An awesome video guide from the internet. Common mistakes (2)

First of all, I want to show you a really good video guide that was created recently. The author is DdR_Dan, a player from US, who is staying consistently at 6d on tenhou, even got 7d in the past. Although it’s a little long, in my opinion it’s one of the best guides out there for 1-3 dan players, or even 4-5. Be sure to check out this and other videos on his Youtube channel too!

Common mistakes (2)

4a.

A lot of inexperienced player would feel that  is an isolated tile from the  sequence and therefore, discard it. That is a crucial mistake.

 should be interpreted as  + , which are two ryanmens, and the good discard here should be . After that, if you draw 4m/7m to convert 56m into a sequence, or 5m/8m to convert 67m into a sequence, you’d get tenpai with ryanmen wait!

The number of tiles that would turn   into one sequence and one ryanmen is 22 (four 4m, three 7m, three 5m, four 8m, four 4s, four 6s). Meanwhile the number of tiles that would turn  into one sequence and one ryanmen is only 12 (four 7p, four 4s, four 6s).

4b.

In this case,  and  should not be discarded. In the same fashion as the previous example,  should be interpreted as  + , two ryanmens. You can either discard 7m or 6s here (there’s a small difference between them but it should not be discussed here).

Players should remember  and  shapes. Discard the “leftover” tile from those shapes is usually a bad mistake.

5a.

  Dora: 

is the obvious discard here. But I have seen many players decide not to riichi here, in hope of waiting for , to turn it into a sanshoku.

It’s such a waste not to go for riichi here. If you damaten here and your winning tiles () comes out, it would be such a disaster. It would be either 2000 points if Ron or 2700 if Tsumo.

Sanshoku gives you 2 han but you don’t get it right now. Riichi gives you 1 han right now, or even more than 1 han, because of ura dora and increased tsumo chance. Riichi, tsumo, pinfu, 1 dora, 1 ura is 8000 points.

Even if you don’t have that 1 dora in this hand (only pinfu), I still think riichi is the superior choice. But if you have 1 or more dora, and not in a specific situation where you must have a big hand, damaten is downright a bad mistake.

5b.

 Dora: 

Discard is still , and once again, damaten hoping to get only  is a mistake.

Sure, 6s would give you pinfu, sanshoku, 1 dora – mangan. But what about ? One, if someone discard , would you pass it? Winning with it is only worth 2000 points. And two, if you draw , what would you even do? It would only give you 2700 points now. Surely you won’t go for furiten, right?

Meanwhile, if you riichi,  would give you 3900 if Ron and 5200 if Tsumo, both without ura dora. It’s not 8000 but it is sure better than 2000 or 2700.

After riichi,  actually becomes a good tile to win on, along with , while if you damaten, only  is good, and if  comes out, it would be a disaster for you.

And once again, even if you don’t have any dora, riichi is still the better choice in my opinion, for the same reason – it make your lower winning tile better.

Those two examples also applies to ittsuu or chanta, by the way.