Following the excitement that happens every season, there are always those moments that you will never forget. They can be yakuman, incredible comebacks or just really big hands. Today, let’s take a look back at some of the amazing plays that happened in the M-League 2020 Season.
5. The New Kid’s Suuankou
As they say, “Winning is temporary, yakuman are forever.” Last season, there were 4 yakuman (which were all Suuankou). I could have chosen either of Matsumoto’s two yakuman wins or Taro’s 5-ankou hand, but I have opted to go with Hori Shingo’s suuankou. Hori Shingo was the only player to be drafted in the 2020 season and played impressively, placing 4th place overall.
January 2, Game 1 E4-1
Video: https://abema.tv/video/episode/444-7_s30_p241
In E4-1, Hori is the dealer and in the lead with 34,000. His hand starts out with an ankou of 8p and two other pairs. On turn two, he pairs up his white dragon to put him 2-shanten from chiitoi and 3-shanten from toitoi. On turn 3, he picks up another pair to bring his hand forward. At the start of the 2nd row, he makes his white dragon into an ankou and brings his hand to toitoi and suuankou iishanten. In the middle of the 2nd row, he makes his 9p an ankou and calls riichi on a 5m/2s shanpon. Drawing a 9p two turns later, he calls kan. With his rinshan 2s draw, he calls tsumo and wins the season’s 2nd yakuman. Hori wins with Suuankou for 16,000+100 all, bringing his score up to 82,300.
4. Chankan
Rare yaku are always fun to see. For Kayamori Sayaka, it’s almost a requirement. On week 12, she got a Shousangen and got a Ryanpeikou on week 13. For this best plays rundown, I’ve chosen her play in week 2 that gave her the honour of being the first person to get the yaku in M-League history.
Video: https://abema.tv/video/episode/444-7_s30_p39
In S3-0, the dealer Kayamori starts out with a dora and a red dora, while Taro starts out with a pair of green dragons and honitsu opportunity. When the green dragon is discarded, Taro calls it, getting a yaku. As Taro draws more honours, he discards his 56m block to commit to a pinzu honitsu. Taro later calls pon on the 4p to get to 2-shanten and the 9p for iishanten. As Taro waits to get to tenpai, Kayamori tries to get to tanyao. Kayamori draws a red dora to get to 2-shanten and calls the red 5m for iishanten, giving her all three of the red dora. Taro gets to tenpai right after by drawing a north, giving him a 25p ryanmen wait. When Taro draws another north, he has a decision to make. Since north is his seat, holding the north would give him an another han. Furthermore, the fact that he can see all of the 4p and none of the 2p means that the 2p is being used up as part of a pair or an ankou. Switching the wait from a 25p to a 3p tanki, Taro tries to call kan on the 4p. However, it is also Kayamori’s winning tile, meaning that she can call ron to chankan the tile for the win. In the first chankan ever in M-League, Kayamori wins the hand with Tanyao/Chankan/Aka 1 for 12,000 points.
3. Local Yakuman: Suurenkou
Sometimes hands that don’t have specific yaku are impressive. There was a hand oddity where two hands in the same game were exactly the same, but I’ve chosen a hand that would have gotten a yakuman if the rules were a bit different.
October 26, Game 2, S2-0
Video: https://abema.tv/video/episode/444-7_s30_p63
In S2-0, Takizawa is in the lead and starts out with a hand that has the potential to increase his lead. His hand has 9 manzu tiles and is 4-shaten from chinitsu. On the first few turns, Takizawa draws more manzu, letting get pairs of 1m, 3m, and 4m, as well as an ankou of 2m. When the 1m comes out, Takizawa calls pon, and he does the same with the 3m and 4m a few turns later. With these calls, he gets to tenpai on a Chinitsu/Toitoi hand waiting on the 9m. Hagiwara, who was the dealer in 4th place, continued to push his hand through making calls. Even when drawing the 7m he continues to push. Hagiwara’s hand eventually gets to tenpai waiting on the 9m as well. When Hagiwara draws the 2m, he throws it, keeping to his 9m wait. On Takizawa’s second-to-last draw, he draws a 3m, but declines the 3-sided wait to stick with the 9m tanki. This wait pays off, as Takizawa draws the 9m as the haitei. Takizawa wins the hand for Chinitsu/Toitoi/Haitei for 4000/8000.
It is interesting to note that this hand was won on M-League’s Yakuman Day. October 26 was declared yakuman day because Sasaki had won a kokushi on this day in 2018 and Setokuma had won a suuankou on this day in 2019. If local yaku were put in place, Takizawa would have won the local yakuman suurenkou, continuing the October 26 yakuman tradition.
2. Sexy Seiichi
Comebacks are always fun. In 2019, Maruyama Kanako made an incredible 4th to 1st baiman win to make a comeback and got the whole Akasaka Drivens nation screaming. This year, it was Kondo Seiichi (nicknamed “Sexy Seiichi” by Hiyoshi Tatsuya) getting the Sega Sammy Phoenix fan base screaming.
March 4, Game 2, S4-1
Video: https://abema.tv/video/episode/444-7_s30_p424
In S4-1, Kondo is in 4th place and 3,100 behind 3rd place Maehara. Kondo starts out with a 4-shanten hand with sanshoku being the only conceivable significant value in the hand. Through the first row, Kondo filled got rid of the slow honours and terminals to try to give the hand tanyao. By the end of the 1st row, Kondo is iishanten with a red dora and tanyao guaranteed. Keeping his hand flexible, he can also add pinfu and/or riichi to the hand to sufficiently surpass Maehara. In the 2nd row, Kondo adds iipeikou flexibility while Maehara rushes his hand by calling a pon on the green dragon. In the middle of the 2nd row, Kondo gets to tenpai on a 47m wait. If Kondo were to stay dama, he would already get to 3rd place with the Pinfu/Tanyao/Aka 1 hand. However, if everything lines up right with riichi, Kondo can actually get to baiman with a Riichi/Ippatsu/Tsumo/Pinfu/Tanyao/Iipeikou/Aka 1/Ura 1, enough to catapult him to 1st place. With the need to get any points to get to the semifinals and the very small but possible chance to take top spot, Kondo calls riichi on the 47m ryanmen.
In an absolutely insane alignment, Kondo draws the 7m on his ippatsu turn to win the hand. Revealing an uradora, the prophecy is complete and Kondo wins the game. Sexy Seiichi (the nickname that Kondo was given in the previous game) wins the hand with Riichi/Ippatsu/Tsumo/Pinfu/Tanyao/Iipeikou/Aka 1/Ura 1 for 4,000+100/8,000+100 all to take 1st place by 300 points.
1. Sasaki Hisato’s Perfect Rinshan
Anyone who has watched M-League 2020 certainly knows that this is the highlight hand of the season and possibly of all time.
February 18, Game 2
Video: https://abema.tv/video/episode/444-7_s30_p383
In E2-0, Sasaki is the dealer and had just come off of a win last game. He 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
In E2-1, Sasaki starts out with a 2-shanten hand for both a standard hand a chiitoi with a red dragon ankou. On turn 2, Sasaki draws his 5th pair to put him iishanten for chiitoi. At the start of the 2nd row, Sasaki draws the 6th pair and stays dama on a 8m tanki wait. On the very next turn, Sasaki calls a tsumogiri riichi, an interesting and odd decision. It took quite a few turns, but Sasaki eventualy drew his winning 8m in the middle of the 3rd row, revealing two uradora, Sasaki wins the hand with Riichi/Tsumo/Chiitoi/Dora 2 for 6,000+100 all. With the win, it puts him to 77,300 with the game not even a quarter of the way through.
In E2-2, Sasaki start out with another 2-shanten, this time with a dora and a pair of white dragons. The first row wasn’t very kind to Sasaki, giving him only useless tiles. Near the start of the 2nd row, Sasaki is still iishanten, but now has a pair of easts to go along with his white dragon pair. When Sonoda discards the east, Sasaki calls pon on it to get to iishanten. The very next turn, Sasaki gets to tenpai and waits on a 25m ryanmen wait. When Sasaki draws the 4th 8p, he calls an ankan, but misses the rinshan. In the middle of the 3rd row, Sasaki draws his winning 5m to win the hand. Sasaki wins with Double East/Dora 1 for 3,200+200 all. The hand brings his score to 87,500 and is still the dealer going into E2-3.
In E2-3, Sasaki starts out with a 3-shanten hand that lacks value. In the first row, his hand transforms to an iishanten with nice ryanmen waits. At the start of the 2nd row, Sasaki draws a red 5p to give his hand value. It takes his hand a long time to move beyond it, btu Sasaki eventually gets to tenpai and calls riichi near the start of the 3rd row. The very next turn, Sasaki draws the 4m and wins the hand. Sasaki wins with Riichi/Ippatsu/Tsumo/Aka 1 for 4,000+300 all. With the win, it gives Sasaki 100,400 points, the first player to ever break the 100,000 point barrier.
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 commentating that day, it was even more special
And those are my picks for the top 5 plays of M-League 2020! Let us know what moments were your favourite! October 4 is opening day for M-League 2021, so see you then!
M-League Watch 