Common mistakes (1), plus my introduction

Hey there, I’m starfire, a.k.a amaika on tenhou.net. Some of you might have known me, some might not. I have played riichi since 2012. Now that I have become a decent player, 7d at the time posting this (even though I’m fully aware that I could drop back easily), and that the competitive part of the riichi community is not at a good state right now, I have decided to join the osamuko crew. My contents would definitely be not as good as xkime’s, but I hope that you readers can still find them useful! My posts will be written with the assumption that readers are familiar with the rules and common mahjong terms.

For my first post, I’d talk about some easily overlooked mistakes that are often committed by low-intermediate level players, including myself a lot of times.

 Tsumo: (Dora unrelated)

It is elementary mistake to discard  here.

New players only see pin tiles as  +  and  is leftover. However, in this case the pin tiles should be seen as  and should be discarded, because your hand would now have Pinfu after 4p discard.

If you have something like , then the better discard choice would be , because you can’t have pinfu anyway, and two closed triplets give you more fu and the chance to kan.

 (Dora unrelated)

Okay, you are having a really good 1-shanten hand with the  group, pair and ryanmen. In your next draw, you got 2s.

 Tsumo:

Nice! You completed 234s set. Now all you have to do is discarding from group and have that delicious tenpai, right? Right?

…………

Sorry, but if that was how you actually think, you are wrong! If I gave you the final hand right at the start, without showing you the 1-shanten earlier, it would be easier for you to find out that the correct discard is . That discard gives you a chance to get 678m Iipeikou. But in a lot of cases, you will get that kind of 1-shanten and with the thought process mentioned above, make the same mistake of discarding 8m. I actually committed this mistake more than once.

 Tsumo:  (Dora unrelated)

Many would automatically discard here for the “obvious” 1-shanten with pair,
group and ryanmen. Effective pin tiles that would give you tenpai after 1p discard are .

But what if I tell you that I’d discard instead?

              ( discarded)

Now, which pin tiles would give you tenpai? Well, still give tenpai, and instead of one  you now have two that would also give you tenpai. But the increase by 1 tile is not as important as the fact that, after 3p discard, if you draw 2p you would have 123p Iipeikou! This mistake is really common even with tokujou level players.