Discussion regarding rule sets based around Riichi, MCR, ZJ

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WaveMaster
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Re: Discussion regarding rule sets based around Riichi and M

Post by WaveMaster » Mon May 21, 2012 5:43 pm

I don't even need to say it but, "Zung Jung is better and less luck-influenced, and since I'm such a skilled player I prefer it!" sounds like people saying "I'm really good at mahjong, but I can't get past 3rd/4th dan in any mahjong server, and I lose whenever I play with my less-skilled friends IRL. And that's not because I suck at riichi, that's because it's more luck-influenced!"
In any case, you're entitled to "have fun" with Zung Jung (though I can think of at least 10 things more fun than Zung Jung, such as nailing your feet to the ground, or push your eyes hard into your eye-sockets until you see psychedelic stars or just not playing it).
You should tell Alan to pick better names, as well. Zung Jung doesn't even sound like mahjong; sounds like cheap soup from the local market. While I'm always in for soup, and I'm so poor I'm always glad to find cheap things, it sounds like the kind of soup you'd look at and say "...man, do I hate soup" before throwing it down the sink and buying a good piece of steak. I'm hungry.
This is depressing to read. If this is the closest you can come to civil discourse, then don't bother.

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Re: Discussion regarding rule sets based around Riichi and M

Post by xKime » Mon May 21, 2012 8:11 pm

This is depressing to read. If this is the closest you can come to civil discourse, then don't bother.
Hey, WaveMaster. I'm terribly sorry to hear about your depression, and while this is normally not the place to go about it, I'll try to cheer you up by letting you know there are far more depressing things out there other than the truth. For example, hunger in Africa, Mickey Rourke's current appearance, and comments such as this
and I don't enjoy spending my time in a deeply flawed, imbalanced game, no matter how popular it is elsewhere.
Fore more information on depression and Zung Jung (Zung and depression seem to share a close relationship), please refer to this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zung_Self- ... sion_Scale

And since you did take your time to increase your post count by 1, while only using 2 sentences, I'll show you I value your time and investment into this discussion by providing you of a more civil post.

I would like to live in an universe where it is the games that are flowed and not the player; I bet it would probably be a lot less "depressing" and more "civil" place to leave in. In such universe, I could play the guitar as terrible as I wanted, then throw it away, call it "flawed" and immediately proceed to tell everyone about how much better and more balanced the piano is, and finally I could just disagree in forums with everyone and anyone who states otherwise. When I was 10, I wanted a guitar more than anything in the world (except for a real dinosaur). However, my arms were too short, my fingers too weak and the fact that I kept neurotically biting my nails all the way to my finger didn't help much either. You could say having T-Rex arms was cool, because I also liked dinosaurs, but I had to forget about playing the guitar until I turned 16 and finally bought one for myself. The strings seemed old and sounded terrible. Nevertheless, there I sat, and I sat there, just playing and playing for hours and hours, making horrible noises just because I had the toy I so much longed for and now my arms and fingers were finally of the proper length and strength respectively. If I had given up on guitar earlier, I wouldn't have gotten to enjoy all those out-of-tune melodies I performed... and I also wouldn't have been kicked out of several apartments because of the annoying noise either. I think that's when my depression started, but it's hard to say. It probably started when I was born and I realized I wasn't born a dinosaur.

I have to admit, though, that a part of me would like to use Zung Jung as a tool to teach mahjong. The newer players at our club keep committing a huge amount of chonbo only because while they are good-willed enough to complete four mentsu and a pair, they're just not persistent enough to remember that they need to have at least one yaku to win the hand. Now, if we were playing Zung Jung, this would allow them to earn a positive income instead of causing them to lose 8000 (or 12000) points out of a common beginner's mistake, and they would come out ahead instead of behind, and then rejoice. That way we could spend more time sharing laughter, and less time throwing tiles and point sticks at each other in the face, while we poke each other's legs with sharp knives under the table. I can imagine other uses. Whenever one of the slightly more advanced players would throw away a workable MenPin 1shanten by systematically discarding two other suits they "don't like," proceeding to call all tiles in the third suit for a hon itsu nomi hand, instead of scolding them by striking them on the thighs with my 40cms ruler as usual, I could just pat them in the shoulder and say that it's not their fault - they're just better off playing a more balanced scoring system. This would probably help, or at least reduce the amount of lawsuits against me because of "physical assaults with possible sexual harassment." In any case, either of those things are positive and have my approval.

Nonetheless, while that part of me wants to use ZJ for that purpose, the other, larger and more realistic part of myself reminds me that it's not necessary to teach ping-pong first in order to teach tennis. After that, I normally get into a huge depression because of how uncivil, or at least unpractical, I am. Then I proceed to haunt internet forums to pass this depression on to others. I see you might have seen yourself reflected in some of those comments and maybe took offense. For this, I apologize with you, and I hope we can still be friends like all these years, maybe even closer than before.

I wish I could be less depressing, and a lot more civil. Apparently that would involve skipping to only certain parts of a post, replying only to that part, then ignoring the rest while hardly making a contribution to the discursive activity itself.

One time I tried being more civil and animistic, even dressed up as a clown and told everyone around me about the joys of love, rainbows and how we're all beautiful and should never contradict others. Unluckily enough, everyone at that funeral didn't quite like my disposition. But don't blame me, it was a highly unbalanced and flawed event, no matter how popular they are elsewhere.

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Re: Discussion regarding rule sets based around Riichi and M

Post by xKime » Mon May 21, 2012 10:12 pm

Leaving the bad things aside, I realized I ignored one of Torgo's replies. While this could be considered as deliberate and rude, I assure you there was no ill will.
This is completely irrelevant. If some more excellent, demonstrably better style came along, would it be less better because it is new? I'm not saying Zung Jung is that system. I'm also not saying riichi isn't good or enjoyable. Many people play it very happily. Even more people play HKOS and enjoy that. Are they wrong too? 300,000 people buy the National Mah-Jongg League card every year. OK, that one I cannot explain.
Well, where is the "more excellent, demonstrably better" style? Yes, I could say it is "less better," as you idiomatically suggested, however, not because it's new but because of the lack of deeper thought and analysis put into it, and because not only its purpose is vague, it also fails to provide what it promises. There are enough excruciatingly painful and unfunny mahjong versions out there, and I hardly believe that Zung Jung is the one worth promoting so eagerly. That energy would better be used into introducing mahjong to people who hadn't seen it before instead of defending Zung Jung in Reach Mahjong forums (...you probably have done this at other places, I assume). We could just drop the "I think I can make a better ruleset and be famous as the guy who invented/promoted a new and better (according to myself!) mahjong!" and stop adding more whacky variants to the pool, dividing mahjong players into further smaller groups. Perhaps not even that; it's important to be creative and adding more options and rulesets is part of the process of getting new people interested, and if you want to devise a ruleset that doesn't make much sense, that's kosher, I don't mind, but when you start waving your flag and banners around saying that it's "better" or "less flawed" and "more skill-based and balanced," it just sounds like you're disrespecting people who are actually any good at the game. It makes you sound like the kind of jerk player who, when he loses to the more skilled guy in a mahjong game, says "you got pretty lucky." ...I don't like those jerks. Nobody does. Don't become one of those.
xKime wrote:
Anybody can just discard tiles and aim for pinfu, or their favorite yaku or whatever, but it requires a huge amount of skill to overcome luck factors to come ahead winning long-term.
This is very true. However, I believe that long term in riichi is hundreds or thousands of games, which pushes out the reward for learning into several years. That's too long a time frame for me. It's my personal taste.
In our time and age it is not required to spend several years to get hundreds or thousands of games. The rewards from learning are not only seen in your results, but also when you know you've begun to do things the right(er) way. I can't blame you if you never felt that way, but don't fall under the delusion that ZJ will be able to tell that you're better than someone else by playing 10 games.
I made no such claim. I know it takes a lot of skill to play well. Too much skill in my view. My only claim is that scores in Zung Jung are more related to the risks than in riichi, which makes it a more balanced game -- one that I feel is actually worth my time playing.
I can only wonder why it is that every time I think you said something valuable, you blow it up with your last sentence. I'm sorry riichi isn't worthy of your time, and I hope you have a great time playing and promoting ZJ.

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Re: Discussion regarding rule sets based around Riichi and M

Post by Kyuu » Mon May 21, 2012 10:35 pm

Via Anime Central (Chicago).

We got the pleasure to host a mahjong session, where we had teaching tables, regular games, and a tournament all in one room. As far as the teaching went, new people were taught Riichi straight up, even if they never played a game of mahjong aside from m.solitaire. It was still neat to see 6 hours of mahjong, with all tables filled. We also had the good problem of trying to find spots for some people. Sadly, not enough for them. In the end, it was a lot of mahjong till closing time.

[quote=xKime]they're just not persistent enough to remember that they need to have at least one yaku to win the hand[/quote]

I learned via software given to me by a friend online. So, playing with the game, and when I first came across this situation - I got mad. :lol: :lol: "Like what?! How come I couldn't win with that?!" Same thing occurred when I encountered furiten for the first time too. :lol:

But enough about my own learning curve.

With the 1-yaku minimum idea, the 4-melds + pair, and a sheet of yaku patterns. Players managed to pick up the game fairly enough for a start. Regardless, as far as game difficulty goes -- I may find Riichi to be one of the hardest ones to learn, based on the restrictions imposed upon it: especially the 1-yaku minimum. Furiten adds in another flavor of difficulty.

And the one major thing to consider: Are there any flavors of mahjong, in which players are required to organize their discards in front of them neatly?

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Re: Discussion regarding rule sets based around Riichi and M

Post by Torgo » Tue May 22, 2012 3:16 am

xKime wrote:
This is completely irrelevant. If some more excellent, demonstrably better style came along, would it be less better because it is new?
Yes, I could say it is "less better," as you idiomatically suggested, however, not because it's new but because of the lack of deeper thought and analysis put into it, and because not only its purpose is vague, it also fails to provide what it promises.
At first I thought this was a valid criticism, but the argument refutes my premise. If there is no deeper thought or analysis, then it's not the style I'm asking about.
but when you start waving your flag and banners around saying that it's "better" or "less flawed" and "more skill-based and balanced," it just sounds like you're disrespecting people who are actually any good at the game.
You are correct. I have forgotten my manners. That was not my intent. I know that riichi is a deep game with much subtlety that takes much study to play well. I have failed to express why I believe zung jung is also worthy of study.
I'm sorry riichi isn't worthy of your time, and I hope you have a great time playing and promoting ZJ.
I'm sorry zung jung isn't worthy of your time, and I also hope you continue to have a great time playing and promoting riichi.

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Re: Discussion regarding rule sets based around Riichi and M

Post by Kyuu » Thu May 24, 2012 11:32 pm

OK. For Riichi. Defense play centers around reading the discard pile, in which tiles in the center are organized according to the order of player's discards.

For flavors of mahjong that do not organize discards in the center, how is defense play handled? I am going to assume ZJ falls into this category.

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Re: Discussion regarding rule sets based around Riichi and M

Post by Shirluban » Fri May 25, 2012 12:38 am

Kyuu wrote:For flavors of mahjong that do not organize discards in the center, how is defense play handled? I am going to assume ZJ falls into this category.
In Zung Jung, the discards are put in order, like in Riichi and Chinese Official.
Or at least it was for WSOM ; the Zung Jung official site is rather ... short.
http://home.netvigator.com/~tarot/Mahjo ... s_eng.html

The "Rule of Same-Round Immunity" suggest that discard are kept in order, unless players have a good memory and are honest :lol:
Cats don't do タンヤオ (tan-yao) but タニャーオ (ta-nya-o).
World Riichi Championship Rules 2022
Comparison of riichi rules around the world

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Re: Discussion regarding rule sets based around Riichi and M

Post by xKime » Fri May 25, 2012 12:49 am

Kyuu wrote:OK. For Riichi. Defense play centers around reading the discard pile, in which tiles in the center are organized according to the order of player's discards.

For flavors of mahjong that do not organize discards in the center, how is defense play handled? I am going to assume ZJ falls into this category.
Even if in ZJ mahjong you organize discards, defense seems to be pointless most of the time, according to Jenn. http://www.reachmahjong.blogspot.co.uk/ ... eries.html

It's a nice read. It also says how ZJ was helping less experienced players while hurting more experienced players and pros like our Jenn herself.
The WSOM used Alan Kwan's Zung Jung Mahjong Scoring System. At first glance on the WSOM website, I thought it looked like a good combination of Reach and Chinese Official rules. However, in the first game, it was obvious that the rules as they were relied more on luck than both of the others and are very rewarding to beginning players and lucky players while penalizing experienced players.
At least it's not just us.

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