Monday (September 22)

---

Game 1

Speed Demon

September 22, Game 1, E1-0
Video: https://abema.tv/video/episode/444-1_s5_p8502

Before Hisato even draws his first tile in the first hand of the first game, he calls pon on the east. When we get a look at his hand, he has pairs of 1s, 9m and white dragon, giving him a route for a quick toitoi. Two turns later, he pairs up the 8s. All he needs to do is call pon a few times and eventually ron.

Immediately after, the white dragon comes out. With a pon, he gets to iishanten. With the 9m coming out within the go-around, Hisato gets to tenpai on a 1s/8s shanpon. Right after that, Kayamori discards the 8s and deals in. Hisato wins with Toitoi/East/White Dragon for 8,000.

---

Ura San

September 22, Game 1, E3-0
Video: https://abema.tv/video/episode/444-1_s5_p10504

In E3-0, Mizuhara is in 3rd place, 4,500 behind 2nd place dealer Hinata and 17,000 behind 1st place Hisato. Mizuhara starts out 3-shanten with a red 5p as part of a pair. The first row gives her a 789m sequence, but not much else. To her right, Hinata is iishanten with a kanchan and a ryanmen.

In the second row, little progress is made for either player, but Mizuhara does get to iishanten after making a 1m triplet.

Approaching the middle of the third row, Mizuhara draws the 3s to fill in a kanchan and calls riichi on a 36p ryanmen.

Immediately after, Hinata gets to tenpai and stays dama on a 5s tanki, hoping to either improve the wait or at least safely stay tenpai when the hand goes to a draw.

On Mizuhara’s last draw, she gets the 6p and wins the hand. When she flips the uradora, her 1m triplet becomes the new dora and doubles her hand’s han value. Mizuhara wins with Riichi/Tsumo/Aka 1/Ura 3 for 3,000/6,000, enough to move her within 2,000 of 1st place.

---

Highest-Value Wait

September 22, Game 1, S2-0

In S2-0, Hisato is in 2nd place and 5,000 behind 1st place Mizuhara.

With Hisato’s very first draw, he is already iishanten with 7 different tiles that will get him to tenpai. On turn 2, he chooses to reduce that count down to just 3 different tiles, but this sacrifice in waits guarantees him tanyao and gives him a chance at sanshoku as well. At the start of the second row, Hisato calls a 567s chii and waits on a 58p, wanting the 5p for sanshoku.

Two turns later, Kayamori gets to tenpai and calls riichi on a 58p ryanmen.

Unfortunately for her, just two turns later, she draws and discards the red 5p, the absolute perfect tile for Hisato. Hisato wins the hand with Tanyao/Sanshoku/Dora 1/Aka 1 for 8,000, enough to move into 1st.

---

South Switch

September 22, Game 1, S4-0
Video: https://abema.tv/video/episode/444-1_s80_p2035

In S4-0, Mizuhara is in 2nd place and 2,100 behind 1st place dealer Hisato. With a 1/40 direct hit or tsumo, or a 2/40 ron, Mizuhara will finish the game in 1st place.

Mizuhara starts out the hand at 3-shanten with a pair of green dragons. With her current hand, she doesn’t have enough value. She will either have to pursue a closed hand or hope for value through dora. The first row provides her with both a dora 1s and a red 5m. If she can incorporate both into her final hand (along with the green dragon becoming a triplet), she will have enough value. If she can only do one, then she will need a direct hit or tsumo or some extra fu.

In the middle of the second row, she calls pon on the green dragon and gets to iishanten. Creating a 345m sequence in the third row, Mizuhara gets to tenpai on a 1s dora tanki, having enough value.

On her next turn, she draws a south. Though it isn’t worth as much as the dora 1s, it does provide value. Sticking with the 1s dora gives her 30 fu exactly, though it doesn’t matter if it’s 4 han. But, if she switches to the south tanki, she would go down to 2 han but would have 40 fu. With the han and fu, it’s still enough to overtake Hisato and has the benefit of being more likely to be won off ron (since someone throwing the 1s dora is unlikely). With the higher win rate, Mizuhara sacrifices the big value and goes for the south tanki.

Two of the souths are being held up by Hisato, who has a pair and actually gets to a yakuless tenpai soon after. To her left, Kayamori has the final south. Being in 4th place, she has incentive to push. What’s more, her hand is in line to be ryanpeikou. When she gets to tenpai, she tries to call riichi discarding the south and deals into Mizuhara.

Mizuhara wins the hand with Green Dragon/Aka 1 for 2,600, enough to finish in 1st place by 500.

---

Results

Game 9

---

Game 2

Ura Ura

September 22, Game 2, S1-0

In S1-0, Shiratori is in 1st place and 900 ahead of 2nd place Takamiya. At the other end, Genta is in 4th place and 700 behind 3rd place dealer Yu.

Shiratori starts off at 3-shanten with multiple sequence candidates, while Genta starts out the hand at 4-shanten with two red fives and a dora green dragon. Row 1 gives Shiratori a pinfu guaranteed iishanten and Genta gets to 2-shanten with two ryanmens.

In the middle of the second row, Shiratori is the first to tenpai and calls riichi on a 58m ryanmen, waiting with Riichi/Pinfu.

Two turns later, Genta chases with a 36m ryanmen, guaranteed at least 5,200 with his hand.

And now we look at Yu. During Genta’s ippatsu turn, he gets a chance at tenpai. He has five choices, though only three of them give a good wait. Unfortunately, those choices are the 3m, 6m, and 8m, all tiles that deal in.

Looking at the table, three of the 9m have been discarded (including a pair from Genta), making it unlikely to be part of a kanchan. With this, Yu chooses to discard the 8m, trying to call riichi.

Though it would seem like Yu dealt into the cheaper hand, Shiratori’s uradora flip makes his 3p pair into dora and gets him to 8,000 anyways (which would have been the same value as Genta’s hand). With Shiratori’s Riichi/Pinfu/Ura 2 win (plus Genta’s riichi stick), Shiratori puts himself above 40,500 and Yu down to 4th place.

---

Escaping 4th

September 22, Game 2, S4-2
Video: https://abema.tv/video/episode/444-1_s5_p10505

In S4-2, Yu is in 4th place and 3,700 behind 3rd place Genta. With two riichi stick and two honba, anything other than a 1/30 ron is enough.

Yu starts out at 4-shanten, though his hand is lacking a clear yaku or good shapes. Because of this, Yu decides to break a penchan from the get-go to try and gamble some more luck with floating middle tiles. This gamble pays off in creating a 334m shape out of nothing, but he is still 3-shanten by the end of the first row.

The second row creates a 67889p shape as well as creating a 234p sequence from a 4p dora draw. With a 5m draw to create a 345m sequence, Yu gets to tenpai on a 7p. Since the shape is really bad, he stays dama with no yaku.

While Yu waits for either a better wait or tsumo, Genta gets to tenpai on a 25s ryanmen. Because he already has a yaku and is so close to falling into 4th (a riichi would mean any win by Yu would be enough), Genta stays dama.

At the end of the second row, Yu switches to a 569p shape, with the 5p giving him ittsuu. Since all the 9p are visible and only one 6p being unaccounted for, Yu chooses to stay dama, being able to call ron in most winning tile situations. If he draws the final 6p himself, he can win in that situation as well. And if the hand goes to a draw and Yu is the only one tenpai, he will overtake Genta (making riichi by Yu a good move).

On his very next turn, Yu draws that final 6p and wins the hand. WIth Yu’s cheap Tsumo/Dora 1 for 700+200/1,300+200 plus two riichi sticks, Yu finishes the game in 3rd place, maintaining the Pirates’ 4th-avoidance streak.

---

Results

Game 10

---

Intro | Standings