M-League 2019 Finals: Games #1-2

Game 2

The Ishibashi Bluff

In E2-0, something very interested happened. As Uotani discarded the 5m dora to get to iishanten, Ishibashi called pon. Ishibashi’s hand was far from tenpai (4-shanten to be exact) and yet he called pon. However, fear is often instilled into your opponents when there is a dora pon on the table. Nobody paid much mind at first, but then he discarded the red 5p on the next turn. With a dora pon and a dora discard, it makes your opponents believe that you’re in tenpai. Ishibashi continued to play with the charade, repeatedly discarding the tile that he just drew to indicate that he’s probably in tenpai. The charade was so successful that it caused Uotani to start to bail. However, she managed to draw herself back to tenpai and proceeded to call riichi. With Ishibashi unable to continue the charade safely, he starts discarding the safe tiles that he had in hand. The hand ended in a draw with Uotani being the only one in tenpai.

Dora Dora Aka Aka

In E3-0, Shiratori had a very quick hand, getting to Pinfu/Dora 2/Aka 1 tenpai by turn 6 with a 25m wait. Because the hand is already worth mangan, he stays damaten. As the hand progresses, both Uchikawa both Uotani get to iishanten for chiitoi with a chance to pair up the dora. Unable to find the winning tile, Shiratori draws a the red 5p. Soon afterwards, Ishibashi calls riichi with a 8s kanchan for a Riichi/Iipeikou hand. With only a few draws left, Uotani matches up one of her pairs and calls riichi, waiting on the dora. Ishibashi’s next discard is Shiratori’s winning tile, helping him cash in on his pair of dora and pair of reds for 8000.

Simple is Best

In E4-0, Uchikawa gets to iishanten by the 4th discard with the red 5s, which is also the regular dora, in hand. Since he’s the dealer, he wants to win the hand as quickly as possible. Because of this, Uchikawa calls a 678m and becomes atozuke. Getting a 3p would give him Sanshoku/Dora 1/Aka 1, while getting 6p gets him nothing. Unfortunately for him, he draws the wrong side of the sanshoku. To try to fix it, he discards his 1s pair to go for tanyao. Right after Uchikawa discards his pair to go for a 7s pair, Uotani calls riichi with a 25p ryanmen wait. Wanting to stay safe, Ishibashi discards the 3p suji. Uchikawa calls it to get his sanshoku and switches his tanki wait to 6p, which also happens to be one of Uotani’s genbutsu tiles. However, all this work ended up being ruined by Uotani winning with her plain and simple Riichi/Tsumo/Pinfu/Tanyao/Dora 1 for 2000/4000.

Death of a Kokushi

In S1-0 Uchikawa starts off with a hand with 9 unique terminals and honours, with one already paired up. On his next draw he draws another unique one, putting him 2-shanten from kokushi. On turn two, Uchikawa discards the green dragon, which Ishibashi calls pon. When Ishibashi discards the south from his hand, Uotani calls it to give her double south. When it gets back to Uchikawa, he discards the white dragon, which Uotani calls and puts her in tenpai for Double South/White Dragon/Dora 1/Aka 1. Due to the speed of the other players, Shiratori decides that it’s not worth it to push and discards the 9s. Uotani would later end up winning the hand off Uchikawa for 8000 points.

Last Place Avoidance

In S4-2, the distance between 1st and 4th is just 9600 points. With Shiratori 1300 points from 1st, he was the first to strike, calling riichi with a 25s ryanmen wait. To avoid losing placement, Uotani immediately bailed, throwing the genbutsu red 5p. Both Ishibashi and Uchikawa needed to push. With Ishibashi in 4th, he needed to get out of last so that he doesn’t undo the work that his teammate Kobayashi did in the last game. For Uchikawa, he needs to push to maintain the lead that the Sakura Knights had going into the finals. Ishibashi eventually got to tenpai, needing to decide whether to take a 36m ryanmen wait or 1m/5m shanpon wait . He chose the later, laying both a suji trap and a chance to win with Riichi/Tsumo/Sanankou. Soon after, Uchikawa discards the 1m and Ishibashi wins 1600+1000+600, avoiding last in true Pirates fashion.

Final Scores

	Player	Score	Final Score
1st	Uotani Yuumi	29700	+49.7
2nd	Shiratori Sho	27400	+7.4
3rd	Ishibashi Nobuhiro	23300	-16.7
4th	Uchikawa Kotaro	19600	-40.4

Standings After Game 2

As the top team in the regular season, the Sega Sammy Phoenix regained their position at the top. With 10 more games left in the finals, it will be exciting to see who will win it all!

Page 1: Before the Games
Page 2: Game #1
Page 3: Game #2