I created this blog for me and my friends to discuss Riichi Mahjong: our games, our yakuman hands, our strategies, "Akagi no Mahjong", cheating, and Tenhou.net.
A pretty good guide to Riichi Mahjong can be found here in .pdf format: http://mahjong-europe.org/filer/riichirules.pdf
For starters, I have only purchased and read two mahjong books. The first book, though well written, is completely useless for learning or studying Riichi Mahjong: The Red Dragon & The West Wind by Tom Sloper. Although he offers some good tips for all Mahjong variants, I didn't find anything especially helpful since the books seemed to be more concentrated on the American and Chinese Official versions. (I have played CO a couple times online... felt more like a math class than playing mahjong...)
The other book is A Mahjong Handbook: How to Play, Score, and Win the Modern Game by Eleanor Noss Whitney. After reading it, I noticed how other Riichi sites also cited this book as an exceptional english strategy guide to Riichi Mahjong. I skipped over the section on "how to play" and "scoring," since I already knew how to play (and she gives slightly different rules, although she mentions 'reaching') and the scoring was different than actual Riichi Mahjong. However, her guide to strategy was very interesting and insightful-- particularly her discussion of "luck vs. skill."
Here is a quote from the beginning of Whitney's section on Luck and Skill:
"After playing Mah Jong for a while, one may be tempted to ask, 'How can anyone claim that this is a game of skill? You have no control over the draw; you have no clues as to what is coming next. How can skill possibly enter into it at all?' The answer is that Mah Jong does indeed seem to be governed largely--almost entirely--by chance. And it is not precisely skill that is useful, at least not in the sense in which the word is used in chess or go. What the Japanese call an ojozu (skillful) player is actually one who knows how to adapt to his luck. This is the whole clue to successful play" (99).
At first this seemed strange to me, since this point--when mentioned in Akagi--about the "flow of the game" made me laugh out loud at the perceived superstitious nature of Mr. Shigeru. "There is no such thing as a "flow" of the game," I thought. "To say someone has bad luck--that is that they are actually in a condition in which they cannot get fortunate draws because of some celestial fiat--is ridiculous. Bad luck is merely when one perceives that the recent random order of draws has not been beneficial. You can't make any logical deduction about what is to come based off of such a 'perception' of bad luck. It's a stupid anime plot device so that Akagi always wins."
However, I do not think this is what Akagi or Whitney means. The point is clarified later on in her Luck and Skill section. Whitney's suggestion for the beginning of a Mahjong hand is to immediately count the hand's Shan Ten number, or how far away from tenpai the hand is. If one is 4 Shan Ten or lower, play aggressively-- discarding anything to get to tenpai, even dora tiles that you think others may want. If one is about 5 Shan Ten, one should play cautiously-- balance offense and defense. If one is greater than 5 Shan Ten, one should play for a draw.
Playing defensively, or for a draw, was (and is) the most difficult thing for me, especially when I am already losing the round. However, this point seems to be one of the most important things to playing well in Mahjong: if the odds are that you cannot win the hand (without a huge risk of dealing into another's hand), then you shouldn't help anyone else out. Half of Mahjong is winning good hands. The other half is not losing bad hands. (I noticed this point independently, but in Dominoes rather than Mahjong). Whitney's tips to Defensive play from the start are (1) discarding with great caution-- i.e. not discarding any dragons or winds until other people do. This is important so that others cannot get a yaku and finish their hands. (2) Do not claim dora/dragon/your wind/round wind tiles-- if you have a pair of any and someone discards one, you instantly have 2 safe tiles (well... 98% safe) tiles for later on in the game when you're facing scary Riichis and Tenpai hands. (3) Keep the hand concealed. This is a pretty obvious point, but since the main objective is to not fall into others' hands, it makes sense to keep your options open. Calling tiles for chi, pon, or kan limits your options. Although Whitney does not mention this, but Kans, even concealed ones, seem to be especially dangerous since they add shin-doras. (4) Don't let your opponents know that you are only avoiding their hands. Scare them. One simple way of doing this (I have found) is to only discard one suit. When I look at another player's discards and he has only discarded one suit and no honors (and it is about 10 discards or so into the game), I am usually pretty intimidated by this, especially if that player is to my right. Even if I have no clue which of the other two suits that person is collecting (this should be obvious from my own hand and the other 2 players' discards), it will definitely affect my play unless I have a killer hand. Number (4) is much easier to pull off in-person. Smiling, forming imaginary "sets", instantly discarding draws, anticipatory body language... etc. etc.
From this kind of insight, I figured that luck and skill in Mahjong are closely knit partners. "The flow of the game" is not some superstitious, mystical concept, but rather a crucial strategic observation. Perceiving when one's own hand and when other players' hands are doing well or badly makes up a huge chunk of strategy. For in-person play, I assume that reading "poker tells" can be quite useful. Tenhou.net play is obviously more subtle and harder to pick up, but one point of this blog is to try to develop some heuristics for online "reading." Any input will be greatly appreciated.
One last strategic point, which I have been thinking about in my spare time, is the topic of the Riichi itself. When should one Riichi? When should avoid Riichi?
For starters, I think it mostly depends on how the game is going. If you are ahead by 15000, and you are dealer... what's the point in Riichi, as long as you have another yaku? Why alert other people needlessly? The mindset of a person getting beaten by a large margin is usually one of desperation: I need to get a big hand, and I need to get to tenpai as fast as I can to prevent the dealer from winning again. They will undoubtly discard whatever they need to in order to accomplish this--especially if they are a weaker player with no perception of how close people are based off just their discards.
But what about "even" games? It's close to the end of the Han Chan, yet whoever wins a Mangan hand takes 1st instantly. Here and in similar situations, I believe it is based off of what hand you have, and what hands you think other people have. If I have 3 fan or below, and I need a Mangan... I typically Riichi both to scare other people and to increase my fan by 2 in case of a tsumo (or 3 if ippatsu tsumo). A 2 or 3 fan hand instantly becomes a Mangan. Good stuff.
But if I'm dealer? ... Who knows. A 2 or 3 fan hand may be enough to win by itself.
But what about when you're losing? The worst feeling ever is when you're about 8000-16000+ deep into 4th place, it's the last hand, you are about 4-6 Shan Ten and other people have either "Called-Yaku" (i.e. their winds or dragons) or something scary like Riichi. There seems to be two choices. (1) "Do not go gently into that good night." I got nothing to lose so I might as well go for broke. This seems logical but it is also very suicidal: everyone is also expecting this kind of play from you, so they can see through it. Riichi would obviously make sense in most hands, since it gives a chance at +2-5 fan, based off ippatsu / ura-dora chances. (2) Continue to play cautiously and hope that someone Mangans (or higher) on someone else. I prefer this 2nd approach, especially since one loses quite a bit of rating points for being in 4th on Tenhou. If you get a good hand, then it works out. If someone beats the 3rd with a Mangan (or higher), you're not in 4th. The situation I try for strategy (1) is usually when I notice that the 1st place player calls a dragon yaku and is trying to end the game with a small 1 fan hand, or when all the doras or discarded early on (rare).
Question for discussion: I'm trying to figure out when it is proper to go for small (1-2 fan) hands instead of higher ones, and also how to stop small hands from going out. There are several obvious situations when small hands are good: when you are in the lead by a wide margin, when you are dealer and in the lead, when someone is making a "monster hand," when its the only thing you can do, etc. If anyone has any input, speculation or suggestions I would greatly appreciate it.
Also, I may try to diagram some of the deductions in Akagi here. I feel this may be very helpful for understanding some of the strategic implications of Akagi no Mahjong.
