M-League 2020 Finals: Games #9-10

Game #9

From 4th to 1st, Plus a Bit More

May 17, Game 1

In E3-0, Katsumata is in 4th place and needing to get out of 4th for the team to have a chance to win the championship (or, at the very least, not get 4th in the standings). Hi hand progression is slow, but it was faster than everyone else. At the end of the 1st row, he is 2-shanten and in the middle of the 2nd row, he is iishanten. Near the start of the 3rd row, Ooi tries to scare the table by calling pon on the 8s dora. A few turns later, Katsumata calls riichi and waits on a 7p/8p shanpon wait. On the ippatsu draw, Katsumata finds the 8p to win the hand. Katsumata wins with Riichi/Ippatsu/Tsumo/Aka 1 for 4,000 all. With the win, it puts Katsumata into 1st place and gives him a 4,000 point lead.

In E3-1, Katsumata is 4-shanten. With such a painful starting hand, it was made even worse by a turn 5 riichi from Sawazaki on a 4m/8m shanpon wait. Even with the riichi, though, Katsumata continues to push his hand. Though it takes a while, Katsumata gets to tenpai at the end of the 2nd row on a 25p nobetan wait, staying dama. On the very next turn, Katsumata draws the winning 5p to win the hand. Katsumata wins with Tanyao/Tsumo for 1,000+100 all to extend his lead further.

Unfortunate Ippatsu Draw

May 17, Game 1, E4-3

In E4-3, Ooi is in last place and needs to get ahead of the Kadokawa Sakura Knights in order for the team to not fall out of 1st place. Katsuamta is also wanting to gather some points, trying to get close to the top of the pack. Katsumata starts out with a pair of norths and a pair of easts. When the east is discarded, Katsumata easily calls pon to get to 2-shanten. By turn 4, Katsumata gets to iishanten. When the red 5p comes out, Katsumata calls chii to get to tenpai on a 9s/north shanpon wait, with the north giving mangan. Near the end of the 2nd row, Ooi manages to get to tenpai and calls riichi on a white dragon/9m shanpon wait. With a terminal and honour wait, Ooi has a pretty good chance of winning his 5,200 chance hand. However, on his ippatsu turn, Ooi draws and discards the north and deals into Katsumata.

Katsumata wins the hand with East/North/Dora 1/Aka 1 for 8,000.

Chuuren Iishanten!?!

May 17, Game 1, S3-0

In S3-0, Sawazaki starts out with the best hand, being 3-shanten with three ryanmen shapes. With Ooi deep in last place, his hand develops quickly and is the first to iishanten by turn 3. Though Murakami started with 7 souzu tiles, he managed to draw more and more to bring his hand closer to chinitsu. By the middle of the 2nd row, Murakami is 2-shanten for chiitoi. As Shibukawa Nanba noted, He has a lot of elements required for chuuren poutou, with him only missing the 1s, 3s and 9s. With Ooi so desperate and needing the points, Ooi gets to tenpai and calls riichi on a south/7p shanpon wait, with the yasume only giving 1,300 points. Soon after, Murakami draws the 9s to get to iishanten.

However, because of the riichi from Ooi, Murakami needs to speed up his hand. When the 2s is discarded, Murakami calls pon to get to tenpai on a 1369s wait for mangan.

In the end, Katsumata discards Ooi’s 7p suji and deals into Ooi for Riichi only for 1,300.

Final Scores

Standings

For the EX Furinkazan, this is an extremely big win for them. Not only does it put them further away from the 4th place Akasaka Drivens, but it also puts them much closer to the top of the rankings, being only 69.2pts from 2nd place and 110.7pts from 1st place. With a well played 1st place, the Kadokawa Sakura Knights placing 4th and the Shibuya Abemas placing 3rd, the EX Furinkazan could very well take 1st place next game. For the Kadokawa Sakura Knights, placing one place above the Shibuya Abemas brought the team into 1st place in the overall standings. The Akasaka Drivens get 2nd but they are hopeless at this point, not having a single 1st in the finals..

EX Furinkazan Elimination Tracker

With a +67.6pts result by Katsumata, it both widens the gap between them and the Akasaka Drivens and solidifies Katsumata’s standing in the team. As long as the team avoids 4ths, they will be fine.

Intro | Game #9 | Game #10