January 4, 2007
In Garthe's Hands #3
Last week I began a theme on hands that go well together with other hands. This week I’ll continue on that theme with 2 more hands in the same vein. However, these hands are not like the hands we’ve seen so far where you want to build certain combinations of groups or use certain tiles. These are more like situations: Concealed-self-draw and Reach. They are both possible any time a hand is one away from being basically completed. Another way to say it is that any combination of 4 groups of 3 and the 2 tile head will qualify for these hands.
Reach, of course, is where Japanese “Reach Mahjong” gets its name. It is the “men” in the oft heard scoring phrase “men-tan-pin” (Menzen Reach (Concealed Reach), Tanyao (All Simples), Pinfu (Peace) in Japanese). It is what sets girls’ hearts a-racing in the spring. But figuring out how to use it is almost as hard as figuring out what is going on in said girls’ hearts. The concept is not so difficult; it’s really just like calling “uno” in the popular card game. You’re essentially warning everyone that you’re only 1 tile from completing your hand and now you can go out if you draw or anyone discards your winning tile. The problem is that not only are you announcing to the world that you are armed and dangerous, precluding any chance of sneak attack, but having done so, you are now committed to that attack. You’ve thrown down the gauntlet. You’ve declared war.
>Jenn’s Note> You literally do ‘throw down the gauntlet’. To declare ‘Reach’, you need to turn your declaring tile perpendicular to the rest of your tiles and throw out an extra bet of 1,000 points. After this declaration, you are no longer allowed to change the contents of your hand except for Quads.
Like Value tiles or Simples, Reach will be useful in situations where you really want to go out but you haven’t managed to get any other Hand points into your hand yet. But perhaps you already have Simples, Peace and a Lucky-Dragon and you want to change your 4000 pointer into 8000. Maybe you have absolutely nothing and you want to escape with something cheap before someone else hits a big one. Or maybe you’re hoping to get lucky with the Hidden-Lucky-Dragon. The possibilities with Reach are endless. It’s the stuff dreams are made of.
Concealed-self-draw is not so complicated, but an obvious drawback is that it can’t be won off of other players. It won’t often be the only point in a winning hand. Most likely it would happen in a situation where your hand had no Lucky-Dragons and nobody had called Reach. You’re just ending the hand with something cheap before someone can make off with a big winner.
Because any combination will work for these hands I won’t provide any examples. Just remember the key to really making effective use of these hands is going to be putting as many of them as possible into the same hand. If your hand already has a couple points in it, calling Reach and finishing with the Concealed-self-draw will turn your small jab into a full knock down punch.
7 comments:
Jenn and Garthe, I would like to ask please in regards to "Reach". I want to see how you usually play:
1. If you became Tenpai (fishing hand)within the last 6 discards, do you usually say "Reach", or do you remain Dama-Ten (fishing but don't declare Reach)?
2. If your hand is Tenpai but you have created a Furiten (Sacred Discard), will you still declare a Furiten-Reach and try to win by Tsumo (Self draw)?
Or do you spend discards by breaking and fixing up your hand to get rid of its Furiten status?
3. When 1 or 2 opponents has already declared Reach, and you become Tenpai but no other Yakus (combos), do you dare to say "Reach" or do you just do safe discards for the rest of that hand?
4. If you are Tenpai very early (<6 discards) in the hand, but you have no other Yakus (like 3.), do you say "Reach" immediately, or do you spend discards in an attempt to incorporate 1 or 2 more yakus?
Thank you in advance. Doumo sumimasen?!
Interesting set of questions. It opens the discussion on the necessity of taking decisions accordingly to game situations, weighting risk against possible gain. Possibilities vs Probabilities.
All four points are excellent exercises. Every player should try to solve them by themselves first. So I will not give definitive answers. Instead here are some hints :
1. If the round ends in a draw, players with a ready hand will receive an equal share of 3000 points divided between them. It costs 1000 points to make Reach. The majority of tiles are lying, exposed, in the discard piles.
2. Well advised players will rather destroy their hand than risk giving the winning tile.
3 and 4. By making Reach, one could argue you are sealing your faith since, from now on, it's a matter of stumbling on the winning tile. You cannot change the composition of your hand and you a required to go out on the first available winning tile.
Like Walter says, great questions, and at the heart of what it is that makes Reach so complicated. You will spend the rest of your mahjong life wondering what the answers are so let me add my musings to your ponderings.
1. It depends.
2. It depends.
3. It depends.
4. It depends.
OK, let me give you a larger overview of when I like to Reach: almost always. This is why I'm still in D2 league probably. I guess my biggest factor in deciding whether to Reach or not is probably my wait. If it's a good one, I'll reach in just about any situation. If it's bad, I might hold off, or sometimes even give up the hand. Examples of bad waits are 1-2 waiting for a 3, 4-6 waiting for a 5, a 6 waiting for another 6 (Head), or even 4-5 waiting for 3 or 6 but I can already see 6 or 7 of the 8 tiles on the board or in my hand. One other factor is also my current score and place in relation to the other players. If I have a pretty comfortable lead, I may Reach a little less.
So with that in mind, let's revisit your questions:
1. Last tiles of the hand - If I have points in the hand, be they hand points or Lucky dragons, I'll probably say Reach. The last time I played on TV (OK, the ONLY time I played on TV), it was actually my last my discard before my last draw and my wait was 1-4 of craks but I could already see 6 of them on the board and one had been just been thrown away the turn before. I Reached anyway, and Takki (current winner of Oui tournament and our site's current Pro-interviewee) threw me my winner, Ippatsu!! It was a good moment and I got lots of compliments from the A-league guys.
2. Furiten (sacred discard) - If I have a good wait and I have an expensive hand, I'll probably say Reach. An example of a good wait would be 4-5-6-7-8 waiting for the 3, 6 or 9.
3. Second or third Reach in line - Again, my wait and the value of my hand are the big factors. Another consideration, however: if the person Reach-ing has thrown away tiles in my wait, I will be more inclined not to Reach (dama-ten). The other players are much more likely to throw away my winner if I haven't Reached because they're trying to play safe by throwing the Reacher's discards. If 2 people have Reached, that's not such a factor. I just want a really expensive hand or a really good wait. Or both.
4. Here is where my score becomes more of a consideration. If I need points and Reach would be the only point in my hand, I'll probably wait until I can get a few more points into the hand.
So there are a few more things for you to think about. But really, you can't make any 100% certain rules for when to use Reach and when to keep quiet. It always depends. And in the end, it often comes down to if you won, you made the right decision. If you didn't get it, you should have gone the other way. In the story from question 1, if Takki gave me a little more respect, and hadn't thrown my winner on national TV, everyone would have told me I shouldn't have reached cause he had just thrown the same tile away the turn before and probably would have again had I not Reached. But he did, and I won, and it was the right decision, that time.
More toughts :
Most of the time, you'll get back the 1000 pts you have invested in the Reach, since you are tempai.
Especially, if another player has made Reach, and it seems your are seeking the same tiles as him (your discard's piles are very similar). There is less chance you'll give him the tile he is waiting for while other players will tend to destroy their hands under the pressure of two Reach, making them most likely candidates for a Noten. So you definitively want to announce a Reach if all those factors are present.
Situation 2 : It depends a lot on the psychology of the game at that point. If you think a Reach will make other players so cautious they will destroy whatever they had in hand (Tempai->Noten), then it's maybe worth to try a Furiten-Reach.
Fixing the Furiten can be risky since usually it is a lengthy process. It takes several successful trips to the wall before returning to a Tempai state. So, it depends on guessing how much you still have left before another player becomes dangerous.
Oops. The first considerations are for situation 1.
I don't where to ask this, so I'll try here because the picture in this post reminded me it.
On RON2, why some discarded tiles are darker when you press the button labeled 捨牌判別 (second on the left)?
http://www.ron2.jp/images/game_view.gif
It looks like it has something to do with the possiblity of making a tsumo...(ツモ切り牌を暗く表示) ? But, I don't understand.
What is the purpose and meaning of those shadowed tiles?
Hey Walter,
I think that online Mahjong is a good topic and I'll get to it, but for now let me answer here as well.
捨牌判別 means 'Distinguish Discards'
ツモ切り牌を暗く表示) means 'Shadows tiles discarded from the draw'
Which means, if you threw away your tile from your hand, then it will be light and if you threw away a tile you drew right away, it will be dark. It is one strategy in reading other peoples' hands.
We can get more into strategy after all of the rules are up!!
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