Highlights
One Away From Nine Gates!?!
December 21, Game 1, E4-0
Video: https://abema.tv/video/episode/444-7_s30_p221
In E4-0, Hori is in 2nd place and looking to stop Takizawa’s dealer turn before he gets too far ahead. Hori starts out with a 3-shanten hand with 8 manzu tiles, providing a distant possibility of chinitsu. Mizuhara also starts out with a very interesting hand, with three pairs of winds. With a hand with high potential, Mizuhara calls an early pon on the east. During this time, Hori kept drawing manzu tiles, getting to 2-shanten at the end of the 1st row. At this point it was noted that there was also a chance for chuuren, with 3m, 4m and 9m getting him there. A few turns later, Hori draws the 4m to get to iishanten for chinitsu and chuuren. Tracking the tiles visible to the viewers, there were two 9m and one 3m available in the wall, meaning that the dream was still alive. With Mizuhara having already called three times, Takizawa and Sonoda try to rush ahead and beat her, with Takizawa calling to tenpai and Sonoda at iishanten. In the middle of the 2nd row, Hori draws an 8m to get his hand full of manzu, but not yet tenpai. Soon after, Takizawa draws the 3m and kills all hopes of chuuren. With time running out, Hori decides to give up his chuuren dreams and makes a call a bit after to get to tenpai. The hand ends right after Hori’s call with Mizuhara drawing her winning tile to win with East/Honitsu/Dora 1 for 2,000/4,000.
Stolen
December 22, Game 1, S4-0
Video: https://abema.tv/video/episode/444-7_s30_p227
In S4-0, Hagiwara is in 1st place and Hinata is in 3rd place. Being 16,600 behind 1st, Hinata would need a haneman tsumo or direct hit, or a sanbaiman indirect ron. Hagiwara starts out with a 2-shanten hand while Hinata starts with a 4-shanten hand with two dora. By the end of the 1st row, Hagiwara has moved further away to tenpai to aim for a quicker tanyao win and defence opportunities, while Hinata has moved to 2-shanten with an iipeikou opportunity. At the end of the 2nd row, Hinata completes the iipeikou and calls riichi on a 69m wait. Winning by tsumo for her would be enough as a Riichi/Tsumo/Iipeikou/Dora 3 gets her to haneman. For Maehara, who had been dama for chiitoi and is in last, the extra riichi stick puts him in position to take 3rd with a haneman tsumo or a direct hit ron off of Hinata. With that in play, Maehara chases with a riichi of his own, putting more pressure on Hagiwara. The extra riichi didn’t end up mattering though, as Hinata draws her winning 9m on her ippatsu turn. Hinata wins the hand with Riichi/Ippatsu/Tsumo/Iipeikou/Dora 3 for 3,000/6,000 and to win the game.
With the unfortunate result for Hagiwara, this marks his 14th game this season without a 1st place.
25,000 to 0 Real Quick
December 22, Game 2, E2-0
Video: https://abema.tv/video/episode/444-7_s30_p228
In E2-0, Kayamori is the dealer and in the lead with 30,200 points. Her hand starts out 2-shanten with an ankou of wests and a pair of dora. By the end of the 1st row, Kayamori is iishanten and has a red dora in the mix as well. In the middle of the 2nd row, Kayamori draws to tenpai and calls riichi on a 1p/4m shanpon wait. Drawing to tenpai and having a 369m 3-sided wait, Setokuma chases with a riichi of his own. The standoff ended with Setokuma dealing in the dora 4m into Kayamori’s hand near the start of the 3rd row. Revealing three uradora, Kayamori upgrades the hand to a baiman for Riichi/Dora 3/Aka 1/Ura 3 for 24,000, plus Setokuma’s riichi stick. With that hand, Setokuma went from 25,000 to 0.
Shousangen
December 22, Game 2, E2-2
In E2-2, Kayamori already has 55,700 and is still the dealer. Her hand starts out with a red dragon ankou, a pair or green dragons and a single white, giving her a potential shousangen or daisangen. By the end of the 1st row, Kayamori is iishanten for shousangen. When Setokuma discards the green dragon, Kayamori instantly calls pon to put her tenpai with a white dragon tanki wait. Soon after, Setokuma draws and discards the white dragon to give Kayamori the win. Kayamori wins with Shousangen/Red Dragon/Green Dragon for 12,000+600 and two riichi sticks to put her at 70,300
Hagiwara Highlights
December 24, Game 2
Video: https://abema.tv/video/episode/444-7_s30_p233
In E3-1, Hagiwara is in 3rd place, but the game is still young. He starts out with a 4-shanten hand with a red dora. Hagiwara’s hand progresses fairly quickly, getting to 2-shanten at the end of the 1st row with a sanshoku potential. A few turns later, Hagiwara has the chance to get to tenpai with a 6s kanchan wait. With a sanshoku potential and an opportunity to go for a better wait, Hagiwara forgoes the tenpai despite Sonoda having already called twice. During Hagiwara’s wait to tenpai, he discards the 2m which already-tenpai Sonoda calls kan on it. With Sonoda missing the rinshan, Hagiwara takes advantage of the extra indicator by getting to tenpai and calling riichi on a 58p ryanmen wait for mangan minimum. On Hagiwara’s ippatsu turn, Sonoda discards the 5p to deal into Hagiwara to give him the win. Hagiwara wins with Riichi/Ippatsu/Pinfu/Dora 1/Aka 2/Ura 1 for 12,000+300 to give him the lead.
In S2-0, Hagiwara is just holding onto 1st place but has high potential to increase his score with his dealer turn. Hagiwara starts out with a difficult 5-shanten hand, but he does have a red dora. By the end of the 1st row, Hagiwara is in a better situation, being 3-shanten. Hagiwara needed to wait for a while to advance his hand to tenpai, but gets to tenpai in the middle of the 3rd row. Being so late and already having a mangan hand, Hagiwara stays dama with a 47s ryanmen wait. With Sonoda looking like possible chinitsu, Sasaki discards a safe 4s against him, which backfires as it deals into Hagiwara. Hagiwara wins the hand with Pinfu/Dora 3/Aka 1 for 12,000 and the outright lead.
Video: https://abema.tv/video/episode/444-7_s30_p234
In S3-0, Hagiwara has just thrown into a mangan hand in S2-1 and is no longer in a comfortable 1st place position, being only 4,000 points ahead. He starts out with a 4-shanten with a single red dora for value. Approaching the end of Hagiwara’s 1st row, he gets to 2-shanten with a hand guaranteed to have a good wait. A few turns later, he gets to tenpai and calls riichi on a 5p kanchan. The riichi was very dangerous, as dealer Sonoda had already called twice. The viewers watched as Sonoda drew to tenpai for a dealer mangan minimum hand, knowing that it might be the tragic end to Hagiwara’s chances of getting a 1st. However, the mahjong gods smiled down on Hagiwara as he drew the 5p to win the hand and escape death. Hagiwara wins the hand with Riichi/Tsumo/Aka 1 for 1,300/2,600 and take the lead going into S4-0.
In the end, due to these three hands, Hagiwara ended up first with 39,300 points. For the first time this season, Hagiwara took the top spot for his first win of the season. With the bottom two players in the standings winning their games (Takamiya had won her previous game), it truly was a Christmas miracle.
Hidden Honitsu
December 25, Game 1, E1-0
In E1-0, the game has just started and Takizawa starts out with a 3-shanten hand. For his first four draws, he only drew pinzu. On that 4th draw, he started to break up his last non-pinzu suit block, solidifying his hand for honitsu or chinitsu. On his 5th draw, he drew a white dragon to create a pair and guide his hand closer to honitsu. On his 6th draw, he draws another pinzu to get him to tenpai with a 147p wait. Two turns later, Kondo discards the 1p to give Takizawa the win. Takizawa wins with Honitsu/Iipeikou for 8,000 points and an early lead in the game.
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