M-League 2019 Finals: Games #11-12 and the Awards Ceremony

Game #11

E1-0

Ishibashi starts off with an ankou of dora, while Uchikawa has an ankou of east and a hand leaning towards honitsu. As the draws kept coming, Uchikawa’s hand draws a souzu ryanmen, having to change his honitsu plans. As the turns kept going, Shiratori got to tenpai first, calling riichi with a pinfu hand waiting on the 25m wait. Despite the riichi, both Ishibashi and Uchikawa managed to get their hands to iishanten. Shiratori, however, won the hand before they could get to tenpai, drawing a red 5m himself to get a Riichi/Tsumo/Pinfu/Aka 1 for 1300/2600.

Kondo Seiichi	Ishibashi Nobuhiro	Shiratori Sho	Uchikawa Kotaro
22400	23700	30200	23700

E2-0

Highlight video: https://abema.tv/video/episode/444-4_s30_p536

In the starting hands, Ishibashi has a pair of double east, while Uchikawa has a pair of 5s dora. Ishibashi is the first one to make a move, calling chii on the 7m to get rid of his kanchan early. Shiratori gets to 2-shanten at the end of the 1st row and iishanten in the middle of the 2nd. With a pon of 1m, Ishibashi gets to atozuke tenpai waiting on the 5p/East shanpon wait. Still battling, Shiratori calls pon on the 8p to be tenpai for the 25s wait for tanyao. Ishibashi gets the miracle tsumo on the east to win a dealer mangan for 4000 all.

Kondo Seiichi	Ishibashi Nobuhiro	Shiratori Sho	Uchikawa Kotaro
18400	35700	26200	19700

E2-1

To keep his dealership going and extend his lead, Ishibashi called an early pon on the white dragon to confirm his yaku. Kondo’s starts off very quickly as well, having an iishanten hand with a green dragon ankou by his 2nd discard. By the end of the 1st row, Ishibashi, Shiratori and Kondo all having iishanten hands. The first to get to tenpai is Ishibashi, who waits on a 2m/3m shanpon wait. On Shiratori tenpai draw, he is forced to discard the 2m, which Ishibashi wins off of for White Dragon only and 1500+300.

Kondo Seiichi	Ishibashi Nobuhiro	Shiratori Sho	Uchikawa Kotaro
18400	37500	24400	19700

E2-2

As everyone started out with fairly slow hands, everyone stayed closed. Shiratori breaks the silence by calling pon in order to set himself up with his own wind. With some surprising draws, Kondo manages to get to a wide iishanten, with a potential ittsuu. At the start of the 3rd row, Uchikawa calls riichi on the 14s wait for Riichi/Pinfu/Dora 1 with a possible iipeikou and tanyao if he wins on the 4s. Kondo also gets to tenpai, staying dama with a 8s kanchan wait with no yaku. Even with no yaku, Kondo was able to win the hand by drawing the 8s himself, calling tsumo for Tsumo/Aka 1 for 500+200/1000+200, also taking Uchikawa’s riichi stick.

Kondo Seiichi	Ishibashi Nobuhiro	Shiratori Sho	Uchikawa Kotaro
22000	36300	23700	18000

E3-0

Ishibashi starts off the hand well, holding a 2-shanten hand. Uchikawa holds a pair of red dragon, giving him a chance for a quick hand as well. At the end of the 1st row, Ishibashi is the first to get to tenpai, calling riichi to wait on the 7m kanchan for a Riichi/Tanyao hand. Soon after, Kondo gets to tenpai and calls riichi, waiting on the Green Dragon/1m shanpon, with the 1m being suji. The suji trap doesn’t have any time to fool anyone, as Ishibashi drew his winning 7m right after Kondo’s riichi call. Ishibashi wins the hand for Riichi/Tsumo/Tanyao for 1300/2600, plus Kondo’s riichi stick.

Kondo Seiichi	Ishibashi Nobuhiro	Shiratori Sho	Uchikawa Kotaro
19700	42500	21100	16700

E4-0

Uchikawa starts off as dealer with a pair of green and red dragons. With the first green dragon being discarded, he calls pon right away. While Uchikawa draws a lot of manzu to convert to honitsu, both Shiratori and Ishibashi convert to defence mode. Kondo, who needs to get a good placement for his team, tries and struggles to get to tenpai. Uchikawa, even with the two calls, also struggles to get into tenpai. The hand ends in a draw, with none of the players in tenpai.

Kondo Seiichi	Ishibashi Nobuhiro	Shiratori Sho	Uchikawa Kotaro
19700	42500	21100	16700

S1-1

Ishibashi starts off the hand with another 2-shanten hand, while Uchikawa starts with a pair of souths. Kondo hand, which was far from tenpai to start with, miraculously fills in all the spaces and gets to iishanten in 5 draws. The draw after he got into iishanten was painful, since it would have put him into tenpai if he had just chosen the other wait (as the commentators said it, “Itai! Itai! Itai!”). Shiratori also gets to iishanten, eventually getting to tenpai and call riichi 7m penchan wait. With Ishabashi working in silence, he gets to tenpai and stays dama, waiting on a 69m ryanmen wait. Kondo, who has an isolated 9m in his hand, discards it to advance his hand and be safe against the riichi. Unfortunately for him, Ishibashi wins off the 9m for Pinfu/Dora 1/Aka 1 for 3900+300, also taking Shiratori’s riichi stick.

Kondo Seiichi	Ishibashi Nobuhiro	Shiratori Sho	Uchikawa Kotaro
15500	47700	20100	16700

S2-0

Shiratori get his hand started quickly, getting to iishanten by turn 3. With Kondo’s position and poor draws, Kondo decides to go for kokushi, even though it isn’t really feasible. Shiratori gets to tenpai around the 2nd row, but stays dama on the 3s/7s shanpon wait with no yaku to try to improve his hand further. This attempt is successful, with Shiratori drawing the 8s to give himself a 69s ryanmen wait to go for a Riichi/Pinfu/Dora 1 hand. 1st place Ishibashi fold his hand, while Uchikawa tries to advance his hand to tenpai, with no avail. The hand ends in ryuukyoku, with Shiratori the only one in tenpai.

Kondo Seiichi	Ishibashi Nobuhiro	Shiratori Sho	Uchikawa Kotaro
14500	46700	22100	15700

S3-1

Ishibashi holds the red 5m double dora in his haipai, while Uchikawa has a pair of green dragons and a pair of easts. With Uchikawa’s hand developing quickly, he gets to iishanten on turn 3. Ishibashi’s hand is similarly fast, getting to iishanten at the end of the 1st row. In order to rush the hand, Kondo calls 6m to complete his 567m group in order to rush a tanyao. When Ishabashi gets to tenpai, he stays dama with a 47p ryanmen wait to try for a sneaky Pinfu/Dora 1/Aka 1 win. When Uchikawa gets to tenpai, he stays dama to try to improve his hand to also include chanta. Shiratori gets to tenpai, he has a decision of whether to go for a good wait riichi nomi or try to improve with dama. If he stays dama, he could improve his hand to include pinfu, tanyao or possibly sanshoku. However, a simple ryuukyoku would also land him a similar amount of points. Shiratori decides to instill fear into his opponents and calls riichi, waiting on the 14m. Uchikawa bails his hand after the riichi, having no safe way to keep his tenpai. Kondo tries to bail as well, discarding the genbutsu 7p against Shiratori’s riichi. To his surprise, he deals into the dama Ishibashi who wins the hand with for Pinfu/Dora 1/Aka 1 and 3900+300+1000, taking Shiratori’s riichi stick with him.

Kondo Seiichi	Ishibashi Nobuhiro	Shiratori Sho	Uchikawa Kotaro
10300	52900	21100	15700

S4-0

In the starting hands, Kondo holds a pair of dora, while Ishibashi holds a pair of white dragons. Again with the fast closed hands, Shiratori gets to iishanten on turn 4. With each hand moving along well, Ishibashi gets to iishanten at the start of the 2nd row, while Shiratori gets to tenpai, staying dama for Chiitoi. When Uchikawa gets to tenpai, he chooses to call riichi and wait on the 8s. When Kondo draws the 8s, he needed to make a decision.

Being last in S4, he needed to win the hand to get out of 4th place. Since Uchikawa was dealer, he could plan to delay it and try to win the next hand instead. However, an Uchikawa tenpai at ryuukyoku would put Kondo out of mangan range and would have to rely on haneman or a direct hit to move placement. After thinking for a while he decides to push and discard the 8s, which immediately deals into Uchikawa. Uchikawa wins the hand with Riichi/Ippatsu/Dora 1 for 7700 points and moves into 2nd place.

Kondo Seiichi	Ishibashi Nobuhiro	Shiratori Sho	Uchikawa Kotaro
2600	52900	21100	23400

S4-1

Uchikawa started the hand with chiitoi 2-shanten, which isn’t very fast for a dealer who wants to win a quick hand. To speed up his hand Uchikawa calls pon on the East to go away from chiitoi and go for any hand he wanted. Ishibashi, on the other hand, sticks with his chiitoi and gets to iishanten. On this path to iishanten, he had to discard the red dragon, which Uchikawa called pon to bring his hand closer to tenpai. When Ishibashi eventually got to tenpai, he waited on the 7p tanki. With better draws, he switched to a 1m, which he switched for a south later on. Uchikawa, who was iishanten for East/Red Dragon/Honitsu, drew and discarded the south, giving Ishibashi the 1600+300 win to end the game.

Kondo Seiichi	Ishibashi Nobuhiro	Shiratori Sho	Uchikawa Kotaro
2600	54800	21100	21500

Final Scores

	Player	Score	Final Score
1st	Ishibashi Nobuhiro	54800	+74.8
2nd	Uchikawa Kotaro	21500	+1.5
3rd	Shiratori Sho	21100	-18.9
4th	Kondo Seiichi	2600	-57.4

(On a side note, Uchikawa finally broke his 4-game 4th place streak with this 2nd place)

Standings

With the Pirates getting 1st place, they put themselves on top of the standings. With the Phoenix only 8.0pts from the top and the Abemas only 55.6pts from 1st, the competition becomes intense. Whichever of the 3 teams wins the next game will more than likely win the championship!

Page 1: Before the Games
Page 2: Game #11
Page 3: Game #12
Page 4: The Awards Ceremony
Page 5: Final Thoughts