M-League 2020 Finals: Games #5-6

Game #6

Baiman!

May 13, Game 2, S1-1

In S1-1, Murakami starts out with a really fast hand, being iishanten with his haipai. On turn 2, Murakami gets to tenpai and calls riichi on a 7s kanchan wait. With the early riichi and a decent hand, Hori continues to push. By turn 5, Hori is iishanten for suuankou. As the fans we could see that all of Murakami’s waits were being used up, meaning that Hori has time to develop his suuankou chance. In the middle of the 2nd row, Hori draws a 2p. Though it doesn’t help his suuankou, it does get to tenpai. Needing to challenge the riichi, Hori decides to call riichi and wait on a 25p ryanmen wait, with the 2p giving iipeikou.

On the very next turn, Hori draws the takame 2p to win the hand. Revealing three uradora, Hori wins with Riichi/Ippatsu/Tsumo/Iipeikou/North/Ura 3 for 4,000+100/8,000+100, as well as Murakami’s riichi stick.

Unfortunate Timing, Fortunate Winning

May 13, Game 2, S3-2

In S3-2, Matsumoto is the dealer and starts out being the closest to tenpai and holding a pari of red dragons. By turn 4, he is iishanten. On turn 5, Murakami joins the iishanten group and holds a guaranteed iishanten. By the end of the row, everyone is close to tenpai. The first of them to get to tenpai is Murakami, who calls riichi on a 25p ryanmen wait. A few turns later, Takizawa gets to tenpai on a 7m kanchan. Being the dealer and having a two-sided wait. Matsumoto calls riichi in the middle of the 2nd row and waits on a 36m ryanmen wait. On his very next turn, he draws the red 5p and deals into Murakami.

Murakami wins the hand with Riichi/Pinfu/Sanshoku/Dora 1/Aka 1/Ura 1 for 12,000+600, plus Matsumoto’s riichi stick. With the win, Murakami goes from 4th to 2nd, while Matsumoto falls from 2nd to 4th.

Final Scores

Standings

The Kadokawa Sakura Knights’ dream and the Shibuya Abemas’ worst nightmare have come true. With a first by the Sakura Knights and a 4th by the Shibuya Abemas, the gap between them has been cut down to 7.8pts. For the EX Furinkazan, they actually benefit from this even though they placed 3rd place. The gap between them and the Shibuya Abemas has shrunk by 21.9pts and 1st place is only 209.5pts away. A few 1sts them and some 3rds and 4ths from the Abemas and Sakura Knights can get them to the top. For the Akasaka Drivens, it looks like they will only be fighting for 3rd, as a 309.2pts gap between them and 2nd place may be a bit too wide to bridge.

EX Furinkazan Elimination Tracker

Even after the 3rd place from Takizawa, he is at this point almost guaranteed to be coming back to the team next year. The gap between them and the 4th place Akasaka Drivens has gotten a bit, but it’s still very manageable. As long as they keep avoiding 4ths and prevent the Akasaka Drivens from getting 1sts, they would be fine.

That’s all for today! We are officially halfway through the M-League 2020 Finals! Only 6 more games before we find out who will be the best of the 2020 season. With the standings at the top being the closest that it’s ever been, the last 3 days will be spicy! What will happen over the last 6 games? We will just have to wait and see!

Intro | Game #5 | Game #6