Open Tanyao

[Tom Sloper]

And while I sympathise with your idea that a period of experiments will lead to a democratic process where the ultimate rule set will be the result, I still believe that a common standard is a necessary starting point.

Hear, hear! :cheer:

[silent observer]

A unified ruleset is okay. Differing yaku would not be a problem though. If those used to playing with open tanyao are supposed to learn how to play with it concealed, the same argument can be used for open tanyao: get used to playing with it open before going to a tournament. You have to accept it as a valid argument, else we can\'t accept your argument that you can practice for concealed tanyao. (Since the argument is quintessentially, the same.)

I can\'t see any problems with this, really. It\'s the same scoring system, the same tournament system, and it could be the same ranking system. The only difference would be that some clubs might run their tournaments with open tanyao, others wouldn\'t. Because you only need to practice for open tanyao to play with it, isn\'t that so? I can\'t see how that\'d break \"reach mahjong\" spreading through Europe. All you\'d need to do is mention it in the EMA rules or something: \"Some places in Europe play with Tanyao open, others don\'t - if you\'re unsure, ask the organizers of the tournament, or play with it closed to be on the safe side.\" No, those concerns derogatory in nature: European players aren\'t good enough to handle different rulesets (and it\'s still not an entirely different ruleset, it\'s just a slight difference in yaku hands). As long as the tournament system is the same, I really can\'t see what would stop it from working. Don\'t like sharing ranking with those open tanyao idiots? Make an A and B list - Japan did it, and they\'re handling it quite well. There\'s no reason to think that Japan is this nation blessed by God, but clearly japanese pros must be.

I\'m getting tired of the ridiculous opposition against open tanyao; that dutch guy seem to have some personal problem with it (maybe it did something nasty to him or friends of his once?), Tina seems to think it\'ll break the poor European players\' minds if they get access to it... Oh, and to answer that dutch guy, whatever his forum name was: yes, I\'ve played with people that only used open tanyao and yakuhai. A bit annoying, but a good player - which I consider myself to be - will wait for the moment and win anyway. Also, if you dislike people taking your riichi sticks... maybe you should consider not declaring riichi as often? By the way: yes - that was during several games, not just one (since I know you\'ll just ask if I hadn\'t provided that tidbit of information). I didn\'t win every game, but I never lost really badly either.

[GRDavies]

I\'m getting tired of the ridiculous opposition against open tanyao;

Why is the opposition ridiculous? Is it because it differs from your point of view on the matter? Can\'t the same be said of the opposition to the concealed tanyo?

I never played 3 handed Riichi, but i always say, the only problem with Mahjong is that you need exactly 4 players and there\'s the possibility that you can have a minor beef with (some aspects of) the ruleset. If you have a mayor beef (with some of the aspects) you can either set it besides you (playing Mahjong is far better then not playing Mahjong) or choose to not play at all.

that dutch guy seem to have some personal problem with it (maybe it did something nasty to him or friends of his once?), Tina seems to think it\'ll break the poor European players\' minds if they get access to it... Oh, and to answer that dutch guy, whatever his forum name was: yes, I\'ve played with people that only used open tanyao and yakuhai. A bit annoying, but a good player - which I consider myself to be - will wait for the moment and win anyway. Also, if you dislike people taking your riichi sticks... maybe you should consider not declaring riichi as often? By the way: yes - that was during several games, not just one (since I know you\'ll just ask if I hadn\'t provided that tidbit of information). I didn\'t win every game, but I never lost really badly either.

I wouldn\'t ask it twice, i already did in my previous post:
http://www.reachmahjong.com/home/index. ... 97&catid=5, but besides that you claim that you\'re a good players, which no doubt you probably are. Debating on the other hand... It\'s a weak debating tactic to use those cheap shots which drives the focus away from the real debate, but no personal harm done here, it\'s the internet after all and please don\'t think you know me after 2 or 3 posts. What i did find interesting of the whole paragraph was the fact that you mentioned that you were a bit annoyed by those open tanyo and yakupung players, why exactly?

Personaly i would be annoyed, statisticly there would probably have been more open tanyos then yakupung hands, because personaly i find open tanyo a no skill hand. Most hands naturally tend to go towards the tanyo range. First you discard the honors and after that the 1\'s and the 9\'s go next since they are the numeric tiles which have a less change to form a combination with.
Personaly if i could i would claim riichi with each wall and if my riichi bets are scooped up by other players who made an effort (by either dodging dangerous tiles or just were somewhat luckier to get MJ earlier) so be it. Having declared Riichi the game becomes somewhat boring, picking a tile and throwing a tile if it\'s not MJ. No, for me the real thrill comes when there are 2 (or 3) riichi declarations and you don\'t have any obvious safe tiles in your hand. And that\'s why i prefer the EMA rules, who protect against open tanyo and thereby stimulate to make a lot of riichi hands.

[July]

I myself prefer to play kuitan ari...

Well, I don\'t think it\'s that difficult to figure out. It\'s not like once every thousand years the heavens open up and angels dish out some knowledge on how to handle kuitan. I don\'t have any delusions of being an \"awesome\" player, and even I can figure out that it\'s useful in situations where you want to quickly end the game, and also when you have dora tiles etc.

That being said, I think it\'s best to keep the EMA ruleset as closed tanyao.

The fact is, there are people who play using kuitan every single hand. And it\'s not very fun to play them. Yes, it\'s true that we can just think about the long term and win in the end, but it just makes the game a bit more annoying to play.

This runs at cross-purposes to the goal of making riichi mahjong popular in Europe. If it\'s not fun, people won\'t care. I think the way they\'re doing it now is the best way to help riichi catch on in Europe; after that happens, it\'ll be fine to add in another set of rules with kuitan ari at any time.

[Benjamin]

I agree with everything that July said. Well put.

[MortenA]

And I agree with everything Ben said :)

[Shirluban]

I agree with what Morten said. :P


Setting tournements with an alternate riichi rule than EMA is not a bad idea by itself. And anyone is free to do so, it will just not count for EMA ranking.
But, IMHO, ye need ONE ruleset and only ONE to spread riichi in europe.

Look at Chinese Official rules, they have spread very well in europe and are said to \"enable making tournements\".
But why? You can set up internationnal competitions with any rule, even a home rule.
So why CO among any other rule? Are they the easiest to learn? No! I\'ve seen CO player who don\'t even take care of learning all the scoring patterns and their value. And few realy know how to score any hand whithout digging in the rulebook.
Did they emphases skill vs luck ? I don\'t think so. You get so much points for lucky-tsumo and winning bonus that you hand value don\'t matter a lot in the finnal score.

So why?
CO have one feat: it\'s a standard rule.
Thou can go anywere, say hardly \"Anata jouer Chinese Official?\" and play. Don\'t need to ask what options or varients are used, there is no optional nor variable parts.


IMHO, most riichi players will, by their own will, adapt to a standard riichi rule (whatever it\'s kuitan ari or nashi), if it enables European tournements.
But few non-riichi players will take time and energy to learn a rule if they know they will have to re-learn the rule to go to Nanto-nanto-championchip, and re-re-learn the rule to go to Thing-championchip.

[Barticle]

Oddly enough I braved the hordes to look around Hamleys just a couple of weeks ago! :)

They did have one MJ set in their traditional/classic games department. I don´t remember it being a Japanese one [...]

I met a friend in London yesterday and was on Regent Street so I had a quick look in Hamleys again. It´s a Chinese set with Flowers and Seasons tiles and Arabic numbers. Reasonably expensive too at 60 pounds but it does come in a very smart black briefcase which - interestingly - includes tile racks.

I think a Japanese set in a UK shop was quite a lucky find.

After saying that, I remembered that one of the very first sets I found for sale was a Japanese one from Witzigs.

http://www.witzigs.co.uk/cats.asp?catid=0005

It has red fives and no Arabics. Less than half the price of Hamleys too.

I dropped them an email earlier. They ship worldwide and the guy said he had two new sets coming later in the year too - one bone & bamboo and another in a fancy wooden veneer case. (they might be Chinese though)

PS As for the Tanyao debate, I´m happy with Kuitan being ari or nashi, but think a single standard rule-set is best.

[Robert]

I agree with what Morten said. :P

So why?
CO have one feat: it\'s a standard rule.
Thou can go anywere, say hardly "Anata jouer Chinese Official?" and play. Don\'t need to ask what options or varients are used, there is no optional nor variable parts.

People are sheep.

[July]

I agree with what Morten said. :P

So why?
CO have one feat: it\'s a standard rule.
Thou can go anywere, say hardly "Anata jouer Chinese Official?" and play. Don\'t need to ask what options or varients are used, there is no optional nor variable parts.

People are sheep.

Yup. People are all sheep... except for me. :lol:

[Barticle]

sheep

This explains several Japanese MJ terms...

A wind round is a baaaa

Two-fan minimum is ryan han shibaaaari

The renchan counter is the honbaaaa

...see what I mean?

Baaarticle :P

[hirohurl]

Hmm,

We all like silly sheep have gone astray.

[July]

I was just following the sheep in front of me, so it\'s his fault.

[silent observer]

I just wrote a very long reply.

These shitty boards signed me out. When I hit \"submit\" it went to \"lol you can\'t post only registered users can post.\" I could not go back and save my very well thought out, and well formulated, reply.

In short:
GRDavies: Open Tanyao is roughly half as popular as open yakuhai. You are also wrong on several other things.
Tina: so are you.

The rest of you idiots discussing sheep and mahjong sets: IS THIS REALLY THE TOPIC FOR THAT SHIT? SERIOUSLY?

And I swear to god, this fucking forum software blows so hard I can\'t stand it. If I\'m going to lose all that work - and believe me, I wrote on it for several hours (roughly 1½, because Aion just finished downloading, and it\'d take about 90 minutes or so estimated) - because of shit forum software, then I\'m out of here.

I might add that I actually had a very level-headed and not-containing-swear-words-or-insults-at-all-I-swear-to-God reply written out. I dislike using swear words and woundikins too much in discussions like this. But when something like this happens then FUCK THIS SHIT.

[Tom Sloper]

\"silent observer,\" one lesson you might want to learn from this experience is to compose your messages offline, like in Word or something, then pasting it in using Ctrl-V. That way if something happens with your post attempt, you still have all that work.
Sometimes what I\'ll do is, before clicking Submit, I hit Ctrl-A and Ctrl-C, then take that carefully composed text and paste it into Word or something, in case something happens when clicking Submit.
Other things that can happen are your internet connection going down or a power blackout (both of those happened to me recently), so there are good reasons for taking these extra precautions.
And how about doing us a favor and editing your post, removing those unnecessary over-emotional words? Thanks ever so. B)