The Disqualification of Horiuchi

The big news in the mahjong community this week is the disqualification of Horiuchi from the judansen.

In East 4, Horiuchi was tenpai with

Chi: ,

he draws a 3s and sighs then he slams the 3s from his hand (karagiri). Setokuma then reaches tenpai and discards a 1s, Horiuchi went on to win the game but was disqualified after the game for “shamisen” (“Bluff” maybe?)

video of the proceeding http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/1384591266

Horiuchi admitted on twitter that he did sigh and slam the tile ("The problem in question was, my breath got a little strong during a showdown and I accidentally used too much force with my hand") .

The whole affair is probably just an excuse to remove him (or if they're seriously thinking that warrants a disqualification then it's　too harsh), It's well-known that Horiuchi is hated among the bosses at JPML for his digital style of play. Kojima Takeo, Moriyama and other people in the "JPML Inner circle" have made snide remarks about digital and Horiuchi's style of play. It's worth mentioning that the JPML has a history of match fixing, there was a scandal 2 years ago at the 28th juudansen and JPML was formed due to members of the inner circle being kicked out of a league for match fixing.

After this the mahjong community found interesting footage of a certain JPML boss (Moriyama) doing various things that should be considered shamisen; Slamming tiles, pretending to tsumo then discarding, slamming tiles so hard that the table shakes, and other bad manners stuff.

http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm14661410
3:00 Drops tile 6:00 Fake tsumos 7:00 Tile slam

http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm1940246
Slamming tiles

http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm19579641
Goes to discard tile then places it back into his hand.

Right now, people in the mahjong community are discussing what counts as shamisen, if it should be allowed or how it should be punished.