Highlights
Early Damage
March 25, Game 1
Video: https://abema.tv/video/episode/444-12_s30_p941
In E1-0, Uotani is the south seat and starts out with 3-shanten with a red 5p and two ryanmens. The wall wasn’t helpful in the first row, only advancing her to 2-shanten. In the 2nd row, she creates another ryanmen to advance to iishanten and, near the end of the row, gets to tenpai and calls riichi on a 36m ryanmen. As Takamiya tries to push her hand, she throws the 6m and deals into Uotani. Uotani wins the hand with Riichi/Pinfu/Aka 1 for 3,900.
In E2-0, Uotani is the dealer and starts out 4-shanten with four ryanmens and a red 5s. With pinfu written all over it, Uotani starts by discarding the honours and her poor and isolated shapes. By the end of the 1st row, Uotani is cleared of clutter and at 3-shanten. Her hand rapidly approached tenpai from there and was able to get to tenpai by turn 10 on a 58m ryanmen, staying dama with her mangan hand. Right after, Matsumoto throws the 8m and deals into Uotani. Uotani wins the hand with Pinfu/Tanyao/Dora 1/Aka 1 for 12,000, pushing her score to 40,900.
In E2-1, Uotani starts out with an annoying hand, being 4-shanten for chiitoi (5-shanten for a standard hand) with pairs of red dragon and west, as well as an isolated red 5m double dora. Through the first row, she drew middle tiles, called pon on the red dragon and was able to get to 2-shanten by the end of the row. In the 2nd row, she progressed her hand well, but was interrupted by a riichi from Mizuhara on a 7s penchan. Even though she initially folded and discarded a west pair to avoid Mizuhara’s ippatsu, the wall brought Uotani to iishanten at the start of the 2nd row. With value in her hand, she pushed her hand. In the middle of the 3rd row, Uotani has a chance to get to tenpai, but refuses to and breaks one of her sequences since getting to tenpai would mean throwing the double dora. As she broke her sequence, another one formed around the red 5m. On Uotani’s last opportunity to chii, she makes the call and manages to get to tenpai on a 6s/7s shanpon. On Mizuhara’s haitei draw, she gets the 6s and deals the houtei into Uotani. Uotani wins the hand with Red Dragon/Houtei/Dora 1/Aka 1 for 12,000+300, getting big points from a hand that was thought to be lost.
Yellow Card
March 25, Game 1, E3-2
In E3-2, a small incident occurred that disrupted the game. As Takamiya was discarding a tile, she knocked down a part of her wall, revealing two tiles. The game paused momentarily so the referee could make a ruling.
Initially, the referee thought that only one tile had been knocked down and the tile could be returned and the game could be continued. However, after the players corrected the referee and showed that two tiles were knocked down, the ruling was changed and Takamiya was given a yellow card.
Yellow cards are given out for certain offences (slamming tiles, knocking down two or more tiles from the wall) and are erased at the end of the day (they don’t carry over). If a player gets two yellow cards in a game, they are given a red card, which is -20 from the individual score.
Takamiya had previously received a yellow card on February 10 of this year for a similar infraction.
Dragons
March 25 Game 1, E4-5
Video: https://abema.tv/video/episode/444-12_s30_p942
After five hands of either draws or dealer wins starting in E3-0, the game continued in E4-5. At the start of the hand, Mizuhara holds a pair of red dragons, as well as singletons of both the green and white dragon. In the first row, Mizuhara calls pon on the red dragon to get her hand going. At the start of the 2nd row, Mizuhara draws a white dragon and, a turn later, gets the green dragon. With these dragon pairs, she has a chance at shousangen or maybe even daisangen.
Soon after Mizuhara gets the green dragon, Takamiya gets to tenpai and stays dama on a 5m kanchan. With Takamiya tenpai, she discards a green dragon, allowing Mizuhara to get to iishanten. With two white dragons in the wall, she has a reasonable chance of getting the big hand.
A turn after, Mizuhara draws a 5s to get to tenpai for shousangen on a 58p ryanmen. In the 3rd row, Mizuhara draws the dora 8p to win the hand. Mizuhara wins the hand with Shousangen/Red Dragon/Green Dragon/Aka 1 for 2,000+500/4,000+500 (plus 2,000 in riichi sticks).
No More Ura San
March 25, Game 1, S2-1
Video: https://abema.tv/video/episode/444-12_s30_p943
In S2-1, Matsumoto is in 3rd place with Mizuhara 3,900 behind him and Takamiya 4,100 ahead of him. He starts his hand out 3-shanten with one ryanmen and one kanchan. On turn 2, he fills in his kanchan to kill the bad shape. On turn 3, he gets to iishanten and on turn 5, he gets to tenpai and calls riichi on a 25p ryanmen. The very next turn, Matsumoto draws the 2p to win the hand. Revealing three uradora, Matsumoto wins the hand with Riichi/Ippatsu/Tsumo/Ura 3 for 3,000+100/6,000+100, plus one riichi stick. With perfect timing and the perfect flip, Matsumoto’s 1-han hand turned into a valuable haneman.
Dead Hand
March 25, Game 1, S4-0
In S4-0, another small incident occurred. At the start of the game, Takamiya is the dealer and starts out with thirteen tiles, 4-shanten with two dora and a red 5s. With such a nice hand, she starts out by discarding the isolated 9s. But right after she discarded, she realized that she forgot to draw her first tile!
The game was paused and the four pings were heard from above. Coming on for the second time in the game, the referee announced that Takamiya has one too few tiles in her hand and that she now has a dead hand.
When a player has a dead hand, they are not allowed to make any calls and must declare themselves noten at ryuukyoku.
Luckily for Takamiya, her infraction didn’t result in a yellow card. If it did, she would receive a red card (because she received a yellow card earlier in the game) and would be penalized -20 at the end of the game (after oka and uma).
The last time a player had a dead hand was earlier this month on March 4, Game 2, when Sawazaki forgot to draw his first tile.
Dora Tanki
March 25, Game 2, E4-0
Video: https://abema.tv/video/episode/444-12_s30_p944
In E4-0, Kobayashi sits in 1st place as the dealer, just 2,300 ahead of 2nd place. He starts out with quite a good hand, being 2-shanten from the start with a red 5s and a kanchan on the 6s dora. Right away, Kobayashi’s dealership is put in danger when Ooi calls riichi on turn 2 on a 3m penchan.
Being the dealer with an iishanten hand and a decent chance at mangan, Kobayashi pushes. On turn 3, Kobayashi draws a fourth 7p and calls kan. He reveals the red dragon as the new dora and slightly improves his iishanten.
At the end of the 1st row, Kobayashi has a chance to get to tenpai, but chooses not to throw either the red 5s or the 7s, staying iishanten. A turn later, he gets back to tenpai and decides to throw the 1s to wait yakuless on a 7s tanki. In the middle of the 2nd row, Kobayashi draws the red dragon and calls riichi on the red dragon dora tanki.
Though he misses on the ippatsu, Kobayashi gets his win when Ooi throws the red dragon the very next turn. Kobayashi wins the hand with Riichi/Dora 2/Aka 1/Ura 2 for 18,000 (plus Ooi’s riichi stick) to put him above 50,000.
Menhon
March 25, Game 2, S4-1
In S4-1, Kobayashi is in 1st place and 14,600 ahead of 2nd, while Ooi is in 4th place and 7,400 behind 3rd place. Kobayashi starts out 3-shanten for chiitoi (4-shanten for a standard hand), while Ooi starts out 2-shanten. With each of Kobayashi’s draws, he gets more and more manzu pushing his hand towards honitsu. By turn 8, Kobayashi is iishanten for a closed honitsu, while Ooi gets to iishanten for chiitoi. The first of the two to get to tenpai is Kobayashi, who gets to tenpai on a 25m ryanmen for mangan minimum.
Two turns later, as Ooi tries to get to tenpai, he discards the 5m and deals into Kobayashi.
Kobayashi wins the hand with Honitsu/Pinfu for 12,000+300 (plus two riichi stick) to put him above 60,000.
The Oddities of Game 11
March 29, Game 1
Game 11 of the M-League 2021-22 semifinals was an interesting match for a few reasons.
Ryuukyoku
This game featured quite a few draws. The first four hands of the game all went to a draw. In fact, 7/12 hands went to a draw, accounting for 58.33% of the hands in the game, tying the M-League record for highest percentage of hands going to a draw (the last time it happened was Game 7 of the 2019 Finals)
The biggest hand
Ignoring bonus sticks, the biggest hand of the day was a Riichi/Ippatsu/Tsumo/Pinfu for 1,300/2,600, lower than the mangans and hanemans we see in most games
And the winner is…
Despite Hori winning the biggest hand of the game, he actually placed last. The winner of the game was actually Takizawa, who won with 3,300 in raw points (two 1,000 point hands and a 1,300 point hand). Besides his three 1-han hands, the rest of his points came from bonus sticks and tenpai payments.
Riichi! Riichi! Riichi! Ron!
March 29, Game 2, E4-0
Video: https://abema.tv/video/episode/444-12_s30_p962
In E4-0, the 2nd and 4th are separated by only 5,100 points. 3rd place Okada leads the pack at the start with a 2-shanten, followed by 2nd place Ishibashi and 4th place Date at 4-shanten. Okada gets to iishanten on turn 2, but she is unable to advance any further in the first row. At the start of the 2nd row, Ishibashi catches up and gets to iishanten, with Date getting there in the middle of the row. Of the three of them, Ishibashi is the first to get to tenpai, calling riichi on a 58s ryanmen.
Immediately after, Date gets to tenpai and calls riichi on a 58p ryanmen.
Within the ippatsu turn, Okada gets to tenpai and calls riichi on a 47m ryanmen, giving up the ittsuu in her hand to throw a safe tile.
On Ishibashi’s draw, he gets the 4m and deals into Okada. Okada wins the hand with Riichi/Ippatsu/Pinfu/Aka 1/Ura 2 for 12,000 (plus two riichi stick) to move into 2nd place and within striking range of 1st place.
Ura Ura
March 29, Game 2, S3-1
Video: https://abema.tv/video/episode/444-12_s30_p963
In S3-1, Ishibashi is in 4th place, 5,100 from 3rd place and 10,500 from 1st place. He starts out with a 3-shanten hand, but lacking in value. On turn 3, he draws a 4m dora, gets to 2-shanten on turn 4 and hits iishanten on turn 5. At the start of the 2nd row, Date gets to iishanten for toitoi and gets to tenpai a turn later with a call of the souths, waiting on a 1p/white dragon shanpon.
Near the end of the 2nd row, Ishibashi gets to tenpai and calls riichi on a 58s ryanmen.
On the ippatsu turn, Date draws the 5s. Because she is tenpai for a dealer mangan with a chance at haneman if she draws her winning tile, she decides to discard the 5s, dealing into Ishibashi. Revealing two uradora, Ishibashi wins the hand with Riichi/Ippatsu/Pinfu/Dora 1/Ura 2 for 12,000+300 (plus one riichi stick) to move from 4th place to 1st place.
Miscount
March 29, Game 2, S4-0
In S4-0, Katsumata is 500 points behind 2nd place Okada, while Okada 2,300 behind 1st place Ishibashi according the scores on the screen. From the start, we see Okada with a tanyao hand, knowing that she would need at least 2-han and hit the right person in order to pass Ishibashi. As Okada tries to move forward, both Katsumata and Ishibashi try to stop her with quick calls. In the 2nd row, Okada calls pon on the 2s to get to tenpai. The decision is a bit odd, since 1 han isn’t enough for 1st, even if she hits Ishibashi directly.
As the game went on, voices were heard around the table, with Date mentioning it to get whoever is speaking to stop. A few draws later, the referee stops the game. In the referee’s interruption, he mentions that there is a mistake with the scores on the automatic table.
During the previous hand, the points transferred between Ishibashi and Date was the correct 12,300, but she had mistakenly taken the riichi stick in the pot, the same instict as returning the honba to her own point area. Because of this, Ishibashi’s score on the table was 30,400 instead of 31,400, while Date’s score was listed as 11,900 instead of 10,900. The problem goes further, since Okada was acting as if the space between her and Ishibashi was only 1,300 instead of 2,300. This could explain why Okada was calling 1-han hand, since a tsumo or a direct hit would put her into 1st place.
The referee then stated that the points will be corrected and that the game continued. However, Date inquired whether the game should continue as is because the point differences affected playing judgment. However, the ruling stuck.
In the end, Okada called ron off of Katsumata with Tanyao for 1,000 points, ending the game in 2nd place.
After the game, it was revealed that Date had accidentally taken the leftover riichi stick from the previous hand. For the mistake, both the Konami Mahjong Fight Club and Date apologized for the error.
Since verifying the transfer of points is the responsibility of the entire table, Ishibashi, Okada and even Katsumata apologized for not ensuring that all the points were transferred to the correct player.
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