M-League 2019 Finals: Games #3-4

Game 4

The Pirates’ Revenge

In E3-2, Asakura had a haipai that only had two pairs and was 4-shanten from any hand. However, his hand progressed impressively quickly. By discard 5, Asakura had 5 pairs, putting him 1 away from chiitoi tenpai. As he kept drawing, he ended up completing an ankou, then another (sound familiar?). When Matsumoto discarded one of the tiles that would complete Asakura’s pon, Asakura had to decide whether to go for the bigger hand or the faster hand. Since he was dealer and there were two riichi sticks on the table, he decided to go for the faster hand and called pon. Asakura would later call tsumo for Toitoi/Sanankou for 4000+200 all, plus all the riichi sticks.

Fu Everywhere!

In E3-3, both Asakura and Uotani managed to get to iishanten early, with Asakura as the dealer with a red dora and Uotani with a green dragon ankou and a dora pair. Uotani was the first of the two to get to tenpai, waiting with a 69p ryanmen wait for 5200. Asakura gets to tenpai shortly after and calls riichi. Uotani then proceeded to draw the fourth 9s. If she calls kan, it would bring her up to mangan range, as well as give the possibility to get kandora. On the other hand, it would give Asakura two more dora if he wins. Uotani decided to take the risk and called kan. Though she didn’t get rinshan, she ended up calling tsumo later to win the hand. The fu breakdown of the hand is as follows:

Winning: +20
Ankan of 9s: +32
Ankou of Green Dragon: +8
Tsumo: +2
Total: 62 fu, round up to 70

At 3 han 70 fu, Uotani wins 2000/4000, +300 from each play for the honba and +1000 from Asakura’s riichi stick.

Kan Madness

Hightlight video: https://abema.tv/video/episode/444-4_s30_p519

In E4-0 Matsumoto started off the game with two early ankous, and reaches iishanten on turn 6. As Matsumoto tries to get himself into tenpai, Uotani advances her hand by calling pon to try for tanyao. When she discarded the 3 from a 344 shape, it showed that she wanted tot get toitoi as well. Matsumoto drew the fourth tile for one of his ankous, so he called kan to try to advance his hand, revealing a kandora for Uotani’s pon in the process. Uotani also get a chance to call kan and takes it revealing a second kandora. Unbeknownst to either of them, Sawazaki had been building his hand. Sawazaki called riichi to wait on the 25s, giving him the opportunity to see three uradora indicators. Matsumoto eventually gets to tenpai as well, calling riichi for his 69p wait. Uotani continued to push, calling a discarded 3p. Then Uotani drew the 9p.

Drawing a dangerous tile, she took the time to figure out whether the risk was worth it or not. If she dealt in, she would surely lose at least a mangan. On the other hand, it’s not like she had any safe tiles. She eventually chose to go the safer route and discard her 6m pair. The hand goes to ryuukyoku, with both Matsumoto and Sawazaki in tenpai.

Sealing the Deal

Highlight video: https://abema.tv/video/episode/444-4_s30_p520

In S4-1, the scores were close. Uotani was in the lead with 33600, but Matsumoto, who was in 3rd, was just 9600 off the lead. She know that a mangan tsumo for Matsumoto would push her down to second, not to mention Asakura who was just 3200 points behind her. Luckily for her, her haipai was just 2-shanten. By turn 5, she was in tenpai. She decided to call riichi on her 8p kanchan. There is some risk involved in the bad wait riichi nomi, but the reward of 1st place is greater. She drew the 8p herself a few turns later and got two ura, giving her Riichi/Tsumo/Ura 2 to give her the mangan and the win.

Final Scores

	Player	Score	Final Score
1st	Uotani Yuumi	42900	+62.9
2nd	Asakura Koushin	28300	+8.3
3rd	Matsumoto Yoshihiro	21900	-18.1
4th	Sawazaki Makoto	6900	-53.1

Standings After Game 4

The Sega Sammy Phoenix continue to pull ahead of the pack, while the Shibuya Abemas have lost a bit of ground. In true Pirates fashion, the U-Next Pirates are 3rd, while the Kadokawa Sakura Knights continue to struggle after placing 4th in four games in a row. Still, there are still 8 games left to play and anything can happen!

Page 1: Before the Games
Page 2: Game #3
Page 3: Game #4