Mahjong Life and Living

This was an old bit of writing dated: April 21, 2010.  Fast forward to today, I decided to include into this blog, as it is a piece of myself.  And yes, in terms of memory lane, I went as far back as my childhood life in the Philippines.  This was before 1986. Learning the Bicycle Here is a story of how I learned to ride a bike, and the pattern it had set me for life.  Yet, only recently, I had realized this pattern. My parents were buying a bicycle for my sister.  As for me, I was outright refusing a bicycle.  Yet, regrettably, it was I, not my sister, who ened up riding that bike more often.  Or at least, it appeared that way in my memory.  With the training wheels on, I rode it where ever I could.  Eventually, one or both of the training wheels would break.  If only one broke, then I still would ride it.  In the case of both, then I'd wait (or ask) for them to be replaced. One day, my neighbor decided to help me.  Wh...

As of this post date, this individual managed to qualify into the next World Riichi Championship in 2020 by placing second at the Tri Nitro Tiles 7th Detonation Tournament .  Congratulations! Now we turn back the clock. One of the items received in the WRC swag: a booklet listing all of the tournament participants.  Most everyone responded to the survey and submitted their photo.  One person took the liberty of collecting everyone's signature. When she collected mine, I was very much surprised that anyone would ever want my signature.  Quickly, I realized her goal.  So, I decided to help out, as I had a decent familiarity recognizing who is who.  She did the work; I simply helped out a little.  As the signature collection grew, it really became easier as everyone was more than happy to sign upon seeing previously collected signatures. Of course, the collection came to the last day with a remaining uncollected few.  The last day was particu...

As of May 24, I began a general haitus from Mahjong Discord.  I needed to get away from there.  On that day, I had left for my Las Vegas trip to witness my nephew's high school graduation.  Regardless, I was advised to play no mahjong during that trip. By this point in December, it is already near the end of the year.  What happened since then? I could not stay away from any mahjong related activity.  I simply could not.  Part of this plan involved the creation of a second Discord account.  This was especially true pertaining to NARMA related activity and the recently new English Majsoul community. Immediately upon my return from Las Vegas, I was slated to participate in the Catfood Bowl .  It was a opportunity to play in this exclusive tournament, and I could not pass it up. As that tournament went on, someone formed a subgroup of Majsoul players.  Eventually, I ended up taking it over and we renamed to Connect Kan .  With this ...

I am sorry to say: The riichi community is fractured .  This is natural due to three main reasons: Geography, Circumstance, and Personalities. People in different areas tend to group together.  Anyone outside that group is viewed as a stranger.  Our response to " stranger danger " differs from person-to-person.  The variance falls on our ability to be welcoming or not.  This is assuming people of one language.  The natural barrier stems from people of different languages.  That's a whole different set of separation altogether. I learned to be welcoming.  For the sake of my own club, I cannot afford not to be.  As long as a person plays mahjong, then the player is welcome unless there is a reason not to be.  If a person is new or visiting, it is best to get a game together and know the person a bit as possible. What about the Internet?  Here, geography is irrelevant, as we are capable of interacting with anyone on Earth at any ...

I got to 1000 games (correction 1002 games) of chess under the rapid format in Lichess.  Chess has served as a secondary game for not-so-serious ranking purposes.  So, upon reaching this point, how did I do? Sept 18: Peak rating (1561) Win rate: 50% Best streak: 10 wins Worst streak: 8 losses Strongest win: vs rated 1613 I had crossed the 1400 line back in June and have not looked back since.  In general, I'm hovering around the 1500 line.  Now, with these numbers, am I playing for rank?  To some degree yes, however, I'm better off putting rank out of mind in order to concentrate (or not) with each game one at a time.  Do I really care about ranking?  Yes, but only to some degree, because I don't expect myself to get anywhere at a strong level with chess.  I just to play it for fun. The game serves as a way to off-balance myself away from mahjong.  For now, I'm enjoying chess and growing into the game steadily. Here's to th...

No, I am not ending my mahjong life any time soon .  Instead, I ask a question with a very obvious answer: Can people leave mahjong? In other words, can people stop playing and completely disassociate with everything mahjong related?  The natural and obvious answer: Of course!    An end is inevitable for each and every one of us.  The method of end will very though.  The contrary would violate the freedom noted in "my" Prime Directive .  No one should ever be forced to play; and by extension, no one should be forced to associate with an activity and its people.  So, this idea extends to all other activity.  I am very much in support of volunteerism. Have I seen people leave?   Yes, of course.  People come and go in all activity, and mahjong is no different.  It is the natural order.  Some departures feel sadder than others.  I know some who have quit and sold their sets.  It was a sad sig...

Nine times on Tenhou.net, I have produced a game score of +100 or better .  By default, these are my top 9 scores.  So far, I've produced one every year, with the exception of 2011.  Though, it is doubtful, that I'd produce one this year; if I did, then the annual streak continues.  The month of December will be my last gasp try for the year. This is one of my signature accomplishments on the Tenhou platform.  As far as I know, this is a record unmatched by many of my peers.  My next highest scores below +100 is a pair of +99's.  To score such a game, a player must amass a point total of 89,500 or greater.  This is due to Tenhou's oka and uma settings.  The winner of a game gets +20 oka followed by +20 uma. Later, I'll do a review for all but one, because I failed to save that one game anywhere.  Under Tenhou's rules, the score a +100 game requires either a yakuman with an already high score, a double yakuman, or perfectly good ...

Throughout my Tenhou ladder history, I've gone through a number of derankings.  It's part of the growing pains.  I've never kept a particular record on my derankings, but my collection of ranking up shows their existence anyways.  Each one marked the time I moved into the next rank, which means I was in the lower rank just prior.  As far as ladder ranking goes, movement can be on the order of years.  Currently, my maximum limit is at the 4-5 dan loop .  Apparently, I'm playing at a level below that.  If anything, my list of things to work on in my mahjong play still applies and then some. On my most recent deranking  from 4 to 3, I initially pledged to rank right back up via the Tenhou client.  Instead, I am opting for another month away from Tenhou.net.  As for the month break, I did the exact same thing last December, after deranking from 5 to 4.  Needless to say, I'm slightly demoralized.  This deranking course...

This was a map project undertaken by Jellicode .  He recently recruited me as one of its caretakers, and I accepted.  Any more information about this, I shall direct you to  his entry . Ever since I was a child in the USA, I have a personal fascination with maps. One thing I used to do as a school boy: turn to the encyclopedias and look into the different countries and maps. From there, I turned to Atlases and Road Maps. Back then, the Internet was not everywhere as it was today. We had to look at printed material for our directional information.  Even today, I am an avid map reader . With that said, I'll highlight some interesting notes about this map. Something I noted in my previous article comparing riichi mahjong 10 years ago vs now .  Looking at North America, it really shows how far we've gotten as a mahjong community.  Sure, we have some large gaps of area without any mahjong club within an 100 mile radius.  On the other hand, we h...

November "officially" marks my tenth year of mahjong.  What does this mean?  Nothing really, other than I can compare riichi mahjong in 2009 vs 2019.  Ten is a round number; and we humans tend to point to things like that.  Here, I shall highlight some comparisons of then vs now.  Discord did not even exist, and the main chat communication was  IRC .  The old channel, #mahjong, is still there but very inactive.  We gathered here centered around the  Osamuko blog .  Naturally, Discord became rather popular, and a migration occurred.  As a side effect, numerous Discord servers exist for mahjong. The number of clubs across the North American continent was countable with one hand.  Now, a whole bunch of clubs have sprouted since then, each with their own collection of mahjong and non-mahjong related talent.  That talent pooled right into the riichi community.  In 2010, I was lucky enough to find Chicago Area Mahjong v...

Plenty of things are happening around me. I am using many distractions around me right now to divert my attention to a number of different directions. Even mahjong itself can be considered a distraction at this point. Given everything that is happening this month, it is necessary. Sure, I have a ton of draft entries in my collection at the moment, but they are generally not being filled. As far as these entries are concerned, I have plenty of material to write about.  If there is one thing perfectly clear here, time moves very fast.  Regardless of the year, once the month of September starts, the remainder of the year appears to zip by to me.  Any month seems to go by quickly, but the autumn months are particularly fast.  The weekly mahjong sessions with my club accelerates time even more. That's my perception.

The following is an overview post written in my Facebook, that I posted a year ago. I took the liberty of copy-pasting here: By now, the end of this year's World Riichi Competition had passed a few days ago. Since then, I had stayed over at my sister's residence just to get a feel of living in this town (again). The past five days were reserved for some quality family time. In general, it was some good downtime after a large event, where I had a tremendous amount of fun and enjoyment. By this point, I presume everyone else had made their way home. Tomorrow, I make my return home; and as soon as I arrive, I plan to make my way home to my mahjong club. Given any large event, we have multiple people from multiple directions, and they are all mutually unique from one another. Yet, general commonality brings such people together due to a shared common interest. To be more specific, we are a bunch of very crazy people willing to spend some extra money just to play this...

The  2019 Los Angeles Saikouisen Pro Tournament was on Labor Day weekend (Aug 31-Sep 1).  For me, it was four days of automatic table play with LAPOM's tables.  With the event in the past, I can look back on this tournament, just like all the others.  As always, there had been some interesting moments.  Due to the recency of this tournament, I have this event split into five articles, counting this one. I initially had a general policy to not attend any mahjong tournament for 2019, unless it was a convenient road trip.  After a deep talk with family on my Vegas trip earlier this year, I could not justify my attendance, that involved flights.  It was a matter of expense.  I did check Chicago to Los Angeles flights and prices were reasonable.  So, attendance came to within reason.  In the end, I became compelled to go via Facebook private message.  Eventually, I became convinced to attend; so I did. With that said, this is my gen...

Here is a litmus test in the form of just one question to determine if you truly enjoy mahjong: Can you take a 4th in a game, and still look back at the game fondly? If yes, then you truly enjoyed the game and mahjong overall. Every mahjong player has lost a chunk of games.  Even the good players have produced a loss rate (4th place) of 20% or more.  In general, losing is not fun.  It's even worse when there is a string of them.  However, a game can be played for pure enjoyment regardless of result. For example, here is a kazoe yakuman - just note the dora and uradora indicators.  I dealt the 3pin right into it, thinking that I can set up my hand and hit him for houtei.  Yes, that was my plan.  It did not work. I remember him saying, "Ron.  48." My immediate reply as I look at the hand, "Hey, that doesn't look like it's worth 4800." Then he repeated, "48,000." "Oh," I said. Then I laugh.  Even now, I can thin...

By sheer luck, I managed to find a completely new group of online mahjong players.  Actually, I was summoned there.  Together, we formed a group centered on the mahjong meme: Connect Kan.   The name is a general mockery of the whole "kan" calling found in the lower levels of Majsoul.  One member spent the 60 jade (an in-game currency) to create a tournament lobby.  Naturally, we found ourselves wanting to find a name for the lobby.  So, we called it "Connect Kan".  An odd circumstance forced us to create a new Discord; and we kept the name.  It's catchy! Connect Kan meme How did I find this group? Probably in relation with the Catfood Bowl tournament in June, one user decided to go ahead and gather up some Majsoul players into a Discord to run tournament play on his own.  He called it the "Beer League".  The reason became obvious, when I finally got to play in one.  These were "pick up tournaments", where for lack of fo...

If there is a way to emulate mahjong club play across the internet, then voice chat is the way to go.  Verbal interaction during mahjong play very much behaves like mahjong social play.  While we cannot see each other, we can at least hear each other to gauge instant reactions to mahjong.  Discord has made this practice very easy. Last year, we used to have Tenhou Tuesday as a regular thing.  However, that died off when its figurehead moved to Japan.  This past summer, I've had Connect Kan.  Here and there, we play mahjong with voice chat.  Without the mahjong, people can simply talk. Needless to say, it's nice being able to receive some instant reaction to mahjong play as well as have some casual conversation during a mahjong game.  For me, it's a general replacement to the good old fashioned phone conversation.  For mahjong community development, it's a good way for people to get to know each other, so that we do not produce bad blood f...

Once upon a time, I did dabble with chess a long while back in Yahoo! Games.  However, I did not go far; and the ranking play somewhat discouraged me.  Yet, for some reason, I bought a Judit Polgar book of chess puzzles but never went into it.  I still have it collecting dust. Fast forward to my A4 years and eventually Facebook, I played some more via Facebook chess.  Then here and there, I occassionally looked at Chessgames  to think about the puzzle of the day.  Most of the time, I failed to think them through but it was still amusing looking at them.  Just once in Facebook, I managed to pull the bishop sacrifice into the king side to set up an attack towards mate.  Doubtfully, I may not be able to pull that game out; but it was a good memory. Then to the present, I have been watching Agadmator's channel .  He has an approach of telling a chess game in somewhat of a story mode fashion, while explaining the different lines.  That go...

In response to my own entry about Scoring Yakuman , here is the counter-article: Detecting Yakuman Attempts.  Naturally, this is how to defend against them. Under all cases, a yakuman attempt can be defeated by winning a cheaper hand.  However, this is the easy explanation.  The tell-tale signs of the yakuman attempt must be determined first. Kokushi musou .  The first six discards should be an indicator of an attempt, which consists of tiles meant for tanyao.  If discarded tiles form taatsu, then it is even more apparent.  Usually, tenpai occurs fair late for 9starters.  The fast ones may have fairly early honor/terminal discards. Suuankou .  This is difficult to detect, as tiles needed for suuankou is literally any tile.  In the event of riichi, then standard defense methods would suffice. Daisangen .  The dragon tiles should be tracked, where if there are none or few visible, then a player wants them.  The attempt is most a...

This is an extension to the mahjong homework entry. I have been stuck on the 4-5 dan loop for the past two years now.  My closest point and highest Tenhou.net ranking point has been just about three 1sts away from 6dan for the first time.  This year, I've pretty much spent my ranking time on the lower end of the 4dan scale, generally under threat of deranking to 3dan and falling out of tokujou.  I've been at this spot many times before, only to drop to 3dan just once.  When it comes to ranking in Tenhou.net, I really do not feel the "hype" anymore.  Hopefully, this subsides somehow; and I get back to climbing again. In the meantime, the opening of Majsoul EN has given me another platform to play on.  There, I was under speed run mode looking to rank up that ladder to reach certain ranks in the fewest games possible.  The rank of Master 1 was attained in 112 games.  However, a deranking here ended that speed run mentality and have since returne...

 I've been stuck on the Tenhou.net 4-5 dan loop.  This is a list of things I need to work on in order to improve my game: Attention (due to ignoring info, even dora indicators) Speed slowdown (play on Majsoul) Too much mawashi attempts (prone to "muh tenpai") Fail situational reads (lacking awareness and ignoring threats) More defense Manage playtime (vary platform) Decrease distractions If necessary, I'll elaborate on these points.

To think, the following year of 2020 will be the next World Riichi Championship in Vienna .  Unfortunately, I am already making the personal call to not attend due to cost.  Besides, the cost of the trip will be better well spent on a trip to Japan instead, as I've yet to ever go.  So, I'll have to apologize about this decision here.  Regardless, I hope for others to take up the opportunity to play at the World Riichi Championship as it was a great experience. With that said, I look back that the memories of the past in the 2017 World Riichi Championship : Overview Visit to Los Angeles Pride of Mahjong (LAPOM) Road trip to Las Vegas The Las Vegas shooting Tournament goals and expectations My own tournament results Specific plays Chatting with the pros Signature girl Extra one week stay The flight home For now, I merely leave a list; and if necessary, I may add more.  However, I plan to go over some of these items in separate entries.

This is a healthy form of "gambling mahjong", where players perform some kind of exercise based on placement. For example, regarding push-ups: First does 0 push-ups. Second does 10 push-ups. Third does 20 push-ups. Fourth does 40 push-ups. Naturally, this concept can be applied to various exercises and different mahjong formats.  Just give it a try, and see how it goes. To give credit, the concept was brought to be by Uni ( ユニ)  from the different mahjong discords.

At Anime Central last May , I got the chance to ask Mai Nakahara a mahjong question.  I asked her: To prepare for the role of Miyanaga Teru, did you learn/play mahjong? Initially, her answer wished that she could.  However, she was not into gambling. Immediately afterwards, I had to clarify by pointing out "kenkou mahjong", or clean non-gambling mahjong.  There, she iterated the word "shoubu".  So, her follow up answer noted how personality can reflect in a person's play.  So, she feared showing bad parts to her personality. She's right.  We put ourselves into the mahjong, as we express ourselves via our decision making abilities.  Everyone can point to the luck factors of mahjong.  Yet, the one thing we can control in the game is ourselves and what we do.  This concept is true in life. The real life example here.  I could have cowered and sat in the audience.  I never would have gone to ask the question.  I have ...

I remember years ago, xkime, mentioned how confidence can affect mahjong play.  Confidence has a relation to results.  The link applies to our current psychological make up, which affects our decision making abilities.  Luck can be a factor in the game, but decision is much more significant. Throughout my ladder history, the highs and lows are shown in my record .  The clusters of wins and looses can be seen.  For some of them, I can recall my feeling. Currently, I am not feeling very confident in my game.  Thus, my decision making is not where it should be.  To make matters worse, it is becoming a bit more difficult these days to find a "refresh".  This comes with the territory of a personal frontier not being breached.  If I were to ever breach Tenhou.net's wall at 5dan, then a new rush will be felt then.  However, I may continue to suffer until then.  This was the case in previous mahjong walls. Via Majsoul, I ran a very st...

Games are supposed to be fun.  Now, I ask myself some questions and answer them as best as I could: So, if we put the social element into mahjong, what do we get?   Social mahjong. What do we do in social mahjong?  Well, we play a game of mahjong, where the result has no impending consequence, such as league or tournament standing.  Gambling mahjong is a completely different category, which can be played socially but the monetary consequences disqualify it. How is social mahjong played?  Casually but players could still try their best to win.  At best, it can be considered as practice.  As a game, mahjong has its objectives, and we normally go for them (regardless of the game).  While that may defeat the purpose of the gamem it is a matter of playing how the players want to play. Is winning/losing important?   Even though we try, it is not important.  Though, the most enjoyable games are the ones where players try their best. ...

The fictional story of Saki has some real life connections.  I am not referring to the magical plays, that characters are able to pull at the drop of a hat.  People do make such miraculous plays once in a while.  However, we lack the capability and insight to do them on command, regardless of our skill levels.  When it comes to the characters, most everyone focuses on either their looks or their mahjong abilities.  If you look deep enough, you can see more to them.  Some of their background stories and their feelings either during a mahjong game or regarding mahjong overall are very much relatable. Here, the greater focus stems on the emotional connection to the mahjong experience depicted by the characters.  I shall highlight some characters : From the very first episode, I remember Saki Miyanaga  declaring to Nodoka Haramura about her dislike of mahjong.  Stunned, Nodoka just stared in the rain.  Early on, I did not understand wha...

At least, this is my prime directive: Play as much as you want, or as little as you want. Well, that is: if time allows you to anyways.  I will elaborate on this later.  This thought just needs to sink in. In case you're wondering, yes, I am very much influenced by Star Trek.

The Catfood Bowl S0 Tournament was the first official tournament on the Mahjong Soul English server.  This was held at the beginning of the month (June 4-7), starting on the day returning from a Las Vegas.  Ten players from the North American riichi player base, as well as ten more selected from the general English Mahjong Soul, participated. Here are the full results  along with replay URLs posted in the Mahjong Wiki .  Likewise, the respective Twitter postings from English Mahjong Soul were collected.  Video is available via Dasuke's Twitch stream . Overall, the tournament was fun.  To see a mahjong stream with a hundred plus viewers is astounding.  In general stream sense, this is very paltry low.  However, for a mahjong stream, that is a lot. The tournament layout was interesting, as it utilized the double elimination format.  As far as tournament formats goes, brackets in mahjong are not all that practical as pretty much "anyth...

As Kyuu, I have been playing the Japanese version to mahjong and have been captivated by it.  The anime Saki had much to do with it; but the effects of that diminishes and is replaced by the sheer complexity of the game.  My entrance into the game came late in 2009. I had watched Saki, without any knowledge of the game.  Even now, I cannot remember my reason for even starting the series.  Eventually, an online buddy of mine came around and introduced me to the game.  He linked me to Saikyou no 3D Mahjong ; and the rest is history.  Later on he brought me to  Tenhou.net . With Saikyou no 3D Mahjong, I had to learn the most basic of rules.  Thankfully, I was already capable of reading hiragana and katakana.  In addition, I was already familiar reading the kanji to the numbers 1-9.  Yet, I once thought the 1-sou was a 10-sou tile for some reason.  On top of that, I did not understand the winds, nor their purpose to it.  T...

It seems fitting for the tournament scene to have been a big part of my mahjong journey, as I literally traveled to these tournaments to play.  For a record, here is my mahjong tournament history .  While I had been operating the Anime Central tournament for a number of years, my first chance at my own tournament play came in 2015.  From there, I got to travel to at least one tournament per year since. Hopefully, I do not travel to a tourney this year.  For family reasons, I was in Las Vegas last week.  I feel the need to save up a little money and catch my breath.  Yet, I retain the ability to just go to one, if I so choose. I will be looking to go through the tournament listing down the line and see what kind of memories still remain in my head.  Will I go through gameplay?  Not really, unless I happen to actually remember some moments.  Then I will share them. Memory lane will be fun.

Technically, I was playing in tokujou.  However, why were these three 7dans entering my game at the same time?  Either way, I was glad to get this opportunity to get a sample of an " actual houou " game.  I have faced games with three R2000's before; but usually, they were 6dans.  So, this felt much different. The game can be viewed here:  http://tenhou.net/0/?log=2019060708gm-0029-0000-15d18a22&tw=2 Given this rare opportunity, I made sure to enjoy this game as much as possible.  The primary goal was to survive.  If I was able to win, great, but I did not.  I took my third and lived. Now, unlike my Twitter post , I am looking to cover this game more indepth to see what I could learn from it.  As a note, comments with each respective image is below the image - not above. With 1-shanten by turn three, it was a good opportunity to get some kind of jump start on them. But it took this long to get to tenpai at all, and th...