi.

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Re:Ryuukyoku

Post by Shirluban » Thu Apr 02, 2009 9:22 am

carl wrote:as far as no ten payments go, i think they\'re a nice little reward for not throwing your hand just to deal tiles you know are 100% safe towards the end of the round or after someone else has declared a riichi.
+1
Cats don't do タンヤオ (tan-yao) but タニャーオ (ta-nya-o).
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Re:Ryuukyoku

Post by gartheee » Fri Apr 03, 2009 1:03 am

Interesting idea about paying the house for drawn hands (ryuukyoku) instead of paying per game, but in the end, not feasible I think. It would leave open the possibility that the house never gets paid. It might even affect the way people play, encouraging everyone to go for wins even more just to make sure the house never wins anything.

I\'m not sure I understand what you dislike about it either for the same reasons as stated above. It\'s true, some of the middle of the hand draws (tochuu ryuukyoku, e.g., 4 person reach, triple ron, 4 kongs, 9 terminals, 4 1st round winds) can be pretty annoying and often kill good hands and can be annoying for that reason. But when a hand ends with no one winning, there needs to be at least small penalty for not trying to win if someone else was trying to win. In fact, no penalty would encourage the very thing you seem to say you dislike, just waiting out the hand, yes?

So given the fact that paying the house for draws is not feasible and you \"don\'t like ryuukyoku\", are you also possibly suggesting that the tiles should be reshuffled and play continue until someone wins the hand? That also I think is not really feasible as hands could conceivably just go on forever.

Not sure what other solutions there are besides the one we already have.

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Re:Ryuukyoku

Post by Robert » Fri Apr 03, 2009 12:12 pm

Do you know of any non-riichi mahjong rules which use no-ten payments? I don\'t. Why is this? Probably no need for them in other mahjong rulesets. What does this say about riichi?

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Re:Ryuukyoku

Post by TobiasOlsen » Fri Apr 03, 2009 3:25 pm

What it says about riichi is that it is a defensive game, and the no-ten payment is then to encourage a certain degree of offensive play as well. This is the same reason east pays more for self-picks but get more for their own hands. It means that at least one player will almost always be going for their hand, so playing defensively is harder.

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Re:Ryuukyoku

Post by HotelFSR » Fri Apr 03, 2009 5:54 pm

Actually the Saikouisen\'s \'Classic Rules\', which are their league rules much like the JPML A-Rules, do not have any no-ten payments. They also have no \'oka\' (ante).

Curious to see how that actually plays out. Anyone tried it?

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Re:Ryuukyoku

Post by Robert » Fri Apr 03, 2009 7:40 pm

Where do you find these rules?

And do they use the weak version of the \"furiten\" rule? What about atozuke?

Seriously, I would much prefer Zung Jung (think WSOM), or perhaps even Chinese Classical, but where? My Japanese is rudimentary, yes, but my Chinese is limited pretty much to what few characters I know from Japanese, and that\'s really not much.

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Re:Ryuukyoku

Post by HotelFSR » Fri Apr 03, 2009 10:57 pm

The saikouisen rules can be found listed on the rules page of http://www.saikouisen.com

There is atozuke, but no red fives, quad dora or hidden dora. There is no ante, no \'Pao\' and the dealer cannot continue unless he actually wins the hand.

They use the regular furiten rule. This adds a massive amount of strategy to the game, which may be hard to fathom at first- but I have no idea why you\'d want to play without it. It\'s there to make you plan ahead and allows your opponents to read your discards more.

Basically, it all comes down to whether you think defense should be a big part of the game. I like Reach because defense is perhaps the most skill intensive part of the game.

If you are not into that and want something with more straight up attacking, then indeed go ahead and try something like WSOM. I just don\'t think it actually succeeds in making a more \'balanced\' or \'skillful\' game as it puports to.

Reach has been tried and tested for decades, whereas WSOM mostly looks nice on paper. As it currently stands, at least.

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Re:Ryuukyoku

Post by Robert » Sat Apr 04, 2009 3:00 am

I want to play mahjong.

If you want defense, kill the one-yaku requirement. That way I will be more willing to change my waits. I would maybe be more willing to defend against chin\'itsu if I had not, for example, already committed myself to hon\'itsu in a different suit.

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Re:Ryuukyoku

Post by deJENNerate » Sat Apr 04, 2009 4:03 am

I think the current draw (ryuukyoku) rules in Reach really reward the strong players. I find that when the weaker players fold they just throw tiles that are completely safe while the stronger players can read hands and find more ways to keep their hands Ready (tenpai) while still throwing safe hands. While it\'s a small reward it\'s just one of the things that makes Reach more fun than other versions. It always feels nice to get that little bit for a hand you worked so hard to build instead of just throwing them in the muck like other rules.

I also really like the Missed Win (furiten) rule. It encourages players to pay attention. With most of the Chinese rules you can just make any old mistake and come back in the end without thinking about it. It also adds an element to the strategy with things like when you can Reach with furiten and scare people into folding even though they can\'t win off of you.

I like the WSOM rules but I agree they are still in the testing phase. Last year they were way better than the year before and this year they will be better too. Alan Kwan is very open-minded and is keeping his eye out for ways to improve the game along with the organizers so I think it will be another great variation. I get really bored with the Hong Kong rules though. Players discard before drawing in that game! And I get too confused with the Chinese Official rules. Too many hands to remember...

With Reach there are so many variations in itself it\'s hard to say that any rules are bad. You can just leave them out. For example the Continuance Bonus (honba). A lot of parlors make this bonus 1500 points instead of 300 points. That makes it way more interesting. I also worked at a parlor for a couple weeks that allows the red-dot to be the minimum Hand Point! In that way Reach is still evolving too but most of the rules have reached a point that almost all players can agree with. Mahjong came to Japan about 100 years ago and has evolved to the current state with the biggest entertainment industry for the game than anywhere in the world. I think that says something (^.^)v

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Re:Ryuukyoku

Post by HotelFSR » Sat Apr 04, 2009 11:03 am

Robert:

There are things I like about the WSOM rules (no self draw bonus, no dealer system, high rewards for rare hands like sanshoku, chanta, itsuu)

However, you might be chagrinned to find that even the WSOM has added the one-yaku minimum. I have a feeling you\'ll find as you play the game and increase your rating that this adds a lot to defense- most players believe that taking it away actually kills defense to a large extent, contrary to what you claim.

Why?

This is because when there is no hand requirement offense becomes the best defense, and people go out even faster with simple hands. This rule undermines folding as a strategy and also makes players less likely to win with a good hand. Also, you can still get a ryuukyoku payment for a zero yaku hand, bluff with it, or even win it by self draw if it is fully concealed.

Personally, while I still have certain issues with Reach rules I find that almost all of my opinions have changed considerably as I have improved as a player. There are a lot of subtleties that come to light when you get skilled enough to hold a winning record (where you have a long run profit edge over 200+ games).

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Re:Ryuukyoku

Post by Robert » Sat Apr 04, 2009 11:12 pm

HotelFSR wrote: However, you might be chagrinned to find that even the WSOM has added the one-yaku minimum.
At least their yaku don\'t require me to fold my hand. For one, what a Japanese player might call "naki-pinfu" is allowed.

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Re:Ryuukyoku

Post by HotelFSR » Sun Apr 05, 2009 9:08 am

Naki Pinfu is not a good thing. If you look at hand usage stats, you\'ll see that Pinfu (closed) is the most common among good players. It should be obvious in terms of waits why this is naturally the case.

Allow Naki into the equation and you will see a flood of fast hands that will undermine the game, while also reducing variety. Offense will become the only defense.

If you simply don\'t like folding as a key component of the game, then indeed you will not like Reach. I would say it is one of the things that makes it such a highly skilled game, standing out among other rule variants. However, it depends on your personal taste.

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Re:Ryuukyoku

Post by Robert » Sun Apr 05, 2009 10:34 am

I want to play mahjong.

If I fold, then I\'m not playing mahjong, I\'m just waiting for the next hand.

I have played mahjong video games in which I bought an item so I could see my opponent\'s tiles. Sometimes I would change yaku so I would not need to throw her winning tile. I did not give up on winning the hand, though.

Besides, I have a feeling that reading discards is a form of using your opponent\'s strength against them, and if your opponent does not play \"properly\", your reading discards will not work so well: being able to read a pro\'s discards does not necessarily mean you will be able to read a housewife\'s discards.

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