Mahjong, The Art and Science of

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > Mahjong, The Art and Science of

Stelas: Sep 6, 2010

I've reached the point in Tenhou where losing a game can lose me points and even drop me down a rank, and suddenly I'm getting my rear end kicked in several different directions daily. It's very distressing.

nftyw posted:

I thought that if you were in the endgame and especially if other players look like their ducks are all lined up, you desperately are trying to not discard someone else's winning tile in hopes that you will either draw the game or get someone else/everybody to pay for someone else's win.

Yeah, but trying to get to tenpai while you're doing it is worth it, provided you can get there while discarding mostly safe tiles. If you don't have a read on someone's hand, generally speaking you just want to try to discard the same tiles they do, since furiten will generally stop them from being able to call on it.

aldantefax posted:

Is there going to be an IRC or something for pickup games?

It's dead as hell but there's a #riichigoons on synirc.

e: also if you want a slightly more concise table of yaku I really like this guide because it can print out onto a single sheet of paper.

Stelas fucked around with this message at 16:08 on Apr 8, 2014

# ¿ Apr 8, 2014 16:04

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# ¿ May 17, 2024 20:16

Stelas: Sep 6, 2010

That message means you don't have a yaku in your hand - you've either opened your hand (by taking someone else's tile) and blocked off a lot of your options, or you've collected a load of crap and you're going to have to riichi to actually get it to count as a hand.

Remembering the hands is the hardest part, closely followed by curbing the instinct to just grab at tiles. Opening your hand by taking someone else's tile locks you out of a lot of different yaku and often strips the score of others, especially if you start opening your hands with 1s or 9s or winds you don't care about.

For the sake of a clearer list than the one on gamedesign, here's the most common yaku:

Closed only:

Riichi - If you're one tile off winning you can go 'hey I'm one tile off winning' and plonk down a stick and your hand qualifies regardless of the poo poo in it, but your draws are now locked into picking up and discarding, which can gently caress you over. If someone deals into your hand before your next turn that's Ippatsu which means more points for you.
Tsumo - You only care specifically about this if your hand's closed and you have no yaku and it looks too dangerous to riichi, whereupon you can still flat-out qualify for a hand by getting a tsumo. Otherwise it's just nice when you get your winning tile rather than ronning off someone else.
Pinfu - All sequences, and your final tile must be waiting on one of two tiles. (i.e. you don't qualify for pinfu if your last tiles will fill out the 8 and 9 of a suit, or if you're waiting on the pair)
Ii-Pei-Kou - Two of the same sequence i.e. 445566 man.
Chi-Toi - Seven pairs.

Open or closed:

Yaku-Pai - A triplet of your own wind, the round wind, or a dragon. The easiest yaku to get and you can even open your hand, but unless you can collect some other yaku or some dora while you're at it, expect to score like poo poo.
Tanyao - Only use tiles from 2 to 8. Another easy yaku to get, and one of the more reliable ones if you really have to open your hand.
San-Shoku - The same sequence, repeated in all three suits.
Itsuu - A straight from 1-9 in a single suit.
Toitoi - All triplets.
Chanta - Every set in the hand includes a terminal or honours tile. (i.e. 1, 9, winds, dragons)
Honitsu - Entire hand is formed from one suit and honour tiles.
Rinshan - Winning off the extra tile from declaring a kan. You aren't an anime, don't bother.

Generally speaking, if you can, keep your hand closed. It'll offer substantially more chances to score a meaningful amount of points, lets you be a lot more flexible in which tiles you keep and which you can toss out, and collecting a bunch of yaku-pai hands is scrubby as hell and holy poo poo it gets my blood pressure going, gently caress.

# ¿ Jul 9, 2014 01:36

Stelas: Sep 6, 2010

I only just noticed the lobby link in the first post. Is it still active? If so, what sort of times? I should probably quit gettin' mad at my ranking points and just chill out.

# ¿ Jul 23, 2014 10:56

Stelas: Sep 6, 2010

petrol blue posted:

Am I missing something, or is it that simple? The OP mentions Japanese rules for more strategy

Pretty much this. In Japanese rules you can only win once you've satisfied certain conditions or made certain hands, and you absolutely can't win if you're waiting on a tile you discarded earlier in the round. So by looking at people's discards you can see much more about what tiles they want, what tiles are safe, and what hands they might be making.

# ¿ Oct 21, 2014 17:52

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