Sasaki Hisato, nicknamed Maou (魔王, “Demon King”), was the MVP of the M-League 2020 Season, garnering the most points during the regular season. But what did he do to claim this title? Today, we will shine a spotlight on a few highlights of his performance in the M-League 2020 Season.
Background
Sasaki Hisato joined the Japan Professional Mahjong League in 2006, the same year as American pros Garthe and Jenn joined. Prior to joining the league, he was well known in the jansou circuit, making 10 million yen via jansou play.
In the inaugural season of M-League, Sasaki Hisato was drafted in the 1st round by the Konami Mahjong Fight Club. Sasaki was a top performer that year, finishing the season with a score of +228.3 and finishing 3rd place.
In the 2019 Season, he continued to do well, getting a score of +80.7 and placing 10th out of 29 players.
Then came the 2020 Season…
October 8, 2020, Game #2: First Game
The Konami Mahjong Fight Club has started out the season with a bad start. With two 3rds on their first day and a 4th place to start the day, Sasaki is sent out to save the team. On E1-2 and E2-0, he dealt into two mangan hands (an early first row hand and a Honitsu/Chiitoi hand) and was off to a bad start. He continued to bleed points and at the start of his south dealership, he was in last place and had only 4,900 points, 20,000 points behind 3rd place.
However, with his dealership in the south round, he didn’t give up.
In S2-1, Sasaki wins with Riichi/Ippatsu/Tsumo/Aka 2 for 4,000+100 all, plus 2,000 in riichi sticks.
In S2-2, Sasaki does some standard speedy efficiency to continue his dealer turn and win the hand with a Riichi/Tsumo/Pinfu/Dora 1 for 2,600+200 all.
After losing his dealership and suffering a decent loss of points from a haneman tsumo in S2-3, Sasaki continued his march forward in S3-0. Sasaki chases Uotani’s riichi with a chance at iipeikou if he wins on the 7m. As luck always has it, Uotani ends up dealing the takame 7m to Sasaki for Riichi/Pinfu/Iipeikou and 3,900, plus Uotani’s riichi stick.
In S4-1, Sasaki has a shot of taking top spot, being only 4,700 points from first. He would need to get a 3/40 general ron, a 3/30 tsumo or a 2/40 direct hit. His hand starts out 3-shanten and full of poor shapes. He discards his penchan and isolated terminals first, holding onto a single south in hopes to pair it up and increase his hand value. As he made these standard discards, tiles began to fall into place; His 5m pair became an ankou, his isolated 3m became a 14m ryanmen. Soon after, he was in tenpai with a 2p kanchan. Sasaki instantly calls riichi, with the hopes of drawing the tile himself, getting a direct hit off Aki or finding an uradora. Two turns later, Sasaki draws the 2p, getting the gyakuten and making an incredible comeback. Sasaki win the hand with Riichi/Tsumo/Aka 1 for 1,100/2,200, beating Aki by only 700 points.
From 4900 at the start of S2-1 to 1st place for Sasaki, it was truly an amazing comeback. With that and the big and fast wins from all the players, Game 2 of October 8 (Game 6 of the season) goes on my list of highly recommended M-League games to watch.
November 6, 2020: Continuously High Scoring
Sasaki is very good at winning games. One of the things that helps him get these high scores is his understanding of the power of riichi. With more time to tsumo the hand because players are folding, as well as access to ippatsu and uradora, he uses riichi as the killer blow to his opponents. From an article in Week 5, Sasaki’s strength in getting high-scoring hands is made clear.
November 6, Game 2
In E4-1, Sasaki is in 4th place and wanting to improve his placement and keep his 100% 4th place avoidance rate. His opening hand starts out well, being 2-shanten with an ankou and a pair of easts. With no one throwing the easts in the first row, Sasaki is forced to keep a high tile acceptance in the case that he needs to riichi. At the start of the 2nd row, Sasaki gets to tenpai with the east still a pair. He calls riichi and waits on a 36s ryanmen. 5 turns later, Sasaki draws the 3s to win the hand. Sasaki wins with Riichi/Tsumo/Dora 1 for 1,000+100/2,000+100.
In S1-0, Sasaki starts his dealer turn with a 4-shanten hand. Facing this obstacle, Sasaki tries to head for a simple tanyao hand so he can call as fast as he can. Katsumata, who doesn’t want his lead contested, quickly calls a red dragon to rush the hand. Near the end of the 1st row, Okada joins the fast hand crew, calling riichi on a 7p kanchan wait. Katsumata continues to rush after the riichi calling again to iishanten. Seeing both the calls and the riichi, Sasaki rushes his hand by calling pon on the 2p to put him atozuke tenpai on the 147m, with the 1m giving no yaku. In the middle of the 2nd row, Sasaki draws another 2p and calls kan. Sasaki draws the rinshan and calls tsumo, revealing the 1m. With one tile that normally wouldn’t have given him a yaku, Sasaki wins the hand for Rinshan/Dora 1 for 1,000 all.
Video: https://abema.tv/video/episode/444-7_s30_p98
In S1-1, Sasaki starts out with another good start, being 2-shanten. However, despite developing iishanten at turn 2, he is unable to improve the hand for many turns. It isn’t until the middle of the 2nd row that Sasaki gets to tenpai and calls riichi on an 8p kanchan wait. Having discarded the 5p early in the hand, Sasaki has a suji trap set up to help him win. Even with the dealer riichi, Okada calls riichi herself a few turns later, waiting on a 5m tanki wait. Needing to defend against two riichi calls with no 100% safe tiles, Taro discards the safest tile for both of them: the 8p. Sasaki calls ron and wins the hand for Riichi/Ura 2 for 7,700+300. With this hand, Sasaki takes the lead.
In S1-2, Sasaki starts out 4-shanten with a handful of isolated terminals and honours. Within the 1st row, Katsumata calls pon to try to rush the hand and Okada gets to iishanten. At the start of the 2nd row, Sasaki gets to tenpai, but doesn’t call riichi in the hopes of improving his wait. During this quest, Okada, for the third time in as many hands, calls riichi, waiting on the 236s. Right after Okada’s riichi, Sasaki finds the good wait he was looking for and calls riichi, waiting on the 457s. Two turns later, Sasaki finds the 4s to win the hand. With Riichi/Tsumo/Pinfu/Tanyao/Dora 1 for 4,000+200 all, Sasaki breaks the 50,000 mark. In just 4 hands, Sasaki manages to get 30,900 points and helps him get to his 5th win this season. For comparison, the Shibuya Abemas and Sega Sammy Phoenix had at the time four 1sts each, and the U-Next Pirates and Team Raiden had three 1sts each.
January 12, 2021: Escaping Death
Sasaki is not invulnerable, nor is he perfect. However, the thing that separates him from other players is his never-give-up attitude. On January 12, 2021, he drops down to a score of -27,300 by the end of S1-2, but with a dealer turn and perseverance, his hard work pays off. I cover this game in my article January 12, 2021 (Game #1): A Game for the History Books
In S1-3, Sasaki wins the hand with Riichi/Ippatsu/Pinfu/Dora 2/Aka 1/Ura 1 for 12,900. He also takes along with him Kondo’s riichi stick and the two riichi sticks left over from the previous hand.
After losing a chasing riichi in S2-0, a dealer riichi and being the only one in tenpai S3-0 helped Sasaki rake in some points and start the rampage.
In S3-1, Sasaki got his revenge on Mizuhara by hitting her with his chasing riichi and winning a Riichi/Ippatsu/Tanyao/Aka 1 for 12,000+300, taking Mizuhara’s riichi stick and recovering his riichi stick from the last hand. The win puts him back into the positives.
Video: https://abema.tv/video/episode/444-7_s30_p277
In S3-2, Sasaki starts out with an excellent hand to continue his comeback, holding an ankou of dora. Holding three different isolated yakuhai, Sasaki hopes to pair one of them up to speed up his otherwise slow hand. He is successful in finding one, pairing up the red dora on turn 3. Soon after, he is able to call pon on the red dragon to put him 2-shanten for a dealer mangan. By the end of the 1st row, Sasaki gets to iishanten with a guaranteed ryanmen wait. Two turns later, he gets to tenpai on a 14p ryanmen wait. When Mizuhara discards the 9m dora a few turns later, Sasaki makes a rare daiminkan call to increase his dora. The kandora doesn’t give any immediate dora, but it does make make the 1p, one of his waits, the dora. Sasaki draws the red dragon as the rinshan, making Sasaki call kan again. This time, the kandora gives him a huge immediate dora haul, revealing the 9m to be another dora and upgrading his hand suddenly to baiman. Though the rinshan misses again, it puts everyone on edge about the 24,000 open hand. On Sasaki’s next draw, he finds the 1p to win the hand with Red Dragon/Dora 9 for 8,000+200 all and to put him up to 2nd place.
This hand marks the highest dora count in a single hand. The old record was 8 dora set by Takizawa Kazunori back in 2018 and Wakutsu Akira back on November 12 this season.
In S4-0, Sasaki wins the last hand of the game with Tanyao/Dora 2/Aka 2 for 2,000/4,000 to end the game.
From -27,300 to 34,500, Sasaki Hisato proves that he can get points no matter the situation.
February 18, 2021: Dora Dora Dora Dora Dora Dora Dora
Not only does he get consistently high-scoring hands, he also gets some really high scoring hands. On Week 19, he broke a lot of records for a hand that will surely be remembered in mahjong history
February 18, Game 2
Video: https://abema.tv/video/episode/444-7_s30_p383
In E2-0, Sasaki is the dealer and starts out his hand with an incredible iishanten, holding a red 5 and a double east ankou which is also the dora. Having a guaranteed 18,000 starting hand, it is truly a hand that he wants to win. Through his first 5 discards, he just waited for the right tile to come, changing his hand just a little to make it more efficient. On turn 6, Sasaki gets to tenpai and calls riichi on a 47m ryanmen wait. With tsumo or even a single uradora, his hand would upgrade to a baiman for 24,000.
With Ooi wanting to stop Sasaki from going on one of his rampages, Ooi calls chii to put him 2-shanten for tanyao. On Sasaki’s next discard, Ooi calls chii again to put him iishanten.
On Ooi’s very next draw, he gets to tenpai and waits on a wide 457s wait.
When Sasaki draws the east two turns later, he calls kan, guaranteeing a baiman if he wins.
The kandora is flipped to reveal the 4s, making Sasaki’s 5s ankou a dora and upgrades his hand to a sanbaiman for 36,000.
With Sasaki’s rinshan draw, he finds the 7m and wins this incredible hand. Amounting to 13 han, Sasaki wins with Riichi/Tsumo/Rinshan/Double East/Dora 7/Aka 1, a new M-League han record. Because M-League doesn’t use kazoe yakuman, Sasaki’s hand was a sanbaiman valued at 12,000 all
Sasaki ended up winning the game with 94,000 points, the second highest final score in M-League history. He also ended the day 1st in the individual standings with +460.6.
Courtesy of @mleague_results, here is the list of records that Sasaki broke that day:
- First 13-han hand (also the highest han value in M-League history)
- First dealer sanbaiman
- Highest score reached of 100,400
- New season record of 94,000 (2nd highest in M-League history)
- Highest single day score of 169.2
- 5th time Sasaki has won twice in one day
With Hiyoshi being the play-by-play commentator, it was sure an exciting play
April 22, 2021: High-Scoring Game
With Sasaki’s continuous high-scoring plays and perseverance, he makes high-scoring plays and records. The combination of these two is what gives him record-breaking games.
April 22, Game 2
During the regular season, Sasaki had the highest total score out of all the players and the highest score in a single game. In the semifinals, he did not disappoint.
In E1-0, Sasaki didn’t have a particularly interesting starting hand. In fact, more attention was paid to Sonoda, who was holding two dragon pairs. With an easy starting hand, Sonoda calls a chii on the 8s in the middle of the 2nd row to get to iishanten and pon on the red dragon to get to tenpai for a simple yakuhai-only hand. Soon after, Sasaki surprises us and gets to a chiitoi tenpai with two dora and a red dora in hand. Staying dama on a 4p tanki wait, he caught Sonoda by surprised when he calls ron on his 4p discard in the middle of the 3rd row. Sasaki wins the hand with Chiitoi/Dora 2/Aka 1 for 8,000
Fast-forward to E2-5, Sasaki starts out with an impressive starting hand, being 2-shanten with his haipai. On turn 4, he gets a ryanmen-ryanmen iishanten and on turn 5, he gets to tenpai and calls riichi on a 69s ryanmen wait (with the 6s giving tanyao). With Sonoda being the dealer and having no safe tiles, Sonoda continues to push his hand and even gets to iishanten. However, Sasaki manages to draw his winning 6s takame. Sasaki wins the hand with Riichi/Tsumo/Pinfu/Tanyao/Dora 1/Ura 1 for 3,000+500/6,000+500. With the win, it gets Sasaki to 47,200.
Going to E4-1, Sasaki calls an early pon on the green dragon on turn 4 to give himself a yaku. On turn 5, he calls the red dragon to bring his hand value to 2 han. Despite discarding a manzu on turn 1, Sasaki manages to get his hand to a manzu honitsu tenpai near the start of the 2nd row and waits on a 36s ryanmen wait (which he later switches to a 147m sanmentan wait). Near the end of the 2nd row, Sasaki gets his winning 1m. Sasaki wins with Honitsu/Green Dragon/Red Dragon for 2,000+100/4,000+100. With the win, it put Sasaki over the 50,000 mark.
In S1-0, Sasaki starts out with two dora in hand. With everyone relatively slow, Sasaki is the closest to tenpai by the end of the 1st row, being 2-shanten with two ryanmen in hand. At the start of the 2nd row, Sasaki gets to iishanten with three dora in hand now. In the middle of the 2nd row, Sasaki gets to tenpai and calls riichi on a 47m ryanmen wait. Despite the dealer riichi, last place Hori continues to push and eventually gets to tenpai for chiitoi. Even though he has a bad wait, Hori calls riichi on his 5m tanki wait. In the middle of the 3rd row, Sasaki draws his winning 7m. Sasaki wins the hand with Riichi/Tsumo/Dora 3 for 4,000 all. With the win, it puts him over 65,000.
In S1-1, it appears as if Sonoda will break Sasaki’s dealer turn, being iishanten by turn 2. However, a stall in Sonoda’s hand allowed Sasaki to catch up. At the start of the 2nd row, Sasaki gets to tenpai and calls riichi on a 4m kanchan wait. On the ippatsu draw, Sasaki draws the 4m to win the hand. Sasaki wins with Riichi/Ippatsu/Tsumo/Aka 2/Ura 1 for 6,000+100 all. With the win, it puts Sasaki over 80,000 and in contention for the highest score in M-League history.
In S3-1, Sasaki adds to his total by calling riichi on turn 2 on a 58p ryanmen wait. Sasaki eventually wins by tsumo in the middle of the 2nd row for Riichi/Tsumo/Ura 1 for 1,300+100/2,600+100. The hand puts Sasaki at 86,200, just 8,200 behind the all time high score of 94,400 by Uotani last season.
In S4-0, Sasaki’s efficient style continues to pay off, with him being iishanten with a red dora by the start of the 2nd row. With him holding a pair of double south which is also the dora, calling pon on the south is guaranteed to be a haneman, enough to surpass the record. With Hori trying to get out of last place, he discards the south and Sasaki calls pon to get to tenpai on a 69s ryanmen wait. Hori, who sees the big hand from Sasaki, even decides to reject a tenpai and cut his losses instead of potentially dealing into Sasaki. In the middle of the 3rd row, Sasaki draws his winning 6s to win the hand. Sasaki wins with Double South/Dora 3/Aka 2 for 3,000/6,000.
With the last hand won, Sasaki ends the game at 98,200 beating the previous record by 3,800 points. The demon king’s dominance at the top is not lost, as he now holds the 1st, 3rd and 7th highest games in M-League history.
Even if he’s on an opposing team, you have to give him respect. Perseverance, efficiency, decision making and harnessing the power of riichi, he exhibits the characters of a great riichi player. There is no doubt that he is deserving of the title of MVP and it would be surprising if there were more title to be won in the future.
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