Highlights
Hori OP
April 16, Game 1
In the first few hands of Game #9, Hori took control and bullied all of the other players.
In E1-0, Hori starts out with an ankou of green dragon. Despite this good start, he is not the first one to get to iishanten. Both Takamiya and Matsumoto are able to get some good hands and build their hands faster. The first player to get to tenpai is Matsumoto, who does so near the end of the 2nd row with a 36s ryanmen wait. Soon after, Hori gets to tenpai and calls riichi on a 58s ryanmen wait. Soon after him, Takamiya calls riichi on a 58p wait. With three riichi calls, it was just a waiting game. The standoff ended when Takamiya discarded Hori’s winning 8s near the start of the 3rd row. Hori wins the hand with Riichi/Green Dragon/Dora 1/Aka 1/Ura 2 for 12,000.
In E2-0, Hori starts out with an ankou of norths. By turn 5, Hori gets his hand to iishanten. Next turn, he draws a 4th north and calls kan. Though he doesn’t receive anything useful, the kandora gives him two more dora. In the middle of the 2nd row, Hori completes a green dragon ankou and stays dama on a 58p ryanmen wait. With Maruyama not suspecting anyone to be tenpai yet, she pushes her hand and gets to iishanten near the end of the 2nd row. With her push, though, she ends up dealing the 8p to give Hori the win. Hori wins the hand with North/Green Dragon/Iipeikou/Dora 2 for 8,000.
In E3-0, nobody starts out with close to tenpai hands. Takamiya is the closest with a 3-shanten chiitoi, while Maruyama and Hori are both 4-shanten from a standard hand. Approaching the end of the 2nd row, both Maruyama and Hori are tenpai while Takamiya and Matsumoto are iishanten. With a call, Matsumoto gets himself into a yakuless tenpai and Takamiya gets a good draw in order to get to chiitoi tenpai and call riichi on the dora tanki. With the riichi call, it forces Maruyama and Matsumoto to take evasive action while Hori holds on. The hand ends with Takamiya and Hori both in tenpai
In E3-1, Hori the dealer starts out with a very good hand, holding an ankou of dora and already being iishanten by turn 3. Soon after, Hori gets to tenpai on a 7s kanchan, but stays dama to try to improve the hand. His waiting is rewarded as he converts from a single tile wait to a 5-sided wait. Hori calls riichi on a 13467s wait. Hori manages to draw his winning 6 near the end of the 2nd row to win the hand. Hori wins the hand with Riichi/Tsumo/Dora 3 for 4,000+100 all. With the win, he breaks both the 50k and 60k barriers
In E3-2, Matsumoto and Maruyama are 2-shanten with their haipai while Hori lays in the shadows. In the 2nd row, Matsumoto calls riichi by discarding the 2p and waiting on a 58m ryanmen wait. Hori was next and got to tenpai immediately after Matsumoto and stays dama on a 25p ryanmen wait. With Matsumoto’s riichi, Maruyama discards Matsumoto’s safe 2p and ends up dealing into Hori. Hori wins the hand with Pinfu/Dora 1 for 2,900+600.
In E3-3, Hori’s dealer turn ends when he fails to get to tenpai and he wasn’t able to get to tenpai at draw in E4-4 either.
In E4-5, Hori gets a fast hand, calling a row 1 riichi on a 69p ryanmen wait with two red dora in hand. Despite dealer Maruyama managing to get to tenpai in the second row, Hori is faster and is able to tsumo the 9p at the start of the 3rd row. Hori’s winning 9p. Hori wins the hand with Riichi/Pinfu/Aka 2 for 2,000+500/4,000+500, plus the riichi stick from the previous hand.
Over the entirety of the east round, Hori managed to get to 74,800pts and the only player to win a hand in the east round. Hori would eventually end the game at 77,000 to give his team +97.0.
Furiten Haitei
April 16, Game 2, S3-2
In S3-2, Hinata is in 3rd place and the dora is the white dragon. Through the first two rows, everyone struggled to build their hand. Hinata was the one that seemed closest to tenpai by the end of the 2nd row, being iishanten and the only player without a white dragon. In the 3rd row, Sasaki calls pon on the green dragon to get to tenpai and throws the white dragon to break the standoff. Soon after, Hinata calls chii to get to tenpai on a 69p ryanmen wait. With the 9p previously discarded by Hinata, it put Hinata into furiten and gave the expectation that she would just collect tenpai payments. However, on the very last tile, Hinata was able to draw the 6p to win the hand. Hinata wins with a surprising Haitei/Tanyao/Aka 1 for 1,000+200/2,000+200, taking the two riichi sticks from the previous hand and take 2nd place.
Takizawa vs. Sasaki
April 19, Game 1, S4-1
Video: https://abema.tv/video/episode/444-7_s30_p491
In S4-1, Takizawa is the dealer and 4,900 behind 1st place Sasaki. Takizawa’s hand starts out with a pair of souths, but otherwise not very quickly. Through the 1st row, Takizawa drew souzu and his hand started to look like a honitsu. He solidified this in the 2nd row by discarding his 34p block to get to iishanten. Around the same time, Sasaki gets to tenpai and stays dama on a 69m ryanmen wait for pinfu. Takizawa manages to get his hand into tenpai, waiting on a 36s ryanmen wait and stays dama as well. With Sasaki trying to win his hand and not suspecting that Takizawa was in tenpai, Sasaki discards the takame 3s and deals into Takizawa. Takizawa wins the hand with Honitsu/Iipeikou/South for 12,000+300 and takes the lead from Sasaki. Takizawa would go on to win the game, with this hand being the turning point.
An Akasaka First
April 20, Game 2, E3-0
Video: https://abema.tv/video/episode/444-7_s30_p501
In E3-0 is in 4th place and is looking to not lose all the points that Sonoda earned in the previous game. Taro’s hand starts out very well, but his first three discards weren’t. With the first three discards, he ended up discarded the 8p three times. Nevertheless, his hand is still good and is iishanten by the end of the 1st row. At the start of the 2nd row, Taro has the choice to be tenpai and be satisfied with a sanankou. However, he decides to dream bigger and aim for a suuankou, despite having already discarded an ankou. Challenging Taro is Kurosawa, who pushes for a honitsu and makes some good progress. However, it has some difficulty rivaling Taro’s hand, who gets to tenpai on the suuankou chance and calls riichi on a 2s/4m shanpon wait. In the 3rd row, Kurosawa incredibly keeps pushing and gets to tenpai on a 7s penchan wait for her honitsu. Immediately after, Taro draws the 2s to get the legendary win. Taro wins the hand for suuankou for 8,000/16,000 to take 1st place.
The suuankou win was actually the first yakuman in Akasaka Drivens history. The excitement in the locker room reflected it (warning: very loud)
Even these very big moments, mistakes happen. When the score was added, they gave Taro 3,200 (800/1,600) instead of 32,000 (8,000/16,000). As a result, the Akasaka Drivens and the fans had a big laugh.
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