Players' placement - Seating at the table

[Shirluban]

If I’ve correctly understood what Kajimoto Takunori said me at the second European Championship, here is how the players’ placements are made:

This is over-verbosely to avoid confusion, some pictures and a more smoothy prose will be preferable for a guide/rule book.

1) The players sit around the table, in any order.

2.1) Take six tiles: East, South, West, North, an odd and an even tile.
2.2) One player shuffles these tiles face down and line-up them.
2.3) The player facing the shuffler throws two dice.
2.4) Count from the shuffler the result of the dice (anti-clockwise).
2.5) The player thus indicated is the “temporary East”.
2.6.1) Reveal the six tiles.
2.6.2) Move the odd and even tiles to their nearest side of the line. You should have the odd tile to one side and the even tile to the other side, with the four winds between them.
2.6.3) If the dice result is even, the tiles are taken from the even side. If the dice result is odd, the tiles are taken from the odd side.
2.6.4) Temporary East takes the first tile, according to the given order.
2.6.5) The player sitting at the right of temporary East takes the second tile.
2.6.5) The player sitting on the front of temporary East takes the third tile.
2.6.5) The player sitting at the left of temporary East takes the fourth tile.

3.1) Temporary East stay were he/she is.
3.2) South sits to the right of temporary East.
3.3) West sits to the front of temporary East.
3.4) North sits to the left of temporary East.

4.1) Temporary East throws the two dice.
4.2) Count from the temporary East the result of the dice (anti-clockwise).
4.3) The player thus indicated becomes East.

5.1) Players shuffle all the tiles and build the wall.
5.2) Re-throw the two dice to open the wall. The new result indicates which wall is open and where. (This throw is different from the throw used to determine who is East.)

[Gamegrunt]

1. Take one of each wind tile and place face down.

2. Shuffle.

3. Everyone take a tile.

4. East chooses a seat and others sit accordingly.

Gg

[Tom Sloper]

1. Take one of each wind tile and place face down.

2. Shuffle.

3. Everyone take a tile.

4. East chooses a seat and others sit accordingly.

Gg

What's your point? The OP was describing how the Japanese do it, which is what most on this forum are interested in. The Japanese system is elaborate, and thus is deserving of detailed explanation.
So what was the point of your addition? -- Were you describing how your group does it (as opposed to how the Japanese do it)? Or were you trying to simplify the OP's description?
Assuming the latter...
The Japanese have a particular procedure for your step 3 (your step 3 is insufficiently explanatory). And your step 4 is two steps (let's call the 2nd one step 5). Your step 5 is insufficiently explanatory.

[Gamegrunt]

I realize that the country that evolved the Tea Ceremony would have an elaborate system to determine seat positions, but as my ancestors are my witness, I've seen those old movies with my hero, Kentaro Shimizu, or Shimizu Kentaro or some-such, and I swear I saw four dudes in suits simply pick a face-down wind tile, look at it, and take a seat.

That's how we do it here in my corner of the Lonestar State, where the men are men, and the women want to play Mahjong.

Gg

[Tom Sloper]

That's how we do it here in my corner of the Lonestar State

Gotcha, pardner.

[Rosti]

What's your point? The OP was describing how the Japanese do it, which is what most on this forum are interested in.

The anime Saki disagrees. The "shuffle wind tiles face-down and pick one" method seems to be used in Japan as well.

Shuffling face-down tiles also has the added ability to be able to decide seats and tables in one fell swoop. By shuffling winds, 1-4 man, 1-4 sou, etc face down, you can quickly and easily seat multiple tables with minimum fuss, meaning people have more time to play mahjong rather than faffing around setting things up

[b4k4ni04]

The anime Saki disagrees.

I, too, blame Saki. Shuffle the winds, have people pick, reorganize around east, start from there or throw dice twice to determine true east, Play.

For my group of friends, with whom I struggle to get to play Mahjong at all, Bridge and Spades are the preferred. The faster and simpler the game gets started the better.

From JPN wiki you get 4 common methods of determining seating. Shirl's most closely fits this one: 東・南・西・北の牌を裏向きに混ぜて並べその左右に奇数と偶数の数牌を表向きに置き、さらにサイコロを振って出た目により引く牌を決め引いた牌により座席を決める。

(Shuffle the 4 winds face down. Line up the shuffled tiles and place an even and odd numbered tile face up to the left and right of the face down tiles. Throw the dice to determine which side to pull from, Seats are then determined from the drawn tiles.)

The "Saki method", already explained, more or less follows the second method listed.
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%BA%BB% ... A.E5.AE.9A

[Barticle]

It's nice to have the freedom to choose either tradition/ritual or convenience/simplicity.

Four Winds have a good summary of the traditional process with illustrations and English text...

http://www.4windsmj.com/kb/rules/japane ... ules02.htm

You'll note there's an additional dice roll made by temp east that determines both a) whether to start drawing from the odd or even end of the wind tiles and b) which of the four players takes that first tile. Also there are two consecutive dice rolls to pick the starting dealer: temp east throws to pick a player and the selected player then rolls again. So that's four dice rolls in total, then one more to decide which side of the wall to break for the first hand.

I'm sure that - as with everything else MJ - variations exist, but I've seen these stages described in Japanese books ...specifically the diagrams in them which are so much easier to follow than the text.

[Barticle]

Just thought I'd mention that one of the old Japanese PS1 games that I've recently downloaded from the Hong Kong Playstation Store - Ide Yousuke's Mahjong School - shows this process in full at the start of every game, including mixing the four wind tiles, all five dice-rolls and counting out the location of the wall break for the first hand.

It's quite educational (as you'd expect from the game's title) but since it takes over a minute and a half before play commences I'm pleased to say you have the option to skip it!

The game has a series of fourteen lessons to teach mahjong too, in Japanese of course. All passive slideshows except for the final lesson which is an interactive scoring quiz.

[gartheee]

One spot which might need a little clarification.

2.5) The player thus indicated is the “temporary East”.

Actually the SEAT thus indicated becomes "temporary east". The player who gets the East tile will then move to that seat and become "temporary east", and the others sit around him accordingly.

But as several people have pointed out, there are always variations. Simply drawing from the 4 tiles face down is always an option and the one we generally use at work. For the dice rolling method it's always a point of difference between pro associations how many times the dice will be thrown, once or twice for each decision. And sometimes they even go so far as to say that each player must take their tile from the line rather than just having the person who shuffled pass them out. Why that matters to anyone I can't imagine. As if he could manage some sleight of hand with them already facing up? But also like you say, they do like to have a predetermined process for everything here. And people are usually pretty understanding when mistakes are made in that process.