Game #1
EX Furinkazan
Beast X
Team Raiden
Konami Mahjong
Fight Club
Honda
May 11, Game 1, E2-0
In E2-0, the game is early and Hisato won a cheap 1,000 hand to start the game. Close behind him is Honda, part of the 2nd place tie.
Honda starts off at 3-shanten with a pair of 8s dora and two ryanmens. By turn 5, he is iishanten with a 3m kanchan shape and a 78m block to resolve. At the end of the row, he adds another 7m to the latter block.
At the start of the second row, Honda draws a third 8s to make a triplet. Making the 7m his pair, he gets to tenpai and waits dama on a 3m kanchan, guaranteed a mangan.
Two turns later, Hisato (who has already called pon on the green dragon) calls pon on the 2p, getting to tenpai on a 4p kanchan. With honitsu and the red 5p as well, he is guaranteed a mangan as well.
At the end of the row, Hisato discards the 3m and deals into Honda. Honda wins with Tanyao/Dora 3 for 8,000, moving into 1st place.
Nice Nakada
May 11, Game 1, S2-0
Video: https://abema.tv/video/episode/444-1_s5_p11072
In S2-0, Nakada is the dealer in 3rd place, 3,100 behind 2nd place Uchikawa and 5,300 behind 1st place Honda.
Nakada starts out filling in a 3s kanchan to get to 2-shanten. With two ryanmens in hand as well, she has a pretty good chance at a good wait final shape. On turn 3m she makes a 234555s shape, getting her to iishanten and very flexible (with 5s being either a triplet or a pair, depending on the final shape. On turn 5, she creates a 45m block to go along with the 56p block. Because of the souzu shape, she is guaranteed a good wait.
At the end of the first row, Nakada completes a 567p sequence and calls riichi on a 36m ryanmen. In the middle of the second row, she draws the 3m and wins the hand. Getting an uradora as well, Nakada wins with Riichi/Tsumo/Pinfu/Aka 1/Ura 1 for 4,000 all, easily taking the lead.
Double Riichi
May 11, Game 1, S4-1
Video: https://abema.tv/video/episode/444-1_s5_p7574
In S4-1, Uchikawa is in 3rd place, 13,900 behind 2nd place Honda and 17,400 behind 1st place Nakada. To finish in 2nd place, Uchikawa needs a mangan direct hit, a haneman tsumo or a baiman ron. For 1st place, he needs a baiman tsumo or direct hit, or a sanbaiman ron.
With his first 13 tiles, he is already iishanten! And with his first draw, he fills in a 7m penchan and has a chance to call a double riichi!
But is it the right move?
Currently, his hand has no other yaku and his wait is a difficult 3m penchan. He does have two triplets (the 8p and the 1s) which could be the uradora to boost him to a haneman if he does call double riichi and get the tsumo. And with Hisato the dealer just 6,500, stalling time to try for something better or to find more value (such as adding sanankou, which doesn’t add too much compared to a double riichi) might be costly.
After taking into account the possibilities, Uchikawa decides to call the double riichi and wait on the 3m.
With nowhere to go but up, Hisato decides to push. With 1st place within reach, Honda pushes a bit as well.
On turn 5, Uchikawa draws a fourth 8p and calls a concealed kan, a huge opportunity. With the kandora flip, his three 1s become the new dora. With this big gain, Uchikawa just needs to tsumo to move into 2nd, with two more boosters giving him the 1st place baiman.
Towards the end of the second row, Uchikawa draws the 3m and wins the hand. All he needs is two uradora to get the comeback baiman. He makes the flip and…
…misses on both of them. Still, Uchikawa wins with the unlikely Double Riichi/Tsumo/Dora 3 for 3,000+100/6,000+100 to finish in 2nd place.
Final Scores
Standings
Thanks to Nakada, the Beast X have extended their lead over the Konami Mahjong Fight Club to triple digits. Though Hisato won three times, the four deal-ins hurt him quite a bit. And For Uchikawa, his unexpected last-minute double riichi was just enough to give his team a gain on the game and get closer to 2nd place.
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