Mahjong Life and Living

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...

The yakuman hands are some of the more difficult to attain in the game. The key to scoring yakuman stems on the recognition of a decent chance of building it and then winning it.  Like with any hand, tenpai is not enough to score.  The hand must win.  But alas, plenty of times do these hands fail to manifest a win. As they often say, if you do not try, you will not get it.  Kyuushuu kyuuhai this?  Absolutely not.  This haipai actually looks rather favorable: just 2-shanten for kokushi. Plenty of hands look very good, only to not be scored.  Many players may get upset at the concept of  "what could have been".  However, that is the way of mahjong. Nevertheless, chances and success do appear.  When they do happen, cherish it. From here, how to score each yakuman? Kokushi musou .  Good starts begin with a ten-start unique honor/terminal types in the hand.  Per rule, a nine-start has the option to abort and res...