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Re:Open Tanyao

Posted: Sun Aug 23, 2009 7:11 pm
by alban lusitanae
Of one standard rule versus multiple variants.

Define: Having one single standard rule for riichi tournaments would more easily bring players to convert/learn riichi.
Measure: Before Chinese Official rule comes to Europe, there were no real structures to federate mahjong in Europe (AFAIK).
Basing on this standard rule, European players build up organizations, European-level organizations, and set up regular tournaments.
Analysis: This could have be made before CO rules, and without CO rules. But it seems europ\'players don\'t want to have to adapt to a close-but-not-same rule to meet other players.
Improve: Methinks Riichi is a better rule than CO.
Control: It\'s only the begging of european-wide-riichi, so I can\'t control yet.

Of the closed tanyao versus open tanyao.

Define: Letting some players over-use open tanyao can screw off game play and bore players. So forbid open tanyao will give a sweeter game and bring more people to riichi.
Measure: Before EMA riichi rule they were x riichi players in Europe. Now, they are y.
(If you count registered players, who go to championships, x = 0 and y can be count from EMA and national federations players list. If you count all players, including the unknown ones who didn\'t contact federations, x and y are unknown and can\'t be evaluate.)
Analysis: Compare x and y versus x and y\', where y\' is the number of players who would be playing riichi in Europe if EMA rule have allowed open tanyao.
Improve & Control: Error: y\' is used without being initialized. The value of y\' can not be evaluate.
Very nice :) I will attempt a question for a poll. :)
I think we\'re starting to get overly technical here
Ah come on, this is fun :woohoo:
To attempt to wrap it up, I\'d say that most (but definitely not all) experienced players think that open tanyao adds to the game. I think we all also agree that it gives beginners, which EMA is full of, an easy way to throw off the game. Whether or not that makes it worth banning is more a question of *event organization* than rules or strategy.

(And believe me, I don\'t really like saying this all that much. EMA folks can tell you that from the very beginning, before there was even a Riichi championship, I railed and railed against closed tanyao since the average age of the Japanese player who prefers it is probably over 60.)

Since most of us here are not *organizers* but players, I don\'t think we\'re going to get much deeper into the topic than we have already so maybe we can move on to something else. I suggest the uma; it\'s way too small and the only reason it isn\'t a more normal amount (like +5000, +15000) is because of fears that it would hurt players\' feelings. (Really!).
Interesting. Very well Benjamin, I drop the subject with the questions below. Even because I just found out I can\'t do a poll on the forum, so the survey option above is academic. I would like to do something like that nevertheless. So I will post questions, my choice and then whoever wishes to continue, just adds to the values:

1-crak
Do you believe a closed Tanyao helps the european players achieve a better standard set of rules?

YES = 0 /// NO = 0 /// NOT SURE = 1

2-crak
Do you believe a closed Tanyao helps the european organizations get more players into the game?

YES = 0 /// NO = 0 /// NOT SURE = 1

3-crak
Do you believe a closed Tanyao helps the european riichi scene by making the game more interesting?

YES = 1 /// NO = 0 /// NOT SURE = 0

4-crak
Would you play a closed Tanyao game / tournament?

YES = 1 /// NO = 0 /// NOT SURE = 0

Re:Open Tanyao

Posted: Sun Aug 23, 2009 11:53 pm
by silent observer
0000

A bit of explanation: I went to several EMA tournaments. I won\'t any longer. I need open tanyao - the difference it makes for defensive and offensive play is just too great to ignore. It\'s a pity, but that\'s how it is, so as far as anecdotal evidence goes, EMA\'s lost one player because of concealed tanyao.

Secondly, I think that a lack of open tanyao shifts the game towards LESS interaction between players - which is what GRDavies wants. Open Tanyao forces players to play defensively in an entirely different way.

Thirdly, I really, really dislike the bullshit argument that just because European players are new at the game they shouldn\'t be playing with toys like Open Tanyao. People can only learn by doing, but they can\'t learn by doing if they\'re not allowed to do it (ie, they can never learn Open Tanyao, since they\'re not allowed to use it).

EMA, for me, is dead. I\'ll go to tournaments as a spectator, but I won\'t play in any more. Maybe when they fix a few other major issues in their rule set (kuikae and aka-dora? who came up with that brilliant idea? there are more pressing issues than that though), I\'ll play again. But I doubt it. I\'m not going to destroy my online game by playing nashi-ari for a month before each tournament. Maybe I\'m slow in the head, requiring that much preparation for playing EMA\'s messy rules, but that\'s the way it is.

To put it like this: lack of open tanyao bores me. I want interaction between players, and EMA doesn\'t see much of that.

Re:Open Tanyao

Posted: Mon Aug 24, 2009 6:46 am
by Benjamin
alban lusitanae wrote:
Ah come on, this is fun :woohoo:
If you think so :huh:
I just hope the thread isn\'t going to take a bad turn...
Maybe I should start up an uma thread. But I suppose I\'m kind of lazy.


silent observer wrote:
EMA\'s lost one player because of concealed tanyao.
Well, you\'re certainly entitled to your opinion. If it bothers you that much, why not organize your own kuitan-ari tournament to convince people that the game is better with it?

Re:Open Tanyao

Posted: Mon Aug 24, 2009 7:37 am
by silent observer
Ahahahahahhahahahahhaha. You\'re a bit of a joker, aren\'t you?

Seriously though - people playing riichi mahjong in Europe don\'t want to go to non-EMA tournaments because, and I quote, \"we won\'t gain EMA ranking from them.\"

Yup. EMA ruins things even if you try something outside of it. A lot of players would probably go even if it was kuitan-ari, if they\'d just get EMA ranking. But they can\'t, because EMA can\'t handle kuitan-ari.

So yeah. I\'ll stick to online tournaments.

Re:Open Tanyao

Posted: Mon Aug 24, 2009 8:17 am
by gemma
I\'m not sure that\'s true. There\'s enough players who want a tournament with kuitan.

And the tournament in the UK this weekend that attracted 28 people, some from the continent, wasn\'t part of the EMA ranking. They also used some non-EMA rules.

If a tournament or some tournaments were organized and they proved popular and successful, the case for including kuitan would be much improved.

Anyway, the main point of a tournament is to enjoy playing mahjong. Rankings are fun but they\'re not the be all and end all. If people organize fun tournaments, I can guarantee players will attend.

I\'d certainly consider going to a non-EMA rankings tournament and I\'m pretty sure I\'m not alone!

Re:Open Tanyao

Posted: Mon Aug 24, 2009 10:54 am
by Barticle
GRDavies wrote:In the preface of the EMA Riichi Rulebook it\'s said:
"Some rules that have rooted in Europe are different in Japan, notably these three cases: [...]

2. When five counters are on the table, a two yaku minimum is invoked. [...]"
I might´ve misunderstood the terminology, but shouldn´t this be a two fan minimum (ryan han shibari), not counting dora? So you could meet the requirement with one yaku (e.g. toi-toi) worth two fan?
gemma wrote:And the tournament in the UK this weekend that attracted 28 people, some from the continent, wasn\'t part of the EMA ranking. They also used some non-EMA rules.
Would be interested to know which other variants were being played in Guildford...?

(Was that you in third place? If so, well done!)

Re:Open Tanyao

Posted: Mon Aug 24, 2009 12:15 pm
by Shirluban
Oh yeah ranking is so fundamental!
I would never had spend around 200€ to go to the first european championship if it didn\'t reward me with a paper/internet page saying I\'m 53th over 80 players!
I wonder how I can be living before without a rank!
I\'m soo in love with ranking that I wouldn\'t go any tounement if it didn\'t have a ranking system. Playing mahjong, meet other players, make friends and just having fun are so insignifiant parts.

Seriouly, did you realy think players travel all over europe for a ranking?!?


Barticle: EMA rules say hands like toi-toi are two yaku.
So they meet the requirement.
It\'s purely a terminologic question.

Re:Open Tanyao

Posted: Mon Aug 24, 2009 12:38 pm
by Toby
Seriouly, did you realy think players travel all over europe for a ranking?!?
That would be my thoughts, except in my case harsh reality intruded. Now my answer is:

I have talked to people. I asked them, would they be willing to go to non-EMA-ranked tournaments, and they said no.

People do travel across Europe in order to have fun playing Mahjong, but if there are more tournaments than you are going to visit, it is kind of understandable you would chose the ranked ones, other things being equal.

Re:Open Tanyao

Posted: Mon Aug 24, 2009 7:20 pm
by alban lusitanae
Then in that case EMA should allow oriental tournament participants to get ranking in the EMA, because of the logic behing all of this discussion; the fact that people who go abroad and play there get into more challenging games and with much tougher opponents. It was a remark here that europeans were mostly beginners.

Or am I understanding wrong?

Re:Open Tanyao

Posted: Tue Aug 25, 2009 4:35 am
by silent observer
Seriouly, did you realy think players travel all over europe for a ranking?!?
Given that that was what they themselves said, yes.
Barticle: EMA rules say hands like toi-toi are two yaku.
So they meet the requirement.
It\'s purely a terminologic question.
It\'s incorrect. If you look to the side of that, you\'ll see \"ryanhan yaku\" - or, translated: \"2 han yaku.\" Toi-toi is one yaku, worth 2 han. So if it really is a 2 yaku requirement, toi-toi is not going to cut it on its own. Toi-toi + open tanya... toi-toi + yakuhai would be acceptable, though. It\'s a mistake that someone made when making the PDF. Personally you\'d think that they\'d fix a mistake like that. It is nothing BUT a mistake, despite what EMA wants to say about it.

Re:Open Tanyao

Posted: Tue Aug 25, 2009 10:51 am
by GRDavies
silent observer wrote:
Barticle: EMA rules say hands like toi-toi are two yaku.
So they meet the requirement.
It\'s purely a terminologic question.
It\'s incorrect. If you look to the side of that, you\'ll see "ryanhan yaku" - or, translated: "2 han yaku." Toi-toi is one yaku, worth 2 han. So if it really is a 2 yaku requirement, toi-toi is not going to cut it on its own. Toi-toi + open tanya... toi-toi + yakuhai would be acceptable, though. It\'s a mistake that someone made when making the PDF. Personally you\'d think that they\'d fix a mistake like that. It is nothing BUT a mistake, despite what EMA wants to say about it.
It looks like a translation error. I don\'t speak japanese, but apparently as did the translators, i always thought a yaku meant a han and is enough to go out (eg. toi-toi is worth 2 yaku), where a dora is also worth a han but is not enough to go out (unless you have a yaku on the hand too).
As i understand your post correctly; a yaku means a combination as in EMA rules have 30+ yaku varying from 1 to 26 han.

If i\'m correct and please correct me if i\'m wrong on this so the preface should have said "After 5 counters a hand must consist of at least 2 han."

Thanks for clarifying this up.

Re:Open Tanyao

Posted: Tue Aug 25, 2009 10:59 am
by Senechal
silent observer wrote: It\'s a mistake that someone made when making the PDF. Personally you\'d think that they\'d fix a mistake like that. It is nothing BUT a mistake, despite what EMA wants to say about it.
You know it won\'t be fixed because they\'ll use the short-circuit logic "well toi-toi is a yaku worth two yaku" to obscure both why the mistake was made in the first place and how to not change things again out of immobility.

It\'s like playing tennis with golf clubs or even other tennis balls as rackets. I\'m sure you can get it to work but any tennis player would think you\'re senile. But let\'s not kid ourselves, the reason isn\'t one of terminology. It was a wrong and bad habit that is starting to take hold in places within and outside Europe. Given its general effect, it\'s been agreed upon that for semantic purposes, it\'s something to live with, but it\'s not a question of terminology, since it\'s the wrong word at the wrong time. Like saying closed sets are tsumo.

Re:Open Tanyao

Posted: Tue Aug 25, 2009 12:04 pm
by Barticle
Shirluban wrote:It\'s purely a terminologic question.
Yes, that was my intention. :)
silent observer wrote:Toi-toi is one yaku, worth 2 han.
Thanks; that was my understanding.

At least I don´t have to update my guides! ;)
GRDavies wrote:As i understand your post correctly; a yaku means a combination as in EMA rules have 30+ yaku varying from 1 to 26 han.
I´d love to get me one of them 26-han combos! ;) :laugh: (I assume you mean one to six.)

I did make my first Sanbaiman last night though which was pretty cool. Sanbaiman Club! :woohoo:

So... a yaku is a scoring combination which gives han; dora (including red fives) also give han. The Japanese game is played with a one-han minimum (ii han shibari) but dora don´t count - so this could also be described as a one-yaku minimum. After five continuances (with the optional ryan han shibari rule) there´s a two-han minimum, again not counting dora - but this is not a two-yaku minimum, you could use one yaku that gives two han (like toi-toi).

Re:Open Tanyao

Posted: Tue Aug 25, 2009 12:09 pm
by Barticle
...or were you thinking of double yakuman as 26-han yaku?

In that case my comment stands - I´d still love to get one!

Re:Open Tanyao

Posted: Tue Aug 25, 2009 12:56 pm
by GRDavies
Barticle wrote:...or were you thinking of double yakuman as 26-han yaku?

In that case my comment stands - I´d still love to get one!
Yes, i did:
* 9 gates (pure, so 9 side wait)
* 4 concealed pungs making MJ on the eyes
* 13 sided wait thirtheen orphans

unless i\'m forgetting one or more.