Game #2
Team Raiden
EX Furinkazan
Konami Mahjong
Fight Club
Beast X
Kurosawa
April 8, Game 2
In E1-1, Kurosawa is the dealer in 1st place, hitting Nagai with a 2/30 hand while beating Date’s riichi.
Kurosawa starts out the hand at 2-shanten with a connected dora 1s. She would need to draw a 3s to secure it in a 123s sequence, but only one more 3s remains in the wall. Lucky for her, she is able to draw it on turn 3 to get to iishanten.
In the second row, she gets rid of a penchan and switches to a perfect iishanten. In the middle of the row, she gets to tenpai and calls riichi on a 14m ryanmen. In the middle of the third row, Nagai discards the 4m trying to call a mangan riichi and deals into Kurosawa. Getting an uradora, Kurosawa wins with Riichi/Pinfu/Dora 1/Ura 1 for 12,000+300.
Video: https://abema.tv/video/episode/444-1_s5_p10071
In E1-2, Kurosawa starts off again at 2-shanten, this time with a 6m dora as part of a ryanmen, making the dora a little easier to use.But, before she even has a chance to be iishanten, Nagai (who started the hand at 2-shanten with a triplet of 6m dora) gets to tenpai with a 3m call and waits on an 8m/2m shanpon.
Luckily, Kurosawa has transformed her hand to a guaranteed pinfu with a good wait. Within the go-around, she gets to iishanten. A turn later, she gets to tenpai and calls riichi on a 58m ryanmen. It takes a while, but she draws the red 5m in the middle of the third row and wins the hand. With the 6m also being the uradora, Kurosawa wins with Riichi/Tsumo/Pinfu/Dora 1/Aka 1/Ura 1 for 6,000+200 all, taking her to 59,800.
Date
April 8, Game 2, E2-1
Video: https://abema.tv/video/episode/444-1_s5_p8576
In E2-1, Date is in 2nd place, chasing after the runaway Kurosawa who is 27,100 ahead of her.
Date starts out the hand making a triplet of 7m dora for some nice value. However, she is still at 4-shanten with no absolute clear yaku. In her first five turns, she discards terminals and honours to try and go for tanyao. This works out very well for her as she draws lots of nice connecting tiles. By her fourth turn, she is already at a ryanmen-ryanmen iishanten with the ability to call.
To her left, Nagai wants to make the most of his dealership. In the middle of the second row, he gets to tenpai and calls riichi on a 25p ryanmen.
Immediately after, Date gets the red 5s for tenpai chases with a 58p ryanmen, guaranteed at least a haneman. She is at a disadvantage, though, with Nagai winning the headbump with a 5p discard. Tojo also gets to tenpai, but her 47p ryanmen hand has no yaku.
At the end of the row, Date gets lucky and draws the 5p, winning the hand. With an uradora hit as well, Date wins with Riichi/Tsumo/Tanyao/Dora 3/Aka 1/Ura 1 for 4,000+100/8,000+100 plus a riichi stick, shrinking Kurosawa’s lead down to 5,700.
Tojo Time
April 8, Game 2
Video: https://abema.tv/video/episode/444-1_s5_p11070
In E4-1, Tojo is the dealer in 3rd place, 9,200 behind 2nd place Date and 16,900 behind 1st place Kurosawa. A riichi stick and a honba are in the pot.
Tojo starts out the hand with four good shapes, either ryanmens and strengthened ryanmens. In the first row, she fills in one of them and creates another, getting her to 2-shanten with an almost guaranteed good wait. At the start of the second row, she advances to a perfect iishanten. With a 67s block, a 67m block and a 678p sequence, she has a chance at sanshoku.
On both sides of her, Tojo is faced with other iishanten players. In the middle of the second row, Kurosawa draws a fourth 4p and calls a concealed kan. Though the kandora west doesn’t help, she does get to tenpai with her rinshan draw and calls riichi on a 25m ryanmen.
Within the go-around, Date calls a 123s chii to secure a ouzu straight and waits on a 36m ryanmen.
And right after her,Tojo draws and 8m for tenpai and calls riichi on a 58s ryanmen, wanting the 8s. On Kurosawa’s turn, she draws and discards the 8s and deals into Tojo. Tojo wins the hand with Riichi/Ippatsu/Pinfu/Tanyao/Sanshoku for 18,000+300 plus two riichi sticks. With the direct hit, Tojo moves into 1st place.
In E4-2, Tojo starts out getting to 2-shanten by creating a 147s three-sided wait. By turn 3, she is iishanten. On turn 4, she has 14 different tiles to tenpai, 9 of them giving her a three-sided wait. On her very next turn, she gets to tenpai and calls riichi on the 147s three-sided wait. It’s no surprise that she is able to get the 4s on her next turn and win the hand. Tojo wins with Riichi/Ippatsu/Tsumo/Pinfu/Ura 1 for 4,000+200 all, taking her to 55,700.
Video: https://abema.tv/video/episode/444-1_s5_p11071
In E4-3, Tojo has another 2-shanten hand, but has a pair of red dragons for a potential open yaku. Despite this yaku option, the opportunity to call it never comes. Instead, she creates sequences. At the end of the first row, she completes a 123m sequence to go along with her 123p sequence. If she manages to make a terminal sequence from her floating 2s, a sanshoku could happen.
On turn 8, Tojo draws the 3s and calls riichi on a 14s ryanmen, needing the 1s for any sort of value. As destiny would have it, she draws the 1s on her very next turn and wins the hand. With an uradora as well, Tojo wins with Riichi/Ippatsu/Tsumo/Sanshoku/Ura 1 for 6,000+300, moving her up to 74,600.
And though she would end up losing her dealership and losing a few points, things continue in S4-0, where she is the dealer again with 71,600.
With her very first draw, she gets a red 5p double dora, adding onto the dora 5p in her hand. However, she is only able to get to 3-shanten by the end of the first row.
In the second row, Nagai is technically the first to tenpai, but sits yakuless with a 69p ryanmen. Meanwhile, Tojo is able to build her hand to a perfect iishanten. Around the start of the third row, Tojo gets to tenpai and calls riichi on a ryanmen.
To her left, Date is already iishanten and has already called pon on the 2s. With a 345m chii within the go-around, Date gets to tenpai on a 47p ryanmen.
However, that chii ends up shifting the wall into Tojo’s favour. On Tojo’s next draw, she gets the 4p and wins the hand. Tojo wins with Riichi/Tsumo/Dora 2/Aka 1 for 4,000 all, pushing her score up to 83,600.
Final Scores
Standings
With Tojo’s incredible win (the second-best finals win in M-League history), the team takes top spot. In just one day, the Beast X went from 4th to 1st. Truly incredible.
Date’s ability to gain as many points as she can (or rather, lose as few points) in such a difficult situation helped keep the team just 6.3pts from 1st.
Kurosawa had such a good start to the game, but she couldn’t stop the flow from Date and Tojo. Fortunately, she wasn’t 4th.
And unlike his three opponents, Nagai couldn’t win any big hands. With this big -62.8pts drop, the EX Furinkazan are now closer to 4th place than 2nd place.
And with that, we are officially halfway through the finals! By this time next week, our champion will be crowned! Everyone has a chance! Who will it be? As always, we’ll just have to wait and see!
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