#3 Haku

A pure tile; untouched by dirty paintbrushes.

#2 1p

It seems like whenever an anime/manga needs an epic win or they need something mahjong related they’ll use a 1p.

#1 Haku Pocchi

While only ever seen in jansous, Haku Pocchi is truly the greatest tile ever. It’s a haku with a bit of paint but If you draw this tile after a riichi it counts as any tile you want!

#10 Jenn Barr

From the Japanese Professional Mahjong League. A blonde girl with blue eyes, crushing you in mahjong? That can be hot. She adds the american flavor in Japanese mahjong, in the good way.

#9 Tezuka Sakiku

Professional of free parlors. She has been a sex symbol in the mahjong world from while back, and she still has her charms. Maybe because we still love gamblers. She is in a Mahjong Idol Group (much like AKB48, except for female pros) called Suzume alongside Ueda Yui, Naruse Akemi and Sakuraba Fumie.

#8 Miyauchi Kozue

Professional at the Japanese Professional Mahjong League. She’s beautiful, talented and a warmhearted pro. Her beauty supports her talent and natural kindness.

#7 Oririn Heart

From the Good Players Club. She’s not only a good player, but she is good. Her true job is that of a gravure idol, but she tries her best to improve at mahjong and she can be seen regularly playing in mahjong broadcasts alongside Babi Hirokazu and Kajimoto Takunori (lucky bastards!).

#6 Oosaki Hatsune

From the Japanese Professional Mahjong Association (NPM). She is known by some to be air-headed or vulgar, even tomboyish, but there is more to this player. She made her way from working into cabarets in Japan to actually winning a title as a professional player and even today continues to tell off her foes, while getting more admiration by her fans.

#5 Ishii Aya

From the Japanese Professional Mahjong Association. Recently she was featured at Saikyousen ’11 as representative for female professionals (after winning that right in the preliminaries). Her slender, small, cute and shy image may give you the wrong impression at the table, where she will kick your butt if she has to. And most of us most likely wouldn’t mind.

#4 Shirakawa Yukina

From the Japanese Professional Mahjong League. Lately featured in Janryuumon broadcasts with Takunori Kajimoto. She’s not afraid to show her body, and her mahjong.

#3 Izumi Yukiko

From the Japanese Professional Mahjong League. Her nickname is “ice doll.” This cold cutie has even made DVDs for our entertainment, and not only mahjong DVDs.

#2 Nikaidou Rumi

From the Japanese Professional Mahjong League. The oldest sister of the mahjong professional “Nikaidou” sisters. Her rank at the league may not be as high as her younger sister’s, but her looks and beauty surely aren’t behind!

#1 Nikaidou Aki

Also from the Japanese Professional Mahjong League. She will probably stay at number one for a while. She is arguably the female player with the most notable results, at least at her league, and her popularity knows of no bounds. If someone knows about mahjong, even if barely, it’s highly likely they’ll know of her. A manga based about her called “Aki” is also published regularly.

—

I wouldn’t mind seeing any of them (I have only personally met #6 and #5) but remember, most of them like people who are skilled at mahjong. So don’t forget to practice! You never know.

If you want to see some of these girls playing, check out the following official (completely legal, FUCK YOU SOPA/PIPA/ACTA/FBI/NAZIS) youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/sangroup3

The top row, is your nickname:  きめず

The next link, is the validity for your account. If you’re a premium user, it will tell you when your premium account expires. (Old screenshot is old. w) This is called 有効期限 (yuukou kigen).

The dropdown list contains the different types of games; if you just play the regular 4 player mahjong, don’t bother touching it. It’s just to view different stats. In this case, should you ever need to reset it manually, ■All Periods of Time/Ranking Matches for 4 players. ■全期間/段位戦　４人打ち　(zenkikan / dan’isen  yonin uchi) (Yes, it’s actually yonin rather than yonnin.)

４級　７５/９０ｐｔ　R1800

This is your rank and rate. I’ve heard players who are third kyu say they are third dan. Don’t make this mistake, it makes you look silly. Kyu grades are written in arabic numbers (987654321) while dan rates are written in kanji (初二三四五六七八九十). Notice you start as 新人 (rookie/shinjin) and you end up as 天鳳位 (tenhoui) after you pass 10th dan. Next is the amount of points you have and need to get to the next rank. Lastly, your rate (how well you play, though it doesn’t mean much for the first 200 or 300 games). 1500 is the average for new players (新人).

１位率 .379 / How much you get first place. (ichi’i ritsu) 37.9%

２位率 .379 / How much you get second place. (ni’i ritsu) 37.9%

３位率 .241 / How much you get third place. (san’i ritsu) 24.1%

４位率 .000 / How much you get fourth place. (yon’i ritsu) 0%

飛び率 .000 / How much you go under 0 points. (tobi ritsu) 0%

対局数 29 / Number of games. 29 games.

平均得点 20.9 / Average point gain. You know, those +53, -51, +-0, etc. you get after the game ends; the average of all of them. 20.9 points per game.

平均順位 1.86 / Average placement. You know,  1-4-4-4-2-1-3-4-4-4-etc. averaged. 1.86st place average.

平均収支 – Average income. Only for jansou mode.

平均祝儀 – Average chips. Only for jansou mode.

和了率 .302 / Hand win rate. How often you win hands (you know, like theoretically, in four player mahjong you’re supposed to be winning one fourth of the hands, and even less because of draws where nobody wins). Winning, in average, 30.2% of the hands (a little under one third). This can be read as “agari ritsu” or “houra ritsu.” And they’re both right.

放銃率 .091 / Deal-in rate. How often you deal into others’ hands. 9.1% of the time (meaning, dealing in less than a tenth of the hands). It is called “houjuu ritsu” as “houjuu” refers to “dealing in.”

副露率 .406 / Calling rate. How often you call tiles. Pon, kan, chii. Ron and tsumo are, of course, not counted. Do note, closed kan are also considered here, as kan is a call. Called “fuuro ritsu” because “fuuro” is a “call”/”open meld”/whatever you wanna name it. You may find it in other servers as 鳴き率 (naki ritsu). 40.6% means you (in this case, me) call tiles pretty often.

立直率 .163 / How often  you riichi. 16.3% of the hands. Riichi ritsu.

You then have another dropdown menu. This is for the “monthly ranking” tenhou has. It only counts for the month, and you need at least 30 games in the month to be officially in it. There are many divisions, for different game types, that you can select on it. If you just click every button and play in whichever game starts faster, don’t even bother.

月間／般南　喰いアリ赤 – Monthly / General Lobby’s East-South Games, with Open TanYao and Red 5′s. (Gekkan / pan-nan Kui ari aka)

2+4+1+0 = 7戦

This just counts your number of first places, plus your number of second places, plus your number of third places, plus your number of fourth places to display the total amount of games you played that month. Two first places, four second places, one third place and no fourth places for a total of seven games.

R1800 １３９１２位 / This is your position in the Rate ranking. It compares how high your rate is compared to other players who play the same mode as you. With a R of 1800 in the general lobby’s hanchan (with aka and kuitan), you’d rank somewhere among the highest 14 thousand. Tenhou is crowded of players with a rate higher to 1800. Contrary to the popular belief. w

Then, you have two columns, one to the right and one to the left. They read 通算 and 平均. Tsuusan and Heikin. Something like, the raw number to the left, and the “average” to the right.

得点　+156 3566位 (通算)  +22.2 (平均) / This 得点 (tokuten) refers to the points you get at the end of each game. The raw number is a positive 156, which means if you summed up the numbers of those 7 matches (like, +54 +11 -2, etc), you’d get a total of 156, and that would put you in the 3566th place among people in the same ranking (again, for that kind of game and lobby). Then, the average (heikin) would be 22.2 per game. (Notice, I didn’t have 30 games at the time that month, so you cannot see the position for the average portion)

順位 +90 3458位　(通算) 1.85　（平均） / This is “jun’i” or “placement.” I have no idea how the raw number to the left is calculated, but if it’s a positive number, the higher the better. With a +90, that’s about 3458th. Then, the average would be 1.85st per game. It’s like you’re virtually getting first places every time you play, with a virtual second place from time to time. The middle line in mahjong is 2.5; everything below that (2.3, 2.2, 2.1, etc) is win, while everything below that (2.7, 2.8, 2.9, 3.0, etc) is fail. Again, none of these mean anything in the short run, anyway.

Then you have the lines for 収支 and 祝儀. Income, and chips. Only for jansou mode.

合計 means total, and your total for the above info would appear in there once you play the 30 games a month in that game type. It converts all those numbers into a single one, and puts it against the other players’ to give you a more general position. If this ever happens to become 1位、it would mean that you were the best player -in general- for that mode UP until that point of the month. So yeah, pat yourself in the back if that happens.

More stats include:

トップ率 .285 / Top ritsu. How often you took first place (top) that month. Should theoretically be around a fourth (25%) of all games when playing against player of the same skill level. 28.5% of games.

連対率 .857 / Rentai ritsu. How often you took first and second place (non-”losing” placements) that month. Should theoretically be 50% (half) when playing against people of your same level. 85.7% of games

ラス率 .0 / Rasu (last) ritsu. How often you take last place. It’s best to keep this low. It grades you on how low it is, not how high. So, the guy in the first place of the ranking would be like 0.000001% and not 99.999999999%

Also, whenever you “need” anything from tenhou in English, just look at this page first: http://arcturus.su/tenhou/

It’s usually in there.

PS: I’m thinking I should have a new column called “SEX” for real. “Simple Explanations by XKime.” It would makes us get more hits.

The theme is: The order for discarding honors.

Starting from the beginning, why should we discard them? Lone honors are the tiles most unlikely to become mentsu (groups). Number tiles have from two to five ways to become mentsu, while honor tiles only have one: drawing two of the remaining three. You may have been told by Janki movies or by Tsuchida Koushou to never discard honors in your first discard, but restricting yourself with this rule is absurd.

You may be a supporter of “shibori” (“squeezing,” keeping the tiles other people may want to prevent them from completing their hands). This “shibori” strategy just backfires most of the time. You slow down your hand a few turns to keep that Hatsu, then someone else just draws it and discards it and blam, it gets ponned by someone. What a waste. You reduced your amount of useful tiles in vain. Not only that, but that person may even draw the last one for an ankou, or completely give up on it and aim for a higher scoring hand (a game with players who shibori tend to go a lot more into late game, it seems, where hands can get pretty expensive…). Another reason to avoid shibori is, today’s mahjong is about speed and atozuke (back-door win) is pretty usual. It would be of just pretty bad taste if some guy would just pon and chii everything from every other guy, and once you got to tenpai (or near tenpai) you decided to discard that yakuhai and dealt into his hand. (The basic of shibori is, if you’re going to shibori, you must shibori until the end!). It’s pretty usual that your hand improved to some point, and you’re left with a dangerous live honor tile. There is no meaning in “live tiles” in early game, so unless you have an otherwise very important reason to keep them, discard them then!

Some other people believe that any honor (among fellow yakuhai or otherwise) are the same. They are not. There is an efficient discard order. They are all very different, and so their value changes. Given that none of them are discarded, you want to cut the following tiles:

What’s the best order in every case? Let’s watch it case by case.

East Seat in East Round.

North, West and South are not yakuhai, so they are useless. You’d probably want to discard them anyway, and if they do get pon’d by their respective “owner” it’s best to start with North. He is the player to your left, even if he calls the tile, you get an extra draw right away. Next is West, because it skips South. South for last, as it changes nothing. Then the sangenpai (dragon tiles); you always want to discard sangenpai before your seat wind tile because sangenpai can be used by everyone while your seat wind is most useful to you. The most efficient order for sangenpai is Haku, Chun, Hatsu. There is actually not much of a difference between Haku and Chun, but according to Mii’s research, saving Hatsu for last is somehow tied to a very slightly higher hand win rate (it surely is a better discard order than “haku hatsu chun” or “chun hatsu haku” and a lot better than doing it randomly). If you always follow that system, it will be alright for the most part. Then, at last, your Double East. You may want to insist on this tile the longest, as it grants you two han points instead of one.

South Seat in East Round

Why is the round win in first place? The current mahjong strategy is, discard from the tile you don’t want to get pon’d! If the south player discards East in his first discard, the chances it gets called by East are extremely low. You can pass on that danger there. Even if it gets called by East, he is to your left so you get one more draw. Next, North (it skips west player), then West. As explained above, Haku Chun Hatsu. Then in the end, the tile only useful to you, South.

West Seat in East Round

East, same reason as above. South, as it skips north. Finally, North. Haku Chun Hatsu as always. Then at last your own wind, West.

North Seat in East Round

(You may leave East for one turn or so later if someone already discarded it, and jump to the next live tile)

First we cut off the double east’s poison. Then West (it skips south). South. Haku Chun Hatsu. Finally, our North.

East Seat in South Round

(The truth is, if you need yakuhai badly, you can leave South for just before Haku Chun Hatsu in all of these except South’s case)

The case you want to avoid the most is South Player getting Double South. Starting from there, you then go on with North (skips south and west), then West (skips south). Haku Chun Hatsu. Then the tile only useful to you, East.

South Seat in South Round

Starting from East. It’s useless and it would be more expensive for East to have it. Also, even if it gets called, you can draw an extra tile right away. Then North (skips west). West. Haku Chun Hatsu. Then, at the very last, your Double South.

West Seat in South Round

Avoiding south’s Double South as much as possible (at least 2000 pts), then east’s East (1500pts). You may invert this, but the truth is, even if South calls it, you get an extra draw right away. Then North. Haku Chun Hatsu. As always, in last, your seat wind.

North Seat in South Round

From the dreadful Double South. Even if it gets called, the Dealer in East gets skipped. Then East. West. Haku Chun Hatsu. In the end, no surprise, your seat wind.

With this thought pattern you can even deduce yourself what’s best in the rare West rounds or North rounds.

Also, the order may be affected by the amount of discarded tiles, or your hand. For hon itsu, you want to increase your chances of yakuhai tiles as much as possible (leave all yakuhai for last), while for chii toitsu and pinfu (or hands that are already pretty much ready and you don’t want to pile up yakuhai as much as you want your opponents not to call them) you want to concentrate on non-yakuhai tiles the most (start discarding from yakuhai). But using this basic scale of values is the entrance to a good discard order.

Discard away!

Oh, also, don’t forget to check the dora.

We arrived on Friday evening, after a nice drive through the Czech republic and half of Germany. We met our host, s25k, on a parking lot of a local Lidl store in his hometown, ~60km from Hannover. We did have his house in the GPS, but somehow we still managed to get lost. We had pizza for dinner and played a few practice hanchan in his room, filled with animu posters, figures and vinyl records. I already sensed something is not right with my play – I won both hanchan at s25k’s homemade table. This wasn’t good – from my experience, usually when someone plays well the day before a tournament, they won’t fair well on it. But I didn’t let something like this silly superstition get the better of me. I can do this, right? Right??

The Kaiser pub, where the tournament was organized, is a nice small family restaurant / pub, where the Hannover mahjong club comes to play and have a nice time. The locals consisted of people of many ages, as is usual in western European mahjong circles. They were very friendly and the atmosphere was relaxed.

The Kaiser pub in Hannover

After registration, we received our number, nametag, a small sheet of paper with a seating order (with a blank space next to each hanchan where one could write down the table’s score for self reference) and a pack of sweets (neat!). There were 7 tables in the back part of the pub. Sometimes they were really close to each other, so people sitting back to back could almost feel the player behind them, but it wasn’t a problem. The limit to 28 players was really necessary.

So, I sit down for the first hanchan, a bit nervous, but I play my best. For 4th place. Ew, well, what happened? Nothing special, I just got hit by a mangan when I was riichi, got tsumoed when I was dealer, dealt into some small hands and didn’t do anything else. Whatever, it’s just the first game. However, ron5, who we met in the Kaiser in the morning (he was lazy to come the day before from Frankfurt), jumped to the first place with ~60k points.

But wait, I ended up 4th in the second hanchan too! Now I started to wonder if that superstition from the day before came true or something. All I did was sit there at the table while the other people tsumoed, riichi’d on the 5th turn, etc. At least I practiced my defense…

Third hanchan was the same as before. You know when Akagi played against someone, it was him vs the boss, and two sidekicks that no one cared about. I felt like one of those sidekicks through the whole tournament. At least on this hanchan I managed to score a baiman or a dealer haneman or something like that on round 3 of south. That pushed me up to first place. Woo hoo, finally! I can still do this, right?

A table with tiles. They were totally white. You could put the white dragon down frome either side.

The day was over, and after the germans held a meeting about what to do with the local riichi scene, we went to have dinner. A Schwein restaurant provided us with pork meat, and we headed back to s25k’s place to play a few team based tonpuusen (2 agaist 2). I was pretty tired by then, but still played an observed others a bit.

Day two had three more hanchan for us to play. After my first place on the third hanchan, I came back pretty encouraged. But no, the riichi gods didn’t want me to do anything even remotely successful. Fourth and fifth hanchan meant a 3rd and 4th place for me, with the typical just-a-sidekick feeling I had the day before. And this absolutely manifested itself at the last table of the tournament. I faced three women, where two of them were fans of different German football teams. It was pretty clear who was the Akagi vs Boss duel here. So I just sat there, tried to build hands, and defended against riichi / toitoi / honitsu attempts from all over. Nadine König, clearly the Akagi of the table, had a crazy streak of six renchan, mostly ronning her toimen (the other football club fan). Finally, I managed to do a mangan riichi chiitoitsu and the game was over. I was second, but still 3000 points in minus.

And the results? With an overwhelming lead, the first place went to old timer Richard Stöckermann (all his games were plus scores). Second place got another local, Michael Zahradnik, and the on third place sits Holland’s Martin Rep. I also have to mention ron5 on the 5th position and Michal Marko on the 6th, as the best of our Slovak team. And of course our wonderful host s25k, who unfortunately didn’t repeat his success from Utrecht, and ended on 19th place.

One elite table right here! Martin Rep on the left.

And me? 100 points behind Gemma Collinge, on the 24th place. Like a boss. What can we learn from this, though? Well, for one, defense is not always the best way. Although I was very happy with my defense (managed to defend against a lot of really scary hands), there might have been situations where risking it could have changed the outcome. It would be easy to blame everything on bad luck, so I won’t do that – but still a bit more luck on my part could have helped a lot. Full results on the EMA site.

Overall, the tournament was very nice, and we really enjoyed staying at s25k‘s place. But I think this was the furthest we will ever go by car. If we ever go to Holland, France or Denmark, we’re taking a damn plane.

Osaka is pretty close, so I decided to stop at Marchao jansou in Umeda, a free parlor (this means, uh, betting). They very kindly explained the rules of the store to me, and made me feel really welcome. I’d recommend going there to anyone who has a good grasp of Japanese and rules and manners of mahjong. This is important. So, how did playing in Japan go?

The first day I showed up, I changed 10000Y (uh, about 100 dollars) into game chips (in Japan, betting is illegal, so you basically pay for this fictitious money to bet in-game, and then cash it in afterwards) and sat to play some Ten-go. This means, every 50Y = 1000pts (riichi stick). They use the Ultima auto-dealers; they reveal the dora and give out the starting hand out to every player automatically. HOWEVER, the dealer must still take his first draw from the wall… and it’s very easy to forget to do this. I think I made shouhai (12 tiles in hand) about three times, go-pon (wrong pon) one time (penalty is depositting 1000 points on the table), among other disastrous mistakes as my hands kept shaking for the first 7 hanchan.

I used to think “I’m used to playing online. In real life, I could be even better. You have more thinking time, you can read other people’s tenpai more easily, and watch their movements with more ease. I’d be a very fast player.”

Unfortunately, this was not the case. Even for real life, everyone moved even faster than online, I didn’t get too much time to think about my next steps in my hand, and felt pressured to discard rapidly (mind you, no one was hurrying me, and you can take your time to think if you say “sumimasen,” but you kinda feel like you better not think too much and just discard). With such speed, I didn’t get enough time to look at the table, made dumb mistakes constantly, and even once I won a hand, I didn’t get a chance to think how much it was worth before, and ended up being very awkward (“Ron! Eh… excuse me, riichi, yakuhai… ura dora, eh, 20…30…40…50fu…” “Tsumo… riichi pinfu… eh…”) even though I know this stuff by heart. I was so nervous I couldn’t even remember the charts, and was like “whatever, if they say it’s 6400, let it be.”

Another reason I couldn’t count score so easily, was that not only you have to count score, but the amount of chips. This parlor uses 100Y coins as chips, and you receive one every time you score ippatsu, aka dora or ura dora. http://www.osamuko.com/2010/10/18/how-to-get-better-at-jansou-mode/

So, along with the tsumibou, even for a simple mangan, you’d have to be like “Tsumo! 2000 4000 wa, 2100 4100 no 2mai ooru desu.”

Also, in the case of a ryuukyoku (draw) the dealer always rotates, so there was a lot of damaten (silent tenpai) from every dealer, and it would get pretty dangerous from middle game on, specially if you don’t have red dora in your hand. Every direct hit you get with red dora, will impact your pocket immediately.

Gladly enough, everyone was kind enough to help me get the system right, and after a few hanchan my hands stopped shaking and I could enjoy myself some more.

Another thing to enjoy is that, drinks are on the house! You can drink as much as you want while you play, you won’t be charged. The only charge you have to pay, is the table fee after the game ends, but the staff takes care of it, they deduce it from everyone’s score, and supervise that the point/money exchange between the players is accurate. Also, the very same automatic table itself converts points to yen. Pretty useful, huh.

After 10 hours of playing, I left that day with the 10000Y I came in and an extra 1100Y. I thought “Oh, I’m so good, I should be a Jangoro like Fukuchi. This seems easy.” But that’s a terrible mistake too.

The next time I came in to play, I exchanged 10000Y again and sat to play. My hands weren’t shaking anymore, and I could actually feel like I owned the place, could tell my points fast and clearly, and felt like I could win again. Until, eventually, I started losing, and then I lost it. I dealt into a few ippatsu (some of them while I was in riichi myself, or some people made two or three riichi in the same turn), lost a few times and felt like an idiot, so I started playing like an idiot. I let go of my system, and from then on everything went worse. I was completely cracked under pressure at that point, looking how my stack grew shorter. I couldn’t think of what to do, so I resorted to occult as well, trying to “erase my presence” by not calling tiles and not dealing in. From then on things went better, but I was already losing a lot. The old man to my left was very nice and polite, but on the table he was a complete cruel monster who seemed able to complete every yaku in the history of mahjong. Haitei, rinshankaihou, chankan (on the dora as well), he kept winning them all and taking everyone’s money as he smiled and was being just really nice. He was a good player, a cordial winner and even at the very few times he lost, gracious in defeat. I don’t mind losing money to people like him, I guess. I ended up losing those 10000Y. But I want to keep playing him some time. I charged another 10000Y and after losing 1000Y of those I went back to the bookstore with my girlfriend to pick up some mahjong theory books. Kagaku Suru Maajan, Ara System, Hisato Note and Note X, Saisoku Saikyou, among others. Mainly stuff on digital mahjong. I didn’t want to get my hands into occult just yet.

You see, the problem there is that even if you win, the table fee is such that you’re not winning much, and whether you’re second or third, there are many cases where you just end minus. If you don’t win pretty much every hanchan, you’re going to be minus, after all. And if you lose most of them, like I did that day, your minus is going to be pretty big (about 120 dollars in a day!).

Not only did I play at a parlor, but I also played with Kyoukai’s professional player AkihiroKawamura, featured in a past article: http://www.osamuko.com/2011/06/03/pro-player-interview-kawamura-akihiro/

We played a few home games, and made a niconico broadcast of it. Betting is illegal in Japan, so even if we were betting that night at, let’s say, about 30Y every 1000points, and I’m not saying we were because we weren’t, and even if we were I wouldn’t be able to say it, but if we were, I would have lost 1600Y the first day, and won 100Y the day afterwards.

Kawamura’s mahjong is amazing. He completely dominates the table. But he’s a good guy. He is a very considerate person, like most, if not all, of my Japanese hosts have been so far.

Anyway, for a country that doesn’t allow betting, I sure lost a lot of money in mahjong. And in mahjong books.

You can see my not so great marchao stats here:

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/843/machao.jpg/

More on mahjong after the break.

We’ve been playing quite a bit of Touhou Online Battle since it surfaced on /jp/. Ironically enough the link was originally posted in a thread about failed /jp/ projects. It caught on and the server logged about ~10000 matches in the few days before the reset. The game server just wiped today and everyone’s busy grinding their little girls to cross bullets on the fields of justice.

The gameplay is pretty much self-explanatory but it may take you quite a few games to figure out the intricacies. There are only two resources to manage, HP and MP, and two ultimate choices, to defend/evade (and regenerate MP) or to attack/shoot (and trade MP for HP). Even so, the interactions with an opponent are interesting enough that we’re still cheering our touhous onto higher levels.

Even with all the mindgames, it’s a simple game to get into and each match only lasts a few minutes at most, making it easier to cram a few games in between getting stuff done. The chatbox is actually alive and everyone seems friendly enough, a sight less common among games inherently based around RNGs.

I rolled up a Satori earlier and did pretty well with her playing a laid-back defensive style. This time I was handed my very own Hong Meiling and see no reason to hand her in. Even though she seems a little weaker straight up, her stats allow more dynamic mindgames (ie just mash defend all the time and hope my opponent does something stupid). All in all, not too bad for a fast-paced game still in early development, especially if you like dueling little girls with unlimited ammunition.

Here’s what our eminent pundits have to say about the game:

<puppi> I have no emotional connection with Tenshi

<ronronronronron> >fail to evade
<ronronronronron> >fail to evade
<ronronronronron> >fail to evade

<xkime> How can you still be playing that D:
<xkime> It distracts you from mahjong.

<TRA> >no rumia

<Osamu> 0-2 ;__;

Following the last article on Tsuchida Koushou, I want to keep introducing professional players from Japan. Today’s article features Kawamura Akihiro (川村晃裕) from the 日本プロ麻雀協会 (Japanese Professional Mahjong Association), and I actually got to make him some questions for this article.

Kawamura Akihiro (川村晃裕) was born in Aichi-ken (愛知県) in the Chuubu area of Japan, on June 3rd, 1986. He joined the Japanese Professional Mahjong Association and climbed his way up to the C1 division in the Mahjong King league. He is also a playable figure at the arcade mahjong game MJ4 Evolution.

Kawamura defines himself as a digital player, and his field of expertise is “naki maajan.” Because of this, about half of the hands he plays are open. He could be seen as a very agressive player (“super swift attack style”) but his defense is also very strong. Indeed, winning before anyone else can get their tenpai, and folding when they do, is the ideal way to avoid dealing in. Consequently, even though his hand-win rate is much higher than average, he’s not the type to just discard everyone else’s winning tiles. He makes it very clear that there is a difference between “attacking” and “pushing.” This style makes him very fit for either real life or internet mahjong which he also regularly plays.

Before anything else, let’s see his MJ4 Evolution profile:

http://www.sega-mj.com/mj4evo/pro_c_kawamura.html

Kawamura Akihiro

Place of Birth: Aichi-ken.

Origin for his phrase: His surprising dora tanki and daiminkan are in most cases successful.

Date of Birth: June 3rd.

Zodiac Sign: Geminis.

Blood Type: A type.

Titles: None.

Reason for starting mahjong: Taught by my superiors at college.

Yaku he likes: Riichi.

Rival: People in my same league.

Beliefs: In mahjong and in life, good manners.

Reason for becoming pro: I didn’t have any experience at parlors yet, but I had read a lot of strategy books and a whole lot of mahjong manga and my fascination towards professional players began to grow.

Happy moments when playing mahjong: Win or lose, the moment when you feel your own growth.

A match that left an impression on you: A certain competition hanchan.

What is the reason: I didn’t get to win a single hand, but I won just by tenpai payments.

People you respect: People who don’t judge other people’s discards.

What do you like best other than mahjong: Internet.

What is mahjong for you: Impossible to impress with play style, you impress with results.

What is necessary to improve at mahjong: Rather than getting used to it, study it! Steal for yourself only the good things from good players.

A word for fans: Feel free to call me at MJ for a match, let’s have a good time.

Interview

Q (xKime): When did you become a professional player?

A (Kawamura): I was in college at the time, I was fascinated by a lot of books on mahjong, both strategy and manga, and also playing the arcade game MJ.

Q: What kind of mahjong manga do you like?

A: I like Fukumoto’s work. Especially Akagi. There are many others that I like and have read, though.

Q: Did something change since you became a professional player?

A: Not really, it’s just the same. It’s still a good feeling when I win, and I don’t make it a big deal if I lose either.

Q: You don’t lose your cool when you play?

A: It’s important not to get mad. You shouldn’t get angry.

Q: So, how did you family react when you told them you wanted to be a professional mahjong player?

A: I told them -after- I became a pro. Anyway, I was already in college, so it was up to me.

Q: At what point did you realize you were good at mahjong?

A: Since I was born. Probably by the time I came out of my mother’s womb. I’m not sure about that, I didn’t really think about it.

Q: You don’t like to brag?

A: No, I love to brag.

Q: There are many different professional organizations in Japan, why did you end up choosing the Japanese Professional Mahjong Association (JPMA), and not for example JPML?

A: Well, Renmei (JPML) uses “competition” rules where there is no red dora or ura dora, and every organization has its own rules, I just liked Kyoukai’s (JPMA) rules better than the others.

Q: So there’s no bad blood with people from different associations?

A: Not at all.

Q: How would you say that it’s possible to become good at mahjong?

A: Being taught by someone really skillful, and taking the best things from that person. I’m constantly teaching a lot of things in my live streams, showing the good things of naki maajan (mahjong with a lot of open hands).

Q: What do you think about the pros who concentrate on concealed hands?

A: I greatly respect them. I think the most amazing mahjong is menzen (concealed) mahjong. If you can get good results with menzen mahjong, that’s very strong. I respect people who can keep their menzen. I used to try to keep my menzen most of the time too at first, but the results weren’t that good, and then I learned this way to play.

Q: How did you learn to play like this?

A: I was taught this kind of mahjong in Nico Nico Live Broadcasts, so I started playing naki mahjong. I didn’t fully understand “digital style mahjong” back then, and of course I’m digital but, there were a lot of things I didn’t really understand at the time and I eventually started learning them.

Q: Do you feel any difference playing real life mahjong and playing internet mahjong?

A: Not at all, it’s the same to me.

Q: What is your goal as a mahjong player right now?

A: I want to be acknowledged. Since I want to stand out, I’m doing Nico Nico live broadcasts too. And of course, I want to make a living by playing mahjong.

Q: What do you do when you’re not playing mahjong?

A: Cycling. I like to listen to music while riding a bike.

Q: If it wasn’t mahjong, what game would you have ended up doing now?

A: For board games… I don’t know, shougi or go. But I really wanted to be a baseball pitcher.

Q: And, what are things you hate?

A: Having plans.

Q: Wasn’t it you who said “a tenpai hand is better than a one-away hand of any shape”?

A: It wasn’t me who said that, but it’s a good phrase.

Q: Do you have a last “cool phrase” you want to leave us with? Something like “mahjong is about winning” or anything like that?

A: Mahjong is a game that sickens you, but you keep playing anyway.

————————————————————————————-

Kawamura has a Nico Nico community where he is regularly doing live broadcasts playing online mahjong (Janryuumon and Tenhou) as well as friendly matches, study sessions, skype connections and conversations.

http://com.nicovideo.jp/community/co60514

He is a 9th Dan player in Janryuumon and just recently began playing on Tenhou, climbing up to 5th Dan 2100R in about 230 games, and probably still going up as I’m writing this. He is constantly quoting Akagi as he plays, and he is also a very kind broadcaster and host, so be sure to drop by and see him play.

Kawamura also has a a Japanese blog where he posts mahjong related content constantly, and a twitter.

Blog: http://ameblo.jp/kawamura001/

Twitter: http://twitter.com/kawamura0603

Also, this is being published on the exact same day of his birthday, so you may also twit him a happy birthday. Happy birthday, Kawamura. May your mahjong reach a lot of new spots.

I just finished subbing an episode of Shin Janki. To put it shortly for those who aren’t familiar with it, the series Shin Janki consist of 19 episodes of real-action drama telling Sakurai Shouichi’s mahjong experiences in Japan in the 70′s. For those who aren’t familiar with Sakurai San, or commonly known as Shou-chan, he is the guy that went undefeated for 20 years in the ruthless underworld of the yakuza, mostly through his amazing cheating techniques. The name “Janki” also refers to him, and although I’m not 100% sure about this, I’m pretty much confident that Jankiryu style, which was previously mentioned on this blog, originates from this guy.

If you’re looking to peek into the old scenes of mahjong full of gambling and cheating, this is the series for you. For now I could only sub one episode and I picked one of my favorites which happens to be episode 11. Here we got a youngster named Nakahara Seiya starting to learn how to be a rep player, so expect some nice training scenes with his teacher Joujima. You don’t need to see any of the previous episodes to watch this one.

I will be subbing more of these eventually, but I don’t know when I will get to that. Doesn’t mean you can’t watch the rest in Japanese though, as there are a lot of mahjong scenes, and you can just skip the talks to get to those game scenes.

Here are the links to the movie:

https://rapidshare.com/files/2298399916/ShinJanki11.part1.rar

https://rapidshare.com/files/1529645667/ShinJanki11.part2.rar

Here is the latest link to the subtitle:

https://rapidshare.com/files/1842396201/Shin_Janki_11.srt

My Japanese isn’t perfect by any means, nor is English my native language, so expect a few mistakes in my translations. If you got any corrections you can let me know here by writing in the comments!

Enjoy watching!

Some extra info:

Shimizu Kentarou is the lead actor playing Sakurai Shouichi. He is also a singer (or used to be), most commonly known with the song “Shitsuren Restoran”. Now however, he happens to be in jail for smoking pot or something. I had plans to visit him in prison but I had to leave Japan early after the earthquake. Next time I go, I’m definitely trying my chances.

So as a fellow denizen of good old #mahjong #osamuko, what do you have to do when you’re in the motherland of Riichi Mahjong? Obviously, the course of action is to visit a Mahjong Parlor (Jansou, 雀荘). Thankfully, Mahjong researcher Benjamin introduced me to 2 Jansou and a friend of his took me to another one. This post is supposed to be a report of my experiences there and maybe a small guide to anyone who wants to visit these kinda places.

Shibuton

Shibuton is pretty much my favorite place of the 3 Jansou I went to. After Ben introduced me to it on one afternoon, I went there again alone 2 times. It’s more of a “normal” Jansou compared to the other 2, a great place for beginners, the staff is really friendly and last but not least, it’s fairly cheap.

Shibuton, as the name implies is located in Shibuya, it’s just a short walk from the JR/Metro station, the street left of the 109 shopping building and across the street of a small red-light district further up. It’s on the 3rd floor of a shared Building, basically it’s a large room with lot’s of automatic tables, probably around ~30 if I should guess. Here is the place on Googlemaps/Streetview, note the green-ish sign saying しぶとん, that’s where you will want to enter:

View Larger Map

These automatic tables there are quite something too, they already distribute each player their 13 starting tiles (dealer has to draw first too) and turn over the dora indicator fully automatically. So after you get in there, sign up and have the rules explained to you, you wait for the staff to notify you of a free spot to pop up at a table and join in (that system is commonly called “free”). If you come with 3 other buddies, you can basically rent your own table there too (“Set”, セット or 貸卓). Usually, at least from what I experienced during my 3 times being there, you continue playing at that table until you leave. That means if none of the other players leave earlier, you will always play with the same people. I guess you could ask to switch tables and opponents too, but that’s probably not normal or considered bad manners or whatever.

Shibuton is a no-rate Jansou, which means you only pay fees to the Jansou and don’t compete for money with the other players. New signups get coupons worth 1000 yen, with which you can pay your first few games. You pay according to your placement, each time after a hanchan finishes. First place pays 200, second place 300, third 400 and fourth 500 Yen. A really nice system, while you don’t bet money directly with other players, it still retains a bit of a gambling aspect or motivation.

The rules in Shibuton I played with are pretty much standard Tonnansen/Hanchan ariari without red 5s. I saw tables with red 5 sets too, but nobody played at those tables.

The level of my opponents seemed well-enough, semi-beginner like (by japanese standards of course) to have a few challenging but winnable games. Nobody I played with had any obvious troubles with calculating scores and there were few messups. Me and an older lady and got chombo’d for illegally ron’ing (誤ロン) due to bad eyesight, and I had a dead hand once because my kami-cha skipped my discard turn somehow after a chi while I was pondering about my discard.

Anyways, nothing to fret about, I actually expected more fuckups on my side.
Staffers record your results when you pay after a hanchan and then feed it into their database where, you can get a nice little report printed out. Here’s a sample sheet from the website and my own one:

A samplesheet

My Scoresheet

Overall, I played a total of 11 hanchan, with an average rank of 2.455 and Rate of 1512.

On a more or less related note, one guy got a double riichi ippatsu tsumo once. ざわ・・・ざわ

Momijan

Momijan was the 2nd Jansou I went to. Again, it was thank’s to Ben who introduced me to it.

Momijan is located between the Suehirochou (Ginza-Line Metro station) and the JR/Metro Akihabara Station. The easiest way to get there is by getting off at Suehirochou Exit#1, walking straight up the Chuuoudoori a bit until you get here, note the green sign “もみ雀”:

View Larger Map

It’s on the 7th floor of this building, apparantly another Jansou recently opened on the floor below.
And there’s a Maidcafe down that floor too, I only caught a glimpse of it on my way down with the elevator when I left and was greeted by a smiling Meido (✿ˇ◡ˇ).

Momijan is a bit special in several regards. They describe themselves as a place for”Relaxation Mahjong”. That is because with the points you can earn in various ways, you can get special treats like massages from the female staffers there. Yes, you heard that right. When I left I actually had 14 points, which means I could have gotten such a massage myself, but it seemed a bit awkward and I was in a hurry, so I didn’t take that chance orz. I haven’t understood the point system completely or how it correlates with the shugi system used in the their Mahjong rules though. Also, from what I have seen, it’s not mandatory that every table will play with a girl from the staff, but they sub in quite a bit. So again you register first, buy a stock of Chips for the Shugi-stuff and wait for a spot at a table. We got there pretty early in the afternoon and with only one table playing it wasn’t very busy at first, but more customers gradually came as the time passed.

The rules I played with were standard ariari Tonpuusen with red 5s for the most part, but there are some special rules. (Check the green-backed もみ雀戦ルール row on the right side, that’s what I played).

As I mentioned before, there’s a kind of Shugi System for Placement, winning with red 5s, a special Hatsu (only with closed hands), getting a Yakuman or stuff like busting another player (which I achieved). Also, there’s a special Haku tile with which you can Tsumo-win with any tenpai hand, but I haven’t seen it happening.

Momijan Membercard and free game tickets

However, I witnessed something quite hilarious during one game at my table:
A guy took a break and let a staffer (a male one) sub in for him. During the round, another player pon’d Haku and Chun ざわ. When it was the staffers turn, he was like “Should I deal this?” to the guy he replaced, who sitting far away having a smoke and no idea what was going on. Apparantly, he was like “yea whatever” and you can probably guess the rest. Daisangen.

Also, apparantly Momijan was recently raided by the police over gambling charges or something.ｗ

Tenpane

Tenpane is pretty close to Momijan in Akiba. Again, get off the Ginza-Line at Suehirochou and find a parallel street on the opposite site of Momijan:

View Larger Map

Similar to Momijan, Tenpane is pretty “special” too, in the regard that it relevant to an Akiba-Otaku’s interests. You and 2 other customers randomly play with one of the girls there. I went there with a japanese friend of Benjamin (thanks again, ｍさん).

Again, you need to register first there and then you “charge” a member-card for a number of games to play beforehand. Tenpane has pretty weird and complex system, comparable to an RPG:
You receive special Skillcards for different Jobs at the start which you can use in the game then. For example, with the Fighter skill you can bet 2 1000 point sticks for a Riichi but if you win, the Riichi counts as two han instead of one. Actually, I haven’t seen anyone using this stuff in a game there, so it seems even more of a gimmick you don’t need to care about too much.
The general Mahjong rules seem pretty much standard though: Tonpuusen only, ariari Red fives (2 red 5 pin).

Membercard and special "Skillcards" from Tenpane

The place was pretty crowded during the late afternoon/evening I was there and people had to wait a bit for each game, but the place had a nice atmosphere to it. One guy hanging out there was an ex pro-wrestler or something.
Games were pretty relaxed too, players usually talking with the girls every now and then and I too had some fun chatting about 2-dimensional topics with them and others. Yea, it’s just that kinda place.

One negative thing about Tenpane though is that you don’t get much Mahjong for your money. Initial registration, and as it seems even entering after you’ve already registered isn’t exactly what I would call cheap, and 600 yen for a tonpuusen surely isn’t either.But I guess the main selling point is explained above.

Conclusion

Some other random facts/trivia which were news to me:

• Smoking was permitted and took place everywhere during games
• You always register with some kinda handle-name
• (non-alcoholic) Drinks are free everywhere (man, where would you find something similar in my country?)
• The magic word for switching with a staffer when you need a break is “Daisou” (代走)
• Game usually ends if Top player gets above 60000 points
• Places had green 500 point sticks

So to wrap this finally up, I had a lot of fun in all 3 places during my Japan visit. Another interesting place I wanted to check out was the Mahjong Museum a bit outside of Tokyo in Chiba, but I canceled my plans after the big earthquake.

Also, I’d really love to have visited hai no oto, Jansou of the egendary Sakurai Shouichi, founder of the Jankiryu-style Mahjong. It should have been possible, but in the end I probably lacked the guts for it. This is an introduction to the Jansou for poeple not familiar with Jankiryu, and it makes a pretty friendly impression to me.

At all the places I described here, it’s probably quite difficult, or rather inconvenient, to get by with only english, even if you know all the japanese Yaku other Mahjong-related terms. I’d recommend some basic knowledge of Japanese if you intend to visit alone. Certainly, just because I’ve been around those places a few times doesn’t make me an expert or anything, but if you want to go there and have a few questions, feel free to drop them here. Me or other osamuko-fellows will try to answer them to the best of our knowledge.

Oh, and here is some other Mahjong-related stuff I got while I was in Japan, some of it thanks to Ben:

Some random Mahjong-related stuff I got on my trip

• Saki Rabujan (introduces the characters and general Mahjong rules)
• Mudazumo Manga volume 1
• Kindai Mahjong March volume
• Super Herione Wars 4 (Game)
• Touhou 17 Steps Mahjong (Game)
• Akagi Episode Guidebook
• Daddycool MAHJONG EXPERT Tanyao towel
• a wristband