(Half)Flush and your discards

[Ozball]

So this is something that I've been wondering about and wondering how other people deal with it: I find when I go for a Half Flush, or a Full Flush (Honnitsu or Chinnitsu) that it is usually BLATANTLY obvious since my discard pile will have none of the tiles in that suit. Is there anything that can be done about that? Or is it just a risk that comes with going for those hand?

[Shirluban]

You can cover your half-flush by discarding tiles from the flush's suit early.
But that pretty much means ruining your hand, and if you still manage to be tenpai you'll likely be furiten.

So, no you can't really do any thing to hide a half/full-flush.
But... is that a problem?
By seeing you're doing a half/full-flush, your opponents will also see your hand will worth a mangan or so (unless it's an open half-flush with non-valuable honors kōtsu).
Most players will defend, which may imply giving-up their hand (defending against a half/full-flush without running their own hand is far from easy).
The problem will be if a player is also doing a half/full-flush in the same suit, keeping the tiles you want AND attacking at the same tile.
But this case should be blatantly obvious to spot.

[Ozball]

Fair enough. I think maybe I don't value enough the impact that this kind of thing has on the other players hands. I (and I assume most people) like winning my hands when I get them ready, but at the same time if you manage to get the others to be no-ten then you get 3000 points (or 2000 if you reached) which is nearly as much as a reach Chi-toi hand (3han/25fu - 3200) which isn't all that bad really. Even if one other person is tenpai then you're still at chi-toi (2han/25fu - 1600) value. I think maybe I need to remind myself of these things when worrying about my half flush's discards. You might only be losing 400 points if you have a valueless honour tile and no dora (2han/30fu - 2000), or even make more if you're open and have a two way wait (2han/20fu - 1300). Definitely something for me to think on, thanks!

[xDsoul]

Honestly if im going for a honitsu or chinitsu I usually get into tenpai early in the game before the 6th or 7th turn then discard outside the suit in order to keep it concealed otherwise id open it and call right off the bat if I have any honors or doras within the suit. A good way I do this is break up tge hand and discard only terminals that's just me though iunno :3 but shirluban is right you gotta also factor in the mental pressure your putting in your opponents. If you can read people nakes all the more ezier to take advantage.

[Kyuu]

At the very least, you discard one suit - for as long as possible. If you run out of these, then you can probably sacrifice one honor tile or two, before discarding the other suit. But yea, if you decide to go Honitsu or Chinitsu, then it comes with the territory. Your discards will spell it very conspicuously.



I was talking in IRC yesterday about this. With this start hand, I decided to go Honitsu. Currently, my own hindsight vision says, "that's a dumb decision". But in the end, this one worked out far more conveniently, than I had ever hoped.

http://tenhou.net/0/?log=2012110412gm-0 ... &tw=3&ts=7