How to train and knows more about strategy ?

[kirysmina]

Hi everyone,

I'm one of the creator of a new club in France called TNT, that has been created for playing Reach Mahjong only. Because of the incoming European tournament in Paris in March, we would like to train, and improve the strategy level of our members.

Basicaly, we are trying to play as much as we can. But even if we are playing on the internet, or around a table, it's hard to learn why bad moves are bad moves. We have found some ways to better play, but it's always based on our knowledge or our understanding. And we are only playing for 6 month

What we are looking for is : books, video, documents, etc... that may be helpfull to understand what should be done according to a specific situation. (we do not speakjapanease)

The second point is about training. We are looking for a way to play and train ourselves. Are there some specific exercices that we can do as a team ? at 2, 3 or 4 ? Or more ?

At the moment the best way we got is to purchase the dvd of the diva league (based on Jamie's news ), and to guess, follow and discuss every moves...

Thanks for your help, answers, and advices.

[xKime]

I'll continue this post later, but I'll keep it simple for you.
When you start out, these are the basic guidelines:

1. Play by tile efficiency. (For more on tile efficiency: http://www.osamuko.com/category/theory/ (two more posts on tile efficiency will be published on the 8th-9th and 13th-14th so look forward to it. I already translated them, you just have to wait for the system to auto-post them)
2. When someone reaches (or has a pon on the dora, double east, or other similar situations, but MAINLY when someone reaches) only deal safe tiles. (more on safe tiles: http://www.osamuko.com/2009/02/18/umaik ... -and-suji/ and http://www.osamuko.com/2009/02/23/defen ... -dama-ten/)
3. Learn situational play (point situation, seat situation, table situation) and theory (there's theory on many things that deppend on your hand and point situation, so I add this as an additional point under "situational play."). Situational play... this one you will learn little by little, as you play. But basically, if you want to know what it is about, for example: if you are first on the last round, and you got to ready with a peace (pinfu) hand, you do not reach, because you will win just by having someone else discard your winner even if you don't reach. Or, if you're last, don't assemble a 1000 points hand in the last round. Some of these things are obvious, but some others aren't that obvious, and some others will even change deppending on your style (when you are good enough at situational play, you may develop some sort of 'style,' which will usually be the default tie-breaker when you are confronted with two choices of seemingly equal value (to defend, or to go ahead with the hand? reach or not reach? For more on that go here: http://reachmahjong.com/en/2010/03/konn ... -11-style/ Whenever you are at a crossroads, you must ask yourself. Reach or not reach? Kanchan with dora or ryanmen without dora? Kokushi or hon rou tou? Most answers to these issues of "judgement" correspond to situational play (/theory).

It all really breaks down to 1 and 2, but the more you learn about 3, the more flexible you will be able to be about 1 and 2 (when you have enough knowledge of 3, you might find situations where you want to ignore a riichi, or deal "semi" safe tiles, or cases where you must leave tile efficiency aside and assemble a low probability hand, letting a winning tile slip, or dig further into setting traps with your discards by playing anti-efficiency), and by being able to do such judgements and having these many tricks up your sleeve (such as techniques for calling tiles, arranging your hand, and other misc), you will increase your versatility as a player and be able to play diminishing the misses and increasing your point profit, leading to an increase in your average placing.

Basically, 1 and 2 are necessary not to suck. And the more you learn about 3, the better player you become.

This is what you want to think when starting out, in my humble opinion.

There isn't a big deal of English theory out there, so I suggest you get someone who knows Japanese to teach you a little. It's not hard to learn how to read "Mahjapanese."

Something you should try out is WWYD quizes, and pay attention to the correct answer's reasoning.
Try Tom Sloper's page, Sloperama http://www.sloperama.com/mjfaq.html and you will find a lot of material on many forms of mahjong.

--

As for training, I have these exercises. Probably someone thought of them before, so I won't take credit for anything, but I find these to be effective:

Play a hanchan without furiten. This will allow you to get a little insight on "setting traps" and to pay more attention to discard reading rather than just seeing "what tiles are plainly discarded."

Play a hanchan with all hands visible. This will help you get some insight in "learning to playing as if you could see your opponent's hand" (because you are going to be seeing it), discard reading and situational play.

Play a hanchan without open hands. This will help you see the importance of a closed hand and tile efficiency, and how "pointless" some pungs and chows are. Also, the pros and cons of riichi will become evident.

And also, this is optional, but if you happen to have extra time, try a "No open hands, no riichi" hanchan. This will help you with hand building (yaku planning) and trying to "detect" tenpai by only looking at discards.

(Of course, do all these with AWARENESS. There's no merit if all you do is pick up and discard tiles. Try to understand the reasoning behind every move. For example, if in the second exercise you can see a guy's wait when he reaches, don't just go like "okay, he's waiting on 4-7 so I'll just dodge those tiles...," no, rather than that, think about -why- he is waiting on 4-7, and what would you have done if you couldn't see his hand?)

[kirysmina]

Wow, outstanding.

I did not expect so much informations ! Thanks a lot, it will be really helpfull ! That's really kind of you

[Tom Sloper]

2. When someone reaches (or has a pon on the dora, double east, or other similar situations, but MAINLY when someone reaches) only deal safe tiles.

I assume you meant "only discard safe tiles."

[xKime]

2. When someone reaches (or has a pon on the dora, double east, or other similar situations, but MAINLY when someone reaches) only deal safe tiles.

I assume you meant "only discard safe tiles."

I am aware that in poker "to deal" means to "to give (cards) to the rest of the people at the table," but in common usage, especially in mahjong, "to deal tiles" usually has the meaning of "discarding tiles."
When you say 牌を打つ in japanese it's also kind of unusual, but commonly accepted as 牌を切る or 牌を捨てる。

Wow, outstanding.

I did not expect so much informations ! Thanks a lot, it will be really helpfull ! That's really kind of you

You're very welcome. Keep training and you'll become better.

[Barticle]

I am aware that in poker "to deal" means to "to give (cards) to the rest of the people at the table," but in common usage, especially in mahjong, "to deal tiles" usually has the meaning of "discarding tiles."

Certainly the phrase "dealing into [an opponent's ron win]" is quite common.

Perhaps more questionable would be the widespread use of the term "dealer" in English to refer to east, given that the role involves no actual dealing (in the poker sense)! Referring then to the other players as "non-dealers" is a little awkward too (compared to the Japanese "parent" and "child").

I assume this dates back to the introduction of mahjong to the West where folks were comfortable with the idea of a "dealer" role rotating between players in a card game. Then again, I have old English MJ books that use words like Jong or Chief... I think I might start using Chief.

When you say 牌を打つ in japanese it's also kind of unusual, but commonly accepted as 牌を切る or 牌を捨てる。

On his Digital Mahjong Blog Kicchiri suggests that the "cut" 切 refers more specifically to picking the tile from your hand and the "hit" 打 is when you put (or perhaps slam!) it on the table.

I guess 捨 is closer to English with its various shades of meaning: "discard; throw away; abandon; resign; reject; sacrifice" [source: tangorin.com]

[Tom Sloper]

I am aware that in poker "to deal" means to "to give (cards) to the rest of the people at the table," but in common usage, especially in mahjong, "to deal tiles" usually has the meaning of "discarding tiles."

I guess 捨 is closer to English with its various shades of meaning: "discard; throw away; abandon; resign; reject; sacrifice" [source: tangorin.com]

Yes. Any of those words, but certainly not "deal." Dealing refers to the initial taking of tiles at the beginning of a hand. This is the widely accepted usage of the word, in all English descriptions of mahjong. Nobody refers to discarding as "dealing."

[Barticle]

Certainly the phrase "dealing into [an opponent's ron win]" is quite common.

http://www.google.co.uk/#q=%22dealing+into%22+mahjong

[Nameless]

Tom: Is there really any point in TRYING to correct people? So far there's like 4 different set of terms for Japanese mahjong, RM, EMA, USPML and Japanese. So why can't people change the meaning of some terms X community uses? Hell, EMA did exactly that with 'yaku'.

[Shirluban]

In general Mahjong terminology, the verb "to deal" is used:
- for the 13-14 initial tiles and the action of taking them (by self-picking),
- for discarding a tile, with the connotation of making an opponent win ("dealing into [an opponent's ron win]").

Using it for discarding a "non-winning" tile, especially a safe tile, is quite unusual but understandable.

Discussing which terms are the more appropriate is certainly interesting, but have little to do with strategy training.
If you have more to say about "to deal", or any other term, it's about time to make a new topic for that.


@ Mr "I'm so ashamed of what I wrote, that I don't event put an user name": Obvious troll is obvious.

[Nameless]

No. Not a troll and accusing people of trolling just because they don't have the same ideals has someone is insulting.

[xKime]

Nobody refers to discarding as "dealing."

Lol, I'm glad to know you weren't serious.

Okay, so I take it you have a completely different opinion, and that's not going to change because you've obviously enclosed yourself in your conviction that "only the world you know exists." I'm sad to know you're not too grounded to reality. But I'm not going to try to convince you into terminology that's not that of the Japanese language (mainly, because I think Engish terminology altogether is stupid and senseless, but I do use it to make it easier for English speaking people to understand). If you chose to believe only your site's terminology or the terminology you use is correct, so be it. I won't hold a grudge, I find it hilarious.

If you're just going to make aside Nameless' and Barticle's post (thanks, Barticle, I'm glad to know -you- understand), and just insist on your conviction, then I respect that. I don't know why I respect it, but it surely is a caring thing to say. After all, you're Tom Sloper. I think Shirluban's eplanation is good enough.

I have done my contribution to this thread, I'm glad to know you approve of the -rest- of my post, so... is there anything more about the topic at hand that you wish to contribute with? I'm done here for now.