Alternative methods of enforcing Chombo

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Kyuu
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Alternative methods of enforcing Chombo

Post by Kyuu » Tue Jul 09, 2013 5:04 am

Ever since the ACEN Tournament, I could not help but notice one player almost making the finals table on a single oya-Chombo payment. I am a firm believer that points must be earned, rather than be gifted in such a fashion. Instead of a mangan penalty for Chombo, I am opting to take the following course for next year:
Chombo
• Instead of the standard mangan payment penalty, a player who commits chombo must have his/her hand revealed and will be tsumogiri (auto discard drawn tiles) until the end of the hand.
• If tenpai, the player is barred from winning the hand, even by tsumo.
In doing so, the other players must still earn the points; and the game continues onward without interruption. Plus, this may subject the penalized with an even harsher penalty (like playing into Haneman or more). Of course, that value depends on the other players.

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Re: Alternative methods of enforcing Chombo

Post by Iapetus » Tue Jul 09, 2013 8:13 pm

Chombo is primarily needed for situations where the game cannot continue. If you don't want other players to gain points relative to players in other tables, you can deduct 10 thousand from the offender but not give anything to the others. This imposes the same in-game handicap and a slightly harder point penalty. It's the exact same penalty you get in EMA rules if you are late by 10 minutes.

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Re: Alternative methods of enforcing Chombo

Post by wavemotion » Wed Jul 10, 2013 2:19 pm

Since I tend to play a lot of teaching games, we don't usually enforce Chombo unless there is no way to continue the game. Often we'll just try and back out of the situation if it's only a single mis-drawn tile (correcting as best we can). If it's an illegal declare, we'll usually just let the player take his tiles back up and continue on. If the person can no longer form a Yaku, the only way forward is to have the player just draw and discard. It's a harsh enough penalty without forcing point pain!

Admittedly, these are always "home games" where the focus is on teaching, learning, improving and having maximum fun. In a tourney, I can see the need for the more strict Chombo penalties.

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Re: Alternative methods of enforcing Chombo

Post by Kyuu » Wed Jul 10, 2013 9:04 pm

Iapetus wrote:Chombo is primarily needed for situations where the game cannot continue. If you don't want other players to gain points relative to players in other tables
Actually, I do. That's my reasoning to using Tsumogiri on the penalized. However, other players would still have to earn those points with actions based on their own hands. This is what I am looking for.

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Re: Alternative methods of enforcing Chombo

Post by Referee » Wed Jul 10, 2013 9:46 pm

But what constitutes "earned with their actions", exactly? Is a tenhou earned?

Chombo penalties should be rare at worst, and if a player would have gotten in (or almost) by a chombo penalty, it means he (or she) was close enough to get in in the first place. After all, on an oya-chombo, the other players are getting the equivalent of a 30-3 hand (plus an extra rounding), unless your direct rival is the one that committed chombo.

All this is to say, I guess, I see nothing wrong to the chombo rule, I'm much more against the abortive draws, but to each their own, I guess. That's the greatness of Mahjong. :)

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Re: Alternative methods of enforcing Chombo

Post by Kyuu » Thu Jul 11, 2013 9:57 pm

Oh, I love Abortive Draws. :wink: I can cite my own laughter, when I experienced calling Riichi against 3 previously called Riichi. Thankfully, my discard was not subject to ron. However, the following hand, another player wins by "renhou". I laughed so hard that day. :lol:
Referee wrote:But what constitutes "earned with their actions", exactly? Is a tenhou earned?
Tenhou? Oh yea, you bet that's earned -- unless the walls were rigged. Of course, even something like this could happen:
http://www.osamuko.com/delicious-riichi ... -click-it/

To answer the question "earned with their actions", I was referring to the natural progression of hand development per the basic game rules (as if chombo is not going to happen). In other words, I am looking to ensure that point exchanges occur based on player's individual hands, rather than via penalized mistakes. Obviously, we'd all prefer a clean game; but with real tiles, mishaps can happen, because certain game rules are not automatically enforced by computers. For the ACEN tournament, even the champion committed one chombo, that he may not live down.
Referee wrote:All this is to say, I guess, I see nothing wrong to the chombo rule
Well, I am referring to my own tournament results, citing a possible need to adjust it. Of course, if I could, I'd use some kind of game competency screening. However, the player base in America isn't concentrated enough. We're pretty much widespread across the country; yet, I'm thankful enough to have enough players around to even run a tournament.

With next year's edition, I will be able to see and examine which method is more effective and fair.

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Re: Alternative methods of enforcing Chombo

Post by zzo38 » Thu Jul 11, 2013 11:19 pm

There are different things which can result in chombo penalty, so you should be depending on such things.

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Re: Alternative methods of enforcing Chombo

Post by Senechal » Fri Jul 12, 2013 5:31 am

I think it's pointless to fret over the details of chombo. It's not like any tournament in America will determine "the best" for years to come.

Pick something logical, and enforce it uniformly.

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Re: Alternative methods of enforcing Chombo

Post by Kyuu » Fri Sep 27, 2013 12:35 am

Senechal wrote:I think it's pointless to fret over the details of chombo. It's not like any tournament in America will determine "the best" for years to come.

Pick something logical, and enforce it uniformly.
Hence, there's the chance to experiment on a few little things, via trial and error to try some ideas. I got to try enforcing the chombo offender as a locked tsumogiri. However, there was a case where the player managed to get away unpunished, because the hand played out with one player hitting another player.

So, instead, I might just have the offender drop a 5K stick onto the "riichi pile" and be open tsumogiri for the rest of the hand. In the event of ryuukyoku, the 5K carries into the next hand; but the offender is barred from winning it back.

My purpose is to eliminate the disruption of the "tile flow" and allow the game to continue despite the penalty.

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Re: Alternative methods of enforcing Chombo

Post by zzo38 » Sun Sep 29, 2013 4:45 pm

These are my (experimental) ideas for chombo:
  • Incorrect win (including furiten): You have to expose your tiles so everyone can see, and pay 500 points to each player (no doubling for east), but then you can conceal them again and continue normally. Doing this too often may result in disqualification.
  • No-ten riichi: Pay 1500 points to each other player in case of ryuukyoku (no doubling for east). After that, tenpai/no-ten payments are calculated normally. There is no disqualification for this. Also, this penalty isn't added in case of incorrect win; the game continues normally in such case, and in case of ryuukyoku it is penalty.
  • Kan which changes waits if riichi: It is allowed; there is no penalty. If it eliminates all possible waits, then no-ten riichi penalty applies as above.
  • Wrong number of tiles: If a player is initially dealt too few tiles they must draw up to fourteen on their first turn; if a non-east is dealt fourteen initially, they may play but cannot call chii,pon,kan,ron on their first turn. In all other cases, you continue the game normally but is impossible to win (and always count as no-ten); in cases where it is done too often or too deliberately then you can be disqualified.
  • Damaging the wall: You have to pay out a yakuman win to each player, and the hand is restarted (giving back all riichi sticks, not increasing honba), or be disqualified if too often or too deliberate.

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Re: Alternative methods of enforcing Chombo

Post by Senechal » Mon Sep 30, 2013 3:45 am

zzo38 wrote:These are my (experimental) ideas for chombo:
  • Kan which changes waits if riichi: It is allowed; there is no penalty. If it eliminates all possible waits, then no-ten riichi penalty applies as above.
  • Damaging the wall: You have to pay out a yakuman win to each player, and the hand is restarted (giving back all riichi sticks, not increasing honba), or be disqualified if too often or too deliberate.
You're neither answering the problem nor do these two solutions make any sense in any universe.
Please, for the love of everything holy, stop making new rules, or bullshit justifications to alter common sense with "LOLPOINTS" regulations that make no sense, either with riichi mahjong as a whole, or just at face value.

Rule 1 about variant rules, rulings, and regulations: do not break the rules of mahjong. Switching waits with a post-riichi kan is chombo. That's not negotiable.
Rule 2 about variant rules, rulings, and regulations: when something is already penalized in normal play, do not offer to multiply the penalty by 12 to sound funny. It isn't.

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Re: Alternative methods of enforcing Chombo

Post by zzo38 » Mon Sep 30, 2013 5:22 am

Senechal wrote:Rule 1 about variant rules, rulings, and regulations: do not break the rules of mahjong. Switching waits with a post-riichi kan is chombo. That's not negotiable.
I am not sure the best way to enforce it (unless you always ensure to record the game, in which case it will be clear), but you could make it the same penalty as no-ten riichi (whatever the penalty you are happen to use).
Senechal wrote:Rule 2 about variant rules, rulings, and regulations: when something is already penalized in normal play, do not offer to multiply the penalty by 12 to sound funny. It isn't.
I am not trying to sound funny. I am trying to prevent you to do it deliberately to stop someone making a yakuman hand.

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Re: Alternative methods of enforcing Chombo

Post by Shirluban » Mon Sep 30, 2013 12:02 pm

If the problem is other players getting points without earning it, just don't give them points.
So, the offending player lose points while the others don't get any reward, and everything should be alright.
I think it's how the JPML does, counting the penalty after the uma (?), but what Jenn once said me isn't very clear: "minus 20 pt penalty to total score (20,000 pt)".
_________________________________________________

Revealing a hand gives A LOT of informations to the other players, thus the game cannot continue normally, thus redeal.
zzo38 wrote:No-ten riichi: Pay 1500 points to each other player in case of ryuukyoku (no doubling for east). After that, tenpai/no-ten payments are calculated normally. There is no disqualification for this. Also, this penalty isn't added in case of incorrect win; the game continues normally in such case, and in case of ryuukyoku it is penalty.
Declaring riichi forces the other players to play more defensively, up to breaking a tenpai hand.
This means it may lead East player to lose his renchan, and spead-up the hanchan: less continuances = less hands played = fewer possibility to make points.

If the threat was non-existant, how could the hand not being redealed?
zzo38 wrote:Kan which changes waits if riichi: It is allowed; there is no penalty.
I thought the base idea of declaring riichi was to freeze the hand.
Plus, it's pretty easy to check kan-after-riichi, since you can kan only with the drawn tile. Just remove the 4th tile of a post-riichi kan, and you'll have the hand before it.
zzo38 wrote:Damaging the wall: You have to pay out a yakuman win to each player, and ...
... and run for your live.
If you do that in a tournament, where the ranking is based on the total sum of hanchan scores, giving 32k (or 48k) points to three random players will give them a HHUUGGEE boost against every other players.
So, pretty much every people in the room would most certainly like to re-paint the walls with the offender's blood.
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Re: Alternative methods of enforcing Chombo

Post by zzo38 » Mon Sep 30, 2013 7:01 pm

Shirluban wrote:If the problem is other players getting points without earning it, just don't give them points.
So, the offending player lose points while the others don't get any reward, and everything should be alright.
I think it's how the JPML does, counting the penalty after the uma (?), but what Jenn once said me isn't very clear: "minus 20 pt penalty to total score (20,000 pt)".
OK, as you are mentioning (here and below), in that tournament format my ideas are clearly wrong. Yes, what you say would work, I guess; it makes more sense. (I was thinking of an entirely different tournament format; that is one reason why my ideas might be strange to you.)
Revealing a hand gives A LOT of informations to the other players, thus the game cannot continue normally, thus redeal.
Outside of such a tournament format I think continuing the hand would make sense; otherwise someone can just abort the hand to stop someone making a higher scoring hand and can affect the scoring at the end either way whether it is calculated after the uma or during payment. The only other alternative seems disqualification.
zzo38 wrote:No-ten riichi: Pay 1500 points to each other player in case of ryuukyoku (no doubling for east). After that, tenpai/no-ten payments are calculated normally. There is no disqualification for this. Also, this penalty isn't added in case of incorrect win; the game continues normally in such case, and in case of ryuukyoku it is penalty.
Declaring riichi forces the other players to play more defensively, up to breaking a tenpai hand.
This means it may lead East player to lose his renchan, and spead-up the hanchan: less continuances = less hands played = fewer possibility to make points.

If the threat was non-existant, how could the hand not being redealed?
There are different kind of rules for whether or not it continues after a draw; I prefer it always continues the same hand and is what I was thinking of at this time. Another rule is that it never continues; obviously this rule for chombo penalty I mentioned won't work in such a case, for the reasons you mentioned.
zzo38 wrote:Kan which changes waits if riichi: It is allowed; there is no penalty.
I thought the base idea of declaring riichi was to freeze the hand.
Plus, it's pretty easy to check kan-after-riichi, since you can kan only with the drawn tile. Just remove the 4th tile of a post-riichi kan, and you'll have the hand before it.
Yes, as long as you keep track of which kan have been declared before riichi and which ones afterward, this will work (and it shouldn't be too difficult to keep track).
zzo38 wrote:Damaging the wall: You have to pay out a yakuman win to each player, and ...
... and run for your live.
If you do that in a tournament, where the ranking is based on the total sum of hanchan scores, giving 32k (or 48k) points to three random players will give them a HHUUGGEE boost against every other players.
So, pretty much every people in the room would most certainly like to re-paint the walls with the offender's blood.
Yes, in a tournament based on the total sum of scores this is clearly broken. However, like I said there are problems with it, the alternative seems disqualification if the face any tiles become visible; otherwise if it is inadvertently and all tiles fell face-down, you could probably just put them back in, and continue normally.

You could use chombo aborting even if you are going to win the tourament but to stop other players making a hand if you hate one of the other players at your table and don't want them to win the tournament... eventually you will get a good hand... You won't have to deal into a hand worth more than mangan, other players won't deal into each other's hand, etc.

In conclusion, your methods and my methods and the standard methods all seems unfair in some way when that tournament format is being used; the only alternatives seem disqualification or a different tournament format (although I may be wrong).

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Re: Alternative methods of enforcing Chombo

Post by Referee » Tue Oct 01, 2013 3:55 pm

If you are playing with people that are willing to consider voluntary chonbo to stop a higher hand, then maybe the crux of the issue doesn't like on the chonbo rules...

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