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This just occurred to me:


Reading suji from discards that come out of the hand can often be just as useful in planning attacks as it is for defense.

For example, let\'s say you see an opponent discard a 3 out of his hand midgame and you feel sure that he is waiting for its ura-suji (4-7). Assuming that you are correct, what I realized is this: while there is no guarantee that this 4-7 will be his final wait, you can be sure that the player has the corresponding element (i.e. the 5,6 incomplete sequence waiting for the 4 or 7).

This information will always be useful for your attack, because it will help you plan for your future draws- you know that those are two tiles (5 and 6) you\'ll never get, whether by self draw or from another player. Furthermore, let\'s say this same player has reached and someone else throws him a 4 or 7 which passes safely. You can now guess that the reacher already has drawn the complete sequence, and you may be able to deduce from the board if it\'s 4-56 or 56-7. This will again help you plan your attack, and also defense if it means that any of these tiles are dead (all four copies are accounted for) since it could also imply dead elements or dead waits elsewhere. You can use all this information against any player at the table, and it\'s particularly useful when the tile ranges involved include dora so that you can make better value judgments on each hand.



What do you guys think?

This seems right to me, it\'s surley a point that you reached by playing a countless games so i have nothing other to add for this, just be amazed. I\'m so far away from this level of play...

Yeah, it took a while for this to dawn on me :)

The hard part now is to assimilate it as a natural part of my game. It\'s especially hard to think through these kind of things with the strict time limits online!

My problem is that there are sooo many ways to read and think about discards that i just don\'t know what methods and where to use. Its just overwhelming for me :P

Well, if you happen to catch whether something comes out of the hand it\'s not as bad. But yeah, it\'s ultimately educated guesswork.



Here\'s something I posted on another thread here which might help you go further [to see the follow-up discussion look at later pages of the thread \'greetings from a newbie with questions\']:






If you look in the columns section of this site, Shintaro Konno of the JPML (Japanese Pro Mahjong League) has written a guide about spotting the signs of specific hands.

Generally more important than reading the yaku your opponent is going for is reading his waits. This is more about figuring it out by elimination than guessing outright. The first line of defense is usually just discarding into furiten waits (i.e. he has discarded 4, so you discard 1 because furiten dictates he cannot have a 1-4 wait). Most reading is based on the hope that everyone is going for two-sided waits, since they are the best.

A good introduction to defense and wait reading is on this page:

http://www.osamuko.com/index.php/2009/0 ... i/#more-77

Read parts 1 + 2.


Generally, the tiles around early number discards are safe, whereas the tiles around late number discards are dangerous. More complexity is discussed in the guide above.

There are some basic things that guide doesn\'t make entirely clear though. When reading the hand of a suspicious opponent, you need to watch for whether a discarded tile was taken out of the hand or discarded right when drawing it. i.e. was the player holding on to that tile because he needed it until that point, or was it completely useless (discard without keeping)?

If it was discarded right away, surrounding tiles are probably fairly safe. If it was discarded out the hand, surrounding tiles are probably dangerous. Bear in mind this applies only to discards BEFORE the player has declared reach or hit silent tenpai, because every draw past that point will be discarded off the bat.

If the discard came out of the hand, you can start applying the basic principles in that guide, such as ura-suji. You can see if the discard implies a certain dangerous wait, and whether subsequent discards reinforce the idea that a particular wait is dangerous. Often you can wait for your other opponents to make riskier discards, which in turn will suggest safer ones for you. If tiles of a particular suit have no pattern or seem to suggest a particular wait or wait(s) which turn out to be safe (someone else takes the risk for you), then that might mean all tiles of that suit are safe. You can start focusing your attention on suspect tiles in other suits.

Generally it is difficult to figure out which suit the final wait is in, because it may or may not have been created last. A good basic rule is not to discard any red fives, doras or other powerful tiles in the late game, period. Tiles which have not been seen on the board at all can be very dangerous.

On it goes. Maybe other players better than I can give you more advice!

UmaiKeikis\' defense guide is an excellent guide on reading discards but you will have to find a quiet spot. It\'s not something for reading on the train ... some parts are easy and some take a lot of concentration to read/understand/apply.


highly recommended

That blog is pretty good. It\'s been posted and discussed here before a little.

It misses a couple of important things, though- such as the fact that only a discard that comes out of the hand (as opposed to right after drawing) can be read as a suji. You have to watch extra closely to catch this in online games.