(CR) Saki

[Kaioshin Sama]

Originally Posted by ThoHell

What do you think Mahjong mostly is? Yeah there's some skill/technique, bluffing, strategy, but it's just like cards.... mostly luck to get the needed combo.

I'm saying usually they try to pass it off as an innate skill or gift in Saki, but this time it isn't working out.

[tjalorak]

Originally Posted by Willen

You've got to wonder what kind of monsters there are in the national tournament (aside from Teru and Jindai).

My guess is that almost every team has some "monster" of some sort that could counter Koromo - if not more - but that those teams have members that are all at least "Captain" level (i.e. Mihoko level). It does seem that all the teams currently in the finals ATM have members that are below that level.

Originally Posted by Willen

It's a bit surprising that Touka didn't recruit Nodoka since she's the junior high champion and was suspected to be Nodocchi. She could have confirmed the Nodoka - Nodocchi connection herself, then. Figuring out how to get Nodoka to play like Nodocchi in a non-net tournament would be the problem. Hisa figured it out during the training camp, I wonder if Touka would have.

Eh. Touka's group was all first years -last- year while Nodoka was still in middle school. I suspect Touka recruited with the goal in mind of having the same group for three years (as she says to Hajime). Hence, there was no room for Nodoka on the team, even if Nodoka had wanted to go to Ryuumonbuchi.

Additionally, it seems like Touka looked at records for their ability, which is how she found Hajime and disregarded Nodoka. It doesn't seem like she took into account that some people - for whatever reason - can't seem to play at their full potential in a tournament until whatever is blocking them gets resolved. I feel like all the people she recruited were good already; she's a good scout but not a good developer of talent.

[tjalorak]

Originally Posted by Kaioshin Sama

I'm saying usually they try to pass it off as an innate skill or gift in Saki, but this time it isn't working out.

Seems pretty effective though.

The biggest problem is you have to assume that your opponents can read discards enough to understand that it's a low risk discard (not a problem here) and that one of your opponents has the tile in their hand rather than buried further down the wall.

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by Kaioshin Sama

I'm saying usually they try to pass it off as an innate skill or gift in Saki, but this time it isn't working out.

Maybe Saki's skill is akin to Hajime's. But she didn't get caught...

[TheBigN]

Originally Posted by Kaioshin Sama

I'm saying usually they try to pass it off as an innate skill or gift in Saki, but this time it isn't working out.

Well it's not supposed to be either of those. It's just how Hisa goes about life in general. But it says something about the fact that she tends to constantly win out on the worst odds. Sorta like how the gods of luck seem to smile on Saki most of the time.

[FateAnomaly]

Touka didn't recruit Nodoka cos she is younger. All the members on her team is the same age as her. She didn't have any extra people on her team (except the maid) or any junior club members. She wanted the same team of people every year.

Oh, Koromo is so adorable. Despite her arrogant attitude, she likes to be petted and praised. She wants to make friends so they play with her.

All the club presidents seem pretty awesome in their own way. But Touka is just superb. Ryuumonbuchi ftw.

[scr]

Originally Posted by FateAnomaly

She didn't have any extra people on her team (except the maid) or any junior club members. She wanted the same team of people every year.

Umm, can this be confirmed in the manga? I think the rules about a school club is that you have certain number of members (look at K-ON!)-- and the bigger the school, the bigger that number is. Furthermore, you must have at least (another, smaller) certain number of members in each grades. In Touka's coteries, it seems that everyone are the same years.

Originally Posted by FateAnomaly

Oh, Koromo is so adorable. Despite her arrogant attitude, she likes to be petted and praised. She wants to make friends so they play with her.

I think the great Koromo just want to have delicious sacrifices.

Originally Posted by FateAnomaly

All the club presidents seem pretty awesome in their own way. But Touka is just superb. Ryuumonbuchi ftw.

Touka is just uber, in many ways.

[Quarkboy]

Originally Posted by scr

Umm, can this be confirmed in the manga? I think the rules about a school club is that you have certain number of members (look at K-ON!)-- and the bigger the school, the bigger that number is. Furthermore, you must have at least (another, smaller) certain number of members in each grades. In Touka's coteries, it seems that everyone are the same years.

Ryuumonbuchi is a private school, so it can make its own rules. For all we know it was created specifically for the purpose of entering a mahjong club into the national tournament by Touka. At the very least Touka's family owns it and is, thus, completely in charge.

[Clannad-]

I dont get how the game is played but im following the story!

Can anyone put mahjong in simple words? Me watching Saki is similar clueless effect of Hikaru no Go

[tjalorak]

I was rewatching Saki's ep. 1 win. Why exactly is her hand considered cheating (according to some reviewers)? You need 4 triples and 1 pair to win, that is, 14 tiles except when you call a kan, which gives you an extra tile. Therefore, 15 tiles is perfectly fine, no?

So she has a kan of the west tiles, 123 circle, 234 circle, triple of 9 circle, and a pair of bamboo for a total of 15 tiles.

I don't understand how what is meant by 70 minipoint, 2 fan hand though... She gets 1 fan from getting king's tile draw and 1 fan for 3 value tiles. What is minipoints and how does she get the 70 minipoints?

[FateAnomaly]

The hand you are talking about is not the hand that other people are talking about.

Anyway, in layman terms minipoints are like base points (determined by the individual sets of pairs, pungs and kangs and how you win th game). Whereas fans are mutipliers (determined by the the whole pattern of your winning hand).

[Quarkboy]

Originally Posted by tjalorak

I was rewatching Saki's ep. 1 win. Why exactly is her hand considered cheating (according to some reviewers)? You need 4 triples and 1 pair to win, that is, 14 tiles except when you call a kan, which gives you an extra tile. Therefore, 15 tiles is perfectly fine, no?

So she has a kan of the west tiles, 123 circle, 234 circle, triple of 9 circle, and a pair of bamboo for a total of 15 tiles.

I don't understand how what is meant by 70 minipoint, 2 fan hand though... She gets 1 fan from getting king's tile draw and 1 fan for 3 value tiles. What is minipoints and how does she get the 70 minipoints?

Minipoints (also called "base points" or "fu") are calculated in a fairly complicated way depending on how you won and what your mahjong consists of:

Here's the simplest way I can explain how to calculate your minipoints (I'm omitting some special cases for clarity)

You get 20 points just for winning.
If your hand was concealed and you won by Ron, add 10 points.
For each pung or kong in you hand, add 2^{1+2*Kong?+Concealed?+Terminal/Honor?} *** where the ? items are 1 if true, 0 if false
Add 2 points for each of the following:
Pair of dragons
Pair of seat, prevalent wind
Edge wait, closed wait, or pair wait
Tsumo

You round this up to the nearest factor of 10.
There, simple, isn't it?

Let's analyze Saki's hand to help this stay on topic:

She had:

Pung of 9 of circles
chow of 1, 2, 3 of circles
chow of 2, 3, 4 of circles
Kong of West winds
Pair of 2 bamboo

Her hand was fully concealed, she won by drawing the replacement tile.

So her minipoints are:
20 for winning + 2^{1+1(concealed)+1(terminal)}(pung of 9s)+ 2^{1+2(kong)+1(concealed)+1(honor)}(kong)+2(tsumo) +2(pair wait)
=
20+8+32+2+2 = 64 rounds up to 70.

[bayoab]

Originally Posted by tjalorak

I was rewatching Saki's ep. 1 win. Why exactly is her hand considered cheating (according to some reviewers)? You need 4 triples and 1 pair to win, that is, 14 tiles except when you call a kan, which gives you an extra tile. Therefore, 15 tiles is perfectly fine, no?

You cannot ever have 15 closed tiles facing you.* The mangaka (and subsequently Gonzo in copying) made the mistake of drawing in 15 closed tiles at one point which is where the whole cheating thing comes from.

*When you have a closed standing Kan, you turn 2 of the tiles away from you.

[tjalorak]

Ah. Okay. Thanks for the explanations!

So. We've had it speculated in this thread why Touka hadn't recruited Nodoka and tentatively concluded that Touka was recruiting a group for her year to play with through all of high school. Here's a thought: Why didn't Touka recruit Hisa or Mihoko?

Hisa, in particular, is interesting because she probably showed a lot of potential at the national middle school tournament. Hisa's fall off the mahjong map and inability to attend expensive schools, so to say, shouldn't be a problem for Touka with her money and connections to first, find Hisa and second, to offer a scholarship to Ryuumonbuchi. The obscureness of Hisa would also be intriguing since Touka seemed to go out of her way to find the diamond in the rough types.

Edit: Darn. I just remembered that Hisa and Mihoko are third years and hence, a year older than Touka. Hrmmm. The only notable second year outside of Ryuumonbuchi, I believe, is Kana... Tsuruga's two main players are a third year and a first year, right?

[tjalorak]

While rewatching episode 3, I paused to read what it said about Teru.

Profile: Miyanaga Teru (3rd year)
The taishou of the famous Shiraitodai High School for the spring qualifiers.
Aims for her third championship in a row at this year's summer tournament.
She showed us some frightfully high scoring hands at the spring qualifiers.
"This summer, I'm aiming for the championship"

Jeez. Talk about dominance!

[Peanutbutter]

Originally Posted by tjalorak

While rewatching episode 3, I paused to read what it said about Teru.

Jeez. Talk about dominance!

Knowing her specialty is scary enough.

Spoiler for Saki/Koromo/Teru:

Saki's good at doing Rinshan Kaihou and Koromo can do Haitei. Both are just 1 yaku.

Teru's adapt at making Kokushi Musou, which is a yakuman already. I'll be surprised if she doesn't dominate.

[Avisch]

Originally Posted by Peanutbutter003

Knowing her specialty is scary enough.

Spoiler for Saki/Koromo/Teru:

Saki's good at doing Rinshan Kaihou and Koromo can do Haitei. Both are just 1 yaku.

Teru's adapt at making Kokushi Musou, which is a yakuman already. I'll be surprised if she doesn't dominate.

And we can only wonder when the third girl Fujita mentioned... finally gets shown in the manga.

[Von Himmel]

Though I'm wondering about something. .
Saki had said that she dislike to win because she didn't want to make her family angry. It was as if she can actually beat her family (Teru and her mother and father) if she had tried

[Quarkboy]

Originally Posted by Flyvedelta

Though I'm wondering about something. .
Saki had said that she dislike to win because she didn't want to make her family angry. It was as if she can actually beat her family (Teru and her mother and father) if she had tried

Well, for all we know the rin shan kaihou is just what she does while holding back.

Saki's true power could be Nine Gates or something.

Don't forget, this is a sports anime/manga. After the prefectural quals, Saki and the team are going to have to go and do some super training somewhere and upgrade all their "powers".

[tjalorak]

First, Teru's specialty is crazy.

Originally Posted by Quarkboy

Well, for all we know the rin shan kaihou is just what she does while holding back.

Saki's true power could be Nine Gates or something.

Don't forget, this is a sports anime/manga. After the prefectural quals, Saki and the team are going to have to go and do some super training somewhere and upgrade all their "powers".

Given that her specialty seems to deal with kongs... maybe it's more like the Su-Kantsu yakuman.

Spoiler:

She pulls off a San-Kantsu in the finals against Koromo. Maybe it's just a foreshadowing of her "ultimate" technique.