Ozball's Nihon Open Qualifier

[Ozball]

So I attended the local qualifier for the NPM's (Nihon Pro Mahjong association aka Kyoukai) Nihon Open on February 23rd.

I didn't do as well in this one, finishing in 9th place over all. ( http://www.marchao.co.jp/taikai/0223.html ) While I had felt fine in the morning (after a slight fever the night before) I felt progressively worse as the day went on, and found out the following day, when I went to the doctor, that I had the flu and proceeded to have to take the following week off work

My placings were 2nd 3rd 1st and 4th in my four matches. I was relatively happy with how I played in the first three games overall, but the fourth game was a real pain. For the whole hanchan I did not deal into anyone else's hand. The only points I lost were through tsumo, however I just. could. not. get. to. Tenpai! The only time I did was during my turn as dealer in the south round and someone promptly won the hand in the same go around as I got to tenpai in.

I don't remember any specific hands, and I didn't get any Yakuman this time. I did have a few issues with the rules though. They were pretty standard rules, no red fives, but ippatsu and ura-dora were included. The issue I mostly had was with the placing bonuses (uma and oka). The placing bonuses were -30/-10/10/50 and the oka was 25000 - 30000. Meaning we started with 25,000 points but the plus border was at 30,000 at the end of the game. This mean that winning a hanchan gave you a HUGE lead over anyone who came second or below. You can see in the standings that the top four people who all managed to win twice have a huge lead over pretty much everyone else. This made it feel like to me that there was a lot more luck involved than in the Oui tournament. One lucky hand (or ippatsu or uradora) could be enough to allow to squeeze into first place, and collect the huge 50,000 point bonus. Even if you came first by only 100 point you immediately became 40,100 points ahead of second place in the overall standings. I think if it had been -30/-10/10/30 then it wouldn't have been so bad, since then at least a 4th place is reversely equal to 1st. Or maybe I was just more frustrated because I was sick on the day.

Ah well, I'm looking forward and will be in the local JPML Master's Qualifier on the 20th of April, and there is a store based tournament at my local store at the end of this month as well to look forward to. I'll try and get write ups of them done as well. Hopefully I'll do better in those.

[Referee]

I understand that 50 is the +30 uma plus the 20 oka already rolled in.

[Ozball]

I understand that 50 is the +30 uma plus the 20 oka already rolled in.

I've never really understood how the oka get's calculated as a bonus to first place. To me it's always been "This is what you start with, and this is the border for getting positive." Or is it normally added into the uma already? Meaning an uma -30/-10/10/30 with a 20 oka would in reality be an uma of -30/-10/10/10?

[Referee]

I don't think they should be combined, because it leads to that kind of confusion. Oka is what is "missing" at the start. If you begin with 25,000 and the target is 30,000 that's 5,000 off. Times four, since everyone is like that, makes 20,000 points, which go to the winner. If you had started with 27,000 (another more or less standard value) the oka would amount to 12,000.

A different thing is the uma, which is an adjustment of the final scores based on position, and always is (or should be) balanced. The more common uma are 30/10 (That is the case in your tournament), 20/10, 10/5, or 9/3. But I've seen others from time to time. There are also places where uma is not applied.

[Iapetus]

The simplest way to express oka is the same way as uma:
(-5/-5/-5/+15)
Whatever antiquated gambling payment system it's based on is just unnecessary, overcomplicated information. Furthermore, both uma and oka can be further streamlined into a generic winner bonus. In the case of this qualifier, it would be
(-30/-10/+10/+30) + (-5/-5/-5/+15) = (-35/-15/+5/+45)
which indeed shows that getting first place is more important than any other placement change, for arbitrary reasons.

[Barticle]

The way I describe Oka is that you buy into the match with 30k but then start with (e.g.) 25k and the remaining points become the winner's bonus. It'd be a great motivator if you were gambling but in competitive play it does attach a lot of significance to coming top, especially if you have an Uma anyway.

After they've been reckoned in the two-digit format (with the Oka added back in) the final scores will sum to zero and reflect the actual profit/loss for each player. If any further bonuses/penalties are applied these must preserve the zero sum - that goes for chips, bust penalties, Yakitori payments, Binta, side-bets and - most commonly - Uma. So, as Ref notes, the components of the Uma must sum to zero too, e.g. +20/+10/-10/-20.

Most Uma are symmetrical which makes them easier to describe (i.e. 3rd pays 2nd and 4th pays 1st) however you could also have an asymmetrical one like +20/+5/-10/-15 say (where 3rd and 4th make their payments and 1st and 2nd take what they're owed).

Congrats on getting those 1st and 2nd places, Ozball. Good luck in your future competitions.

PS It's fitting that we should be discussing Uma (馬) in the Year of the Horse (馬).

[Barticle]

I'm still currently testing Mahjong Haoh: Dankyuu Battle 3 which has some novel Uma options.

In addition to eight symmetrical settings (from 4-12 up to 30-60) there's one skewed one: +40/+10/-20/-30

There's also a 浮き (float) option where the Uma varies depending on how many players have a positive final score - one (+30/-5/-10/-15), two (+20/+10/-10/-20) or three (+15/+10/+5/-30). The positive players always gain points.

Additionally there's a rule that permits ties on the final scores. In this event tied players split their Uma evenly, for example with a 10-20 Uma if the middle two players are tied the payments are +20/0/0/-20 or if the bottom two are tied they'd be +20/+10/-15/-15 (still summing to zero as always).

[Ozball]

There's also a 浮き (float) option where the Uma varies depending on how many players have a positive final score - one (+30/-5/-10/-15), two (+20/+10/-10/-20) or three (+15/+10/+5/-30). The positive players always gain points.

This is actually how the JMPL's Oui Main Event was done. The regional qualifier was a flat uma, but the next round was the floating uma.

[Barticle]

Interesting to hear of it being used in an official setting.

PS Regarding the separate winner's bonus, it could be worse. The most extreme setting in MH:DB3 is 200,000 pts! (60k buy-in and 10k starts)