A question on waits?

[Scott Miller]

Both of you have mentioned "ponning your head". Not sure I know what that means. Can you explain?
I know it doesnt mean banging my head against the wall, which I felt like doing.

Don't get discouraged. The more you hear it, the more the lingo makes sense. You're asking the right questions, which means you're starting to get a grasp of the factors involved in discard choices. Your decision making process will continue to evolve… in the beginning you think just of making four sets and a pair… then you start to look at maximizing double sided waits… then you start looking for more complex waits with more than just two tiles to win… then you start looking at not just maximizing the waits, but at maximizing the statistical significance of the waits while minimizing risk for discarding dangerous tiles and maximizing score potential… all the while seeking that nirvana where the tiles speak to you, and you merely listen and do what they say.

Some of the answers are over your head… but that's not your fault.

Going back to your first question… yes, in general it's better to wait on two of two types of tiles than four of one kind of tile, simply because it has more flexibility built in… two kinds of tiles to work with vs all your eggs in one basket.

As far as your question about getting trapped into furiten… it didn't happen by accident. You did it to yourself. A few points…

1. First, when discarding, always be aware of your developing waits to make sure you don't discard into a potential future furiten wait. Furiten literally means a disturbed listen… in other words, you failed to listen to your waiting tiles. In this case, you needed to avoid a in order to have tanyao, but you held onto a 2-3 dot into the end… thus creating a potential furiten wait situation.

2. You opened your hand with no guaranteed yaku. By itself, that's not a mistake… but a mistake beginners make more often than they should. As a beginner, keep your hand closed unless you have a guaranteed yaku… and until you really understand how to develop multiple yaku out of that opened hand. You trapped yourself into needing a tanyao hand but left yourself with a wait on a … a trap you made for yourself when you opened your hand prematurely.

3. You went for a 1-yaku hand. Again, by itself, that's not a mistake… but beginners do that more often than they should too. 1-yaku hands definitely have their place, but try to see past the obvious 1-yaku and look deeper into your hand for where you might have others to develop. Think about this… is it worth developing a cheap only to lose to a haneman? Make a mental rule for yourself to go for at least a 2 yaku hand or not at all to force yourself to look deeper into your hand. You'll lose a few more hands early on, but it will develop your skill much faster and you'll be crushing much sooner. On the hands you decide "not at all", use those hands to work on your skill of not discarding into someone else's hand… defense. A skill more important than winning, believe it or not. So you'll be working two crucial skills at once with this 2-yaku exercise.

4. It's wise to avoid furiten… but as you get more advanced, don't be afraid to go into furiten on purpose if you know what you're doing. A reason off the top of my head… I'd wait in furiten on purpose if the points it would earn made a difference. For example, it's the last hand, and you need two yaku to take first, and winning with one yaku wouldn't change your position… then it would be worth the furiten wait if it would earn an extra yaku to take first rather than win and change nothing. Make sense?

Good luck!

[Ozball]

3. You went for a 1-yaku hand. Again, by itself, that's not a mistake… but beginners do that more often than they should too. 1-yaku hands definitely have their place, but try to see past the obvious 1-yaku and look deeper into your hand for where you might have others to develop. Think about this… is it worth developing a cheap only to lose to a haneman? Make a mental rule for yourself to go for at least a 2 yaku hand or not at all to force yourself to look deeper into your hand. You'll lose a few more hands early on, but it will develop your skill much faster and you'll be crushing much sooner. On the hands you decide "not at all", use those hands to work on your skill of not discarding into someone else's hand… defense. A skill more important than winning, believe it or not. So you'll be working two crucial skills at once with this 2-yaku exercise.

I really like this piece of advice, particularly going for more than one Yaku. I had some troubles a few months ago and was in a slump. Was trying to do some theory reading to help me out and on one of the strategy articles on the site there were some thoughts by Garthe added at the end, and it basically said (something like this): Men-Tan-Pin is almost like your bread and butter. Not that you should go for it all the time, but if you can't see any other Yaku then it's a good one to aim for. Men-Tan-Pin is vocabulary usually used in parlours mostly because people get lazy in saying the same thing all the time. Men for Menzen Riichii (closed Reached hand), Tan for Tanyo (all simples) and Pin for Pinfu (Peace I think it is in English). I used to also have a lot of trouble remember to look for Pinfu / counting it when it was in my hand, but after a couple sessions of almost exclusively aiming for Mentanpin A. I managed to pull out of my slump (whether it was related or it just ended at the same time who knows) and B. I can see Pinfu A LOT more easily now and since it's such an easy one to combine with others my overall hand average has gone up as a result. So try aiming for a few Mentanpins and see how you go. 3 Yaku, you get used to Pinfu (if you're having troubles with that) and it keeps your hand closed so you have more flexibility to evolve into other Yaku if the tiles fall that way as well.