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Old 2009-09-11, 22:55   Link #161
whitepearl
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Arkenryu, I once played like you with lots of reckless abandon.

My percentages were highest for 1st and 4th, LOL. But after losing a LOT, I realized I had to change my approach.

I used to go in thinking ANY hand was winnable, but this soon cost me lots of points when I dealt into hands because I dealt too many risky tiles. Now I know when to bail and give up if my hand is not coming together--better to just lose 1000 points instead of 8000-12000.

I was able, at one point, to have my percentages in 1, 2, 3, 4 be almost equal but a recent spell of bad luck has pushed up my second place numbers and last place numbers.

http://arcturus.su/tenhou/ranking/ra...to=20090912&l=

Everything went downhill on September 8, LOL T______T
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Old 2009-09-13, 20:12   Link #162
Arkenryu
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Been having a bad luck streak lately, but it seems I've got past that.



Oh yeah, and what does that 2級 mean?
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Old 2009-09-13, 21:18   Link #163
Proto
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2 Kyu. Your ranking in the japanese ranking system. If this were karate it would be something like red belt.
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Old 2009-09-14, 05:02   Link #164
Duo Maxwell
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Quote:
Originally Posted by whitepearl View Post
My percentages were highest for 1st and 4th, LOL. But after losing a LOT, I realized I had to change my approach.

I used to go in thinking ANY hand was winnable, but this soon cost me lots of points when I dealt into hands because I dealt too many risky tiles. Now I know when to bail and give up if my hand is not coming together--better to just lose 1000 points instead of 8000-12000.
I still have a trouble of seeing which tile is a dangerous one. Is there any strategy guide about that?
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Old 2009-09-14, 09:07   Link #165
Proto
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The first step is knowing when someone is in tenpai. It's easy when someone declares riichi, but it's a little more subtle when people go for an open hand. The clue here is to pay attention to what tiles people are discarding, more specifically, are they discarding tiles that they just drew (and spent no time thinking about it) or they did discard something within their hand)? If its the former, just assume they are in tenpai and act accordingly. This is specially true when you know that someone has a +4han hand (they melded a dora, they have an obvious chin'itsu, etc.), and in those cases you might want to start bailing as soon as they start quickly discarding their draws, or even earlier just to be on the safe side). Another case one can consider to bail when combined with the above scenarios is when your hand isn't coming through and you are already on the last third of the match, or if you only have a low value hand and no fast way of raising its value, and you are already in the second half. Playing it safe is better than risking feeding on other people's hands.

In any case, when you want to bail and you are avoiding someone's hand. Look at his discards. If they discarded a 5-bamboo for example, the 5 bamboo is totally safe, however the 4,1 bamboo and 6,9 bamboo are specially risky tiles (1 or 4 tiles difference around the discarded tile). That's because the 5 bamboo could have been part of a 3-5 combination, for example (which is not a weird combination to carry arround for a while), then a 2-bamboo came and you had a 2-3-5 combination, where the 5 overflows which tells us that the player will be waiting for a 1,4 for his 2-3 combination (a similar idea applies to the 6,9 case). The 3 and 7 bamboos are also risky tiles if you have no other information. Example: They had a 3-5 combination and a 3 came along, in which case you have a 3-3-5, where the 5 most probably overflows).

On the other hand, if you are hardpressed to choose and you don't have more information, if someone discards the 5 bamboo the 2 and 8 tiles can be considered safer than others. The reason for this is that the 5 can no longer be the winning tile within a 5-6-7 or 3-4-5 combination (for example), and because of the furiten rule you cannot win on a 8 or a 2 in either of these cases. Of course, there are other things you should factor in, and the 2 and the 8 could be the winning tiles of other combinations, however they serve as guide posts)

There are other things you can pay attention to that might help you. Tiles that were discarded early in the game are tiles that were probably unneeded by the player, and hence that most probably indicates a group of safe tiles. The most obvious case: did he start by discarding a bunch of honors and 1,9 tiles? Then he's going for a tanyao, and playing orphans against him is safe. Did he start by discarding a bunch of bamboo's? Then probably his hand only has wheels and characters.

The furiten rule is there to help you. If you have a risky tile, and someone else discards the same one, don't think twice, get rid of that thing.

Tiles that no one has discarded when people are in tenpai are always risky. If you really have to choose between one or the other discard things that would only be winning tiles if people were in a hell wait. (this doesn't really apply to better players though).

These are all the tips I can think of now. Any other people want to share theirs?

Last edited by Proto; 2009-09-18 at 21:07.
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Old 2009-09-14, 10:03   Link #166
whitepearl
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Proto View Post
The first step is knowing when someone is in tenpai. It's easy when someone declares riichi, but it's a little more subtle when people go for an open hand. The clue here is to pay attention to what tiles people are discarding, more specifically, are they discarding tiles that they just drew (and spent no time thinking about it) or they did discard something within their hand)? If its the former, just assume they are in tenpai and act accordingly. This is specially true when you know that someone has a +4han hand (they melded a dora, they have an obvious chin'itsu, etc.), and in those cases you might want to start bailing as soon as they start quickly discarding their draws, or even earlier just to be on the safe side). Another case one can consider to bail when combined with the above scenarios is when your hand isn't coming through and you are already on the last third of the match, or if you only have a low value hand and no fast way of raising its value, and you are already in the second half. Playing it safe is better than risking feeding on other people's hands.

In any case, when you want to bail and you are avoiding someone's hand. Look at his discards. If they discarded a 5-bamboo for example, the 5 bamboo is totally safe, however the 4,1 bamboo and 6,9 bamboo are specially risky tiles (1 or 3 tiles difference around the discarded tile). That's because the 5 bamboo could have been part of a 3-5 combination, for example (which is not a weird combination to carry arround for a while), then a 2-bamboo came and you had a 2-3-5 combination, where the 5 overflows which tells us that the player will be waiting for a 1,4 for his 2-3 combination (a similar idea applies to the 6,9 case). The 3 and 7 bamboos are also risky tiles if you have no other information. Example: They had a 3-5 combination and a 3 came along, in which case you have a 3-3-5, where the 5 most probably overflows).

On the other hand, if you are hardpressed to choose and you don't have more information, if someone discards the 5 bamboo the 2 and 8 tiles can be considered safer than others. The reason for this is that the 5 can no longer be the winning tile within a 5-6-7 or 3-4-5 combination (for example), and because of the furiten rule you cannot win on a 8 or a 3 in either of these cases. Of course, there are other things you should factor in, and the 3 and the 8 could be the winning tiles of other combinations, however they serve as guide posts)

There are other things you can pay attention to that might help you. Tiles that were discarded early in the game are tiles that were probably unneeded by the player, and hence that most probably indicates a group of safe tiles. The most obvious case: did he start by discarding a bunch of honors and 1,9 tiles? Then he's going for a tanyao, and playing orphans against him is safe. Did he start by discarding a bunch of bamboo's? Then probably his hand only has wheels and characters.

The furiten rule is there to help you. If you have a risky tile, and someone else discards the same one, don't think twice, get rid of that thing.

Tiles that no one has discarded when people are in tenpai are always risky. If you really have to choose between one or the other discard things that would only be winning tiles if people were in a hell wait. (this doesn't really apply to better players though).

These are all the tips I can think of now. Any other people want to share theirs?
Great post, Proto. It really touched on a lot of things.

What makes a tile "dangerous" is when it hasn't been discarded or if it hasn't been discarded for a long time. Let's say someone discards a hatsu early on (second turn). Eventually someone calls riichi. You draw a tile and it's a hatsu. You look at the pond and you see that no one has discarded any hatsus since that second turn. You have to assume that the person who called riichi has two of them and may be waiting on that third one. Or, someone could already have the two and may be waiting on your tile. This is when you may be better off just keeping that tile in your hand.

If a player discards a lot of the same suit of tiles (90% of his discards are bamboos), then you can assume he might not be waiting on a bamboo and he is definitely waiting on another suit, possibly to make a honitsu or a chinitsu hand.

You can sometimes tell what a person is going for by the pungs or chis he makes too. If you see a pung of East winds and a pung of nine pins, you have to assume immediately he is either going for a honitsu hand (all pin tiles + the east winds) or he may be going for an honor hand (all honors, 1s, 9s, or 123, 789 combos). If you see a player cut a 2-3-4 man combo followed by a 3-4-5 pin combo, you have to assume he is probably going for an open tanyao--discard honor tiles and terminals to counter.

Be wary of doras. A tile that would otherwise be safe to throw out may carry extra risk if it's a dora.

But sometimes, you'll still get surprised; some really good players will lull you into thinking a certain tile is safe to throw out but then you end up dealing into his hand.

Edit: Also, Proto, good looks for mentioning tiles that get discarded immediately. Tiles that get thrown out immediately are usually tiles that are unwanted (of course). If the same guy continues to throw out tiles immediately upon drawing, you have to start wondering if he is already in tenpai. It's harder to see this online (since you can't see who you're playing against) but body language can give away a hand (to an extent).
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Old 2009-09-14, 15:34   Link #167
einhorn303
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Proto View Post
On the other hand, if you are hardpressed to choose and you don't have more information, if someone discards the 5 bamboo the 2 and 8 tiles can be considered safer than others. The reason for this is that the 5 can no longer be the winning tile within a 5-6-7 or 3-4-5 combination (for example), and because of the furiten rule you cannot win on a 8 or a 3 in either of these cases. Of course, there are other things you should factor in, and the 3 and the 8 could be the winning tiles of other combinations, however they serve as guide posts)
It should also be noted that the same principle works for 4 meaning 1 and 7 sare safe, and 6 meaning 3 and 9 are safe.

Speaking of a "obvious" hon'itsus/Half Flushes, here's a real life example of it being used against people:



Yes, someone walked right into a Ron that hand.

Quote:
Originally Posted by whitepearl View Post
It's harder to see this online (since you can't see who you're playing against) but body language can give away a hand (to an extent).
Yes, unfortunately this doesn't work at all in Tenhou. I play online about 100%, and I'll bet a lot of other people here do, so it can't be relied on. I hear they used to have a feature marking "discard-upon-pickup" tiles, but people complained and so it was removed.
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Old 2009-09-14, 15:56   Link #168
Proto
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Well, pair waits are always tricky, no matter what other information you have. In this case you can risk dealing into such a trap since it's just a 2han hand, which is preferable than thinking it's a double layered trap and dealing a character... then again you had such a lead that people had no choice but to take some risks I guess.
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Old 2009-09-14, 17:06   Link #169
whitepearl
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einhorn's screencap does show something I'd probably do on occasion. Sometimes I like to wait on trap tiles that people will think are safe. Works wonders if they are wind doras that people just throw out because they have no use.

"A North tile? The prevailing wind is East and my wind is South...guess it's safe to discard."
"Ron."
"&@^&*%@#^$%!"
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Old 2009-09-14, 17:15   Link #170
Proto
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Yeah, but right now I thought we were on risky tiles lvl 1 lectures, let's leave the psychological trap lectures for later.

Then again, it backfires at you when you are playing people with high ranking people and you can't discard the most prosaic tiles for fear they someone is layering a trap

Last edited by Proto; 2009-09-14 at 18:15.
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Old 2009-09-14, 23:18   Link #171
whitepearl
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Proto View Post
Yeah, but right now I thought we were on risky tiles lvl 1 lectures, let's leave the psychological trap lectures for later.

Then again, it backfires at you when you are playing people with high ranking people and you can't discard the most prosaic tiles for fear they someone is layering a trap

Almost everything backfires on me in Tenhou.




Spoiler for when backfire does happen to me, i'm thinking:
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Old 2009-09-15, 22:18   Link #172
bayoab
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Originally Posted by einhorn303 View Post
Yes, unfortunately this doesn't work at all in Tenhou. I play online about 100%, and I'll bet a lot of other people here do, so it can't be relied on. I hear they used to have a feature marking "discard-upon-pickup" tiles, but people complained and so it was removed.
Tenhou does show you where the tile originated from (draw or hand) if you watch the animations closely. If doesn't show you where in the hand it originated from what I can tell.
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Old 2009-09-16, 08:57   Link #173
Arkenryu
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I really need to get my last place percentage down...

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Old 2009-09-16, 15:14   Link #174
Arkenryu
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http://tenhou.net/0?log=2009091704gm...7ee41f1d7&tw=3

Damn, I was really lucky at the end of this game...
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Old 2009-09-16, 15:29   Link #175
einhorn303
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Originally Posted by bayoab View Post
Tenhou does show you where the tile originated from (draw or hand) if you watch the animations closely. If doesn't show you where in the hand it originated from what I can tell.
If you're talking about in the 3D version, I believe those animations are actually randomized and not predictive.
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Old 2009-09-17, 12:37   Link #176
Arkenryu
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FINALLY!

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Old 2009-09-17, 12:48   Link #177
whitepearl
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This was an ugly game but the final three hands led to a much-needed victory.
http://tenhou.net/0/?log=2009091802g...f94bfff8f&tw=3
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Old 2009-09-17, 14:11   Link #178
Arkenryu
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Now that I've got my 1st place percentage the highest I'm gonna play a lot more defensively.
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Old 2009-09-17, 18:17   Link #179
Shadow Kira01
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I have been spending quite some time playing Mahjong in Ryu ga Gotoku 2. It even comes with a complete guide on different methods of winning the round like over 10 pages of information accompanied with diagrams. However, I won't be able to play mahjong anytime soon as that the place got turned upside down due to some events...

Spoiler for Ryu ga Gotoku 2:
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Old 2009-09-18, 11:34   Link #180
whitepearl
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The third and fifth hands worked quite well in my favor.

http://tenhou.net/0/?log=2009091901g...e8b0ef200&tw=3

In my final hands, I had discarded a 3 sou. Later on, I was waiting on a 6 sou and 9 sou to complete a 7 sou and 8 sou combo in my hand. This goes back to something I and Proto were discussing earlier (something about mind games ).

This was a rare instance the "3-6-9" rule actually led to defeat for the person who threw out a 6 sou and dealt into my dealer mangan. The 6 sou was "supposed" to be safe based on my discarding the 3 previously.

You just can't predict mahjong, lolz
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Last edited by whitepearl; 2009-09-18 at 19:57. Reason: I needed to address a point
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