Due to being busylazy, we haven't published the answers to the quiz until now. We apologize for the inconvenience to our dear readers. orz
You can find the answers to the quiz now at the end of this article.
Thanks to Ben for providing us with the answers!

As some of you probably know, the ECR (European Riichi Championship) Tournament, which my humble self attended to, was held for the second time after 2 years during the last weekend in Hannover, Germany.
Expect a more detailed write-up of my experiences and antics during those 3 days once I un-lazy a bit more.

On Friday evening, prior to the actual games on Saturday and Sunday, a 3 hour strategy workshop was being held, which is the actual focus of this post.

The workshop was planned and executed by none other than Takunori Kajimoto himself, member of the Mahjong Museum Committee, Pro-Mahjong TV-commentator and practically a Mahjong-Legend in general. Besides him, as the main speaker and voice (translator) of Kaji was -the among gaijins no less legendary- Mahjong Researcher Benjamin Boas. Both of them also served as head-referees for the tournament. Another Japanese Pro and actual player in the tournament, Mr. Y.T. also helped out here.

The venue was the upper floor of the jazz club, in a large, kind of theater-stage like room, while the actual games were played in the basement of mentioned club. About ~50 poeple in total attended the workshop.

The workshop consisted of a general discussion of several topics you can see written down on the easel below, a discard quiz, a showmatch with Kajimoto (and explanations/Q&A after each hand), as well as a closing Q&A session for general strategy-related questions.

The other 3 players of the show match were poeple that had the highest number of correct answers in the quiz.

As you can see, it turned out to be quite the Ponpalace.

While I have to say that I didn't exactly learn anything mind-blowing new from thr whole thing, some discussions that came up and some points were certainly interesting and got me to consider some stuff in a different light. Unfortunately, there was no summary handout or something about the topics that were being discussed.

If you're looking for expert advice, why don't you check out TRA's Tips or mou's advanced strategies?

Kaji also signed strategy books that were being sold (I also got myself one) and mahjong set cases if you asked him, here's a case of a Mahjong-mate of mine.

Lorizean, another denizen of #mahjong got himself a small Akagi Washizu-Mahjong set too.

So without further ado, let me come to the main point of this post: The Quiz. Everyone got a sheet of paper with the hands below and was to mark what to discard and if you riichi in the last 3 hands. It took many, including me, quite some time to think about it before finishing. Ben and Kaji also said the quiz was supposed to be quite difficult, as these questions were directed at Pros.

Now what do you think? Drop your answers and reasoning in a comment below. I will reveal the answers in about a week. I will also try to get in touch with Ben about actual explanations of the answers.

Note:
They didn't specify whether the quiz was meant to be considered with kuitan ari or nashi (EMA) rules. I actually suppose it's with kuitan ari, since they said these questions were aimed at actual Pros in Japan, where open tanyao is the norm. Also, note that the Dora: tile is the actual dora and not the indicator.

Hand 1

East 1st round, being south seat - Turn 5

Dora:

Hand 2

East 1st round, being south seat - Turn 5

Dora:

Hand 3

East 1st round, being south seat - Turn 5

Dora:

Hand 4

East 1st round, being south seat - Turn 5

Dora:

Hand 5

East 1st round, being east seat - Turn 8

Dora:

Hand 6

East 1st round, being east seat - Turn 8

Dora:

Hand 7

East 1st round, being east seat - Turn 8

Dora:

Hand 8

East 1st round, being east seat - Turn 8

Dora:

Hand 9

East 1st round, being east seat - Turn 8

Dora:

Hand 10

East 1st round, being east seat - Turn 8

Dora:
Riichi? Y/N

Hand 11

East 1st round, being east seat - Turn 8

Dora:
Riichi? Y/N

Hand 12

East 1st round, being east seat - Turn 8

Dora:
Riichi? Y/N

The Answers

Unfortunately, our main ``osamuko translator'' was too busy to work on the explanations which accompanied the document Ben sent, so here are just the raw answers.
You can find the original answers document with explanations here. (（´Д｀;）Osamu orz)
Feel free to translate them if your 日本語 is good enough and share your translation with the osamuko folks. If you are struggling with some of the weird Mahjong-specific terms, check UmaiKeikis dictionary or drop a comment.

Actually, faithful Osamuko follower and bronze-member xKime already translated the whole thing in like 2 days. You get grab it here.
Thank's a bunch! （ ´・ω・）つ

Hand 1:

Hand 2:

Hand 3:

Hand 4:

Hand 5:

Hand 6:

Hand 7:

Hand 8:

Hand 9:

Hand 10: and Riichi!

Hand 11: without Riichi.

Hand 12: without Riichi.

For some time I had been preparing a cute article entitled 'How to win an EMA tournament'. While not exactly critical in its opinions towards the current tournament formats, it does paint a rather bizarre picture of the things you'll need to do, to maximize your chances of accomplish aforesaid goal. Of course, the only way to alter the allure of this ideal but not-quite-conventional strategy is to move the goalposts, by overhauling some elements of the current tournament format.

Change, they say, is the only constant. And if I were on the EMA committee I would be fed up to the back teeth with it. Early June, a mahjong website editorial expressed dissatisfaction with the EMA ranking system. A new system was rolled out within the month. Last month, there was a bit of a to-do regarding the enforcement of some rules infractions during the European Championship. The committee is now drafting up a chapter on 'mahjong etiquette' for tournaments.  If I were running the thing and someone murmured the c-word near me I would throw up, turn purple and beat him within an inch of his life.

It must be tough running an international association, especially one large enough to require the burden of officialdom, and yet small enough that you can't brush aside the concerns of individual members. The internet is a great way for vocal minorities to make a difference, especially when nobody tells you that you're doing something right. Change for the better is viewed as improvement. And yet when a lot of stuff is changed within a short time, it's harder to convince people that things are improving rapidly. After all, stability is just as important as a willingness to change for the better.

If I were the EMA, I'd have a committee meeting, say, a few times a year, at fixed dates. When someone put something to me I'd then be safe to gush about how right he is, why didn't I think of that, and how I would bravely take it up with the committee next meeting. Maybe then I wouldn't have blag writers wondering whether the ship can take one more salvo. I've often said that even if there were a worldwide mahjong association, I wouldn't chair it for anything. The EMA is certainly doing its part, and it's in my interest - and the interests of people unwilling to organize their own international tournaments - not to rock it all at once.

And that's why 'How to win an EMA tournament' will remain a draft for now, and will not be read except by people with gold account subscriptions.

[06:14] <TACOS> Warning: ron5 is currently editing this post
[06:15] <TACOS> ronronronronron you imparting some gems of wisdom?
[06:15] <Umai> probably tryin to read it before it gets released =3=
[06:16] <TACOS> yea cos he has a premium subscription
[06:17] <TACOS> osamuko.com gold account
[06:20] <Umai> lucky
[06:22] <TRA> get osamuko gold today! only 19.95 monthly subscription!
[06:22] <osamu> special offer for this month only
[06:23] <osamu> $180 for a year

You can contact osamu for inquiries regarding gold, platinum and weapons-grade plutonium account subscriptions.

Rules: East-only, Ari-Ari, Red, Fast (喰東アリ赤速)
Time: Saturday, 11 September 2010, 18:00:00 UTC - check your time here: http://timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?day=11&month=9&year=2010&hour=18&min=0&sec=0
Tournament type: Knockout, 3-4 rounds (depending on participants)
Location: #mahjong@irc.rizon.net and Tenhou (random lobbies per game)

I would like as many people to play, provided they actually turn up. The registration is here: http://arcturus.su/ch/mj/kareha.pl/1281471095/

Further details to be announced soon, after we make a final decision on the format.

TACOS derail after the cut.

TACOS derail: Not that I'm defending tonpuu, but there's really no big difference in skill level afforded. It's not about tonpuu or hanchan, since they are interchangeable anyway. The main constraint of organizing an online tournament, of course, is time itself. People have schedules and bedtimes and things to do, and being able to gather people all over the world online together at a specific time has its own problems. We are just planning for some serious fun, and the opportunity for some casual competition. We would like you to mark your calendar, not cancel all your appointments for a given day.

Let's say we have time for one hanchan, or two tonpuu. Does playing hanchan instead of tonpuu give more assurance that the better players will proceed to the next round? Mahjong in itself is an extreme example of a slippery slope scenario. Conventional wisdom dictates that once you suffer a point deficit, it is reasonable to afford yourself more risk to get back in the game. By the same logic, once you are sitting on a mountain of points, it would be foolish to play like everyone is on equal points, as you increase the risk of dealing in for little or no marginal reward. In other words, once the point totals are polarized, regardless of whether you are on a very high or very low score, it's not you doing the playing. It's the score.

I saw this video quite some time ago. How did David Beckham score from his own half? There was no one anywhere near the goal. Where was the keeper? He was in the opposing team's penalty box, trying to get a header in from a last minute corner. Why? Because his normal function - defense - wasn't worth anything any more. Losing 3-1 is virtually the same as losing 2-1, while scoring a goal changes everything. It only makes sense to sacrifice all your protection for a better chance at scoring the game-changing goal.

In this light, given how many games are settled as soon as they've started, I find it refreshing that we cut our hanchans in half, and probably will continue with this system in future tournaments. One could even make the argument that playing tonpuus increases skill required, as it resets the scores and forces you out of autopilot into that grindy decision-making mode twice as often.

The writing staff will be out in force for this tournament, so see you there!

I originally planned to write this a long time ago but now is as good a time as ever. For one, if you do not have people to play with regularly, do not buy anything over 50$. It's wasted money, you won't derive any pleasure at all from the tiles. The first set you should buy is a "China Green" set. You can find these in any city with a Chinatown.

A set of a decent size (Chinese 8, say about 34mm) can go for 30$ to 40$. If the sets are more than this, there can be a few reasons:

1. Your town is not a port city, thus transportation of goods eats at the margins a shop owner could make. Still, over 50 bucks, and you're being robbed for a "China Green" set. Wholesale prices are around 10 bucks if you can order 100 sets. Also, you can't really set up a group purchase, since most mahjong organizations that exist do not even have the numbers to pull this off (aside maybe one pan-europe buy covering three countries)
2. You're not Asian, so you get the "white price". For one, this often means you end up paying the local sales tax and for two, you might get caught paying a higher price, especially when there are no sticker prices. Also, they will try to get you to buy their sets with Western indices. There's no plus-value. If you really want them, put the pressure on them and haggle with a simulated lack of interest for an "inferior" product.
3. You are in a game store that bought just a few sets to sell off at a high mark-up. You'd actually be quite lucky to find "China Green" sets there, but they'll still be expensive. More often than not, they will be American Mahjong sets with a zillion jokers and racks. The tiles will be very thin, and unusable for rapid play (Any tile less than half as thick as both the other dimensions is unsuitable for Mahjong).

For euros, given the cost of "life, the universe, and everything" being more expensive, these dollar costs translate to euros at a 1:1 rate.

(Left: A Singapore "China Green" set. Right: Assortment of two-tone backs. Not that they give the set more value, but any color other than green makes it nicer to look at.) WARNING: Japanese mahjong players like two things: pure-white white dragons, and two-tone backs. All-white or all-black sets are often undesirable (but there can be exceptions) because of weird crap like having to stand the dora tile when you'll inevitably flip a white dragon.

To be honest, if you're far away from a Chinatown, you're probably too far from any real life mahjong players. However, in the digital age, you can order anything over the internet. Which leads to the biggest killjoy of them all: shipping costs.

With eBay, you can often find good deals along with a lot of bad ones, and even more irrelevant ones. Because a lot of people are trying to peddle cheap game software like "Mahjong Quest Puzzle 76 ver. 2.6", using a subtractive search is necessary. "mahjong tiles -pc -cd -jewelry -wood* -vintage -bracelet" would be a good search to make. Then sort by "price + shipping", and set the highest first. It's very easy to ignore the first hits that are irrelevant (anything over 100$) while not having to browse through all the junk at the bottom that is also irrelevant. Ignore anything with no shipping amount, and start going back up at about 10$. There are currently a few sets up for sale, but are going for 58$ when both cost+shipping is calculated to [a secret location]. (osamuko.com recommends you don't buy it at 58$ though). If you have friends also wanting mahjong sets, some may offer good discounted shipping. Do play with the shipping applets when available.

Shipping also hampers doing the Asianese thing of wanting "authentic products". Before even finishing the paragraph, I would like to remind people to not do this, unless you know exactly what you want, and are really willing to pay any price. Save up and fly to China or Japan and send them back to you or a relative to pick them up, in the long run, it's cheaper. Shipping from Japan is absolutely horrible, as almost anything you'd want weighs over 2kg. I got a used set once shipped in two packages simply because the eBayer would have lost money if he sent it as one. (and even then, this was almost 4 kg. It was labeled as a product of Japan, but I am pretty sure what I got was also Chinese.) Then again, there's also that time I got two sets of tiles for only 3400Y, but with shipping and service fees (because I got it through Yahoo Japan), it came up to 15900Y. Never buy a set from Asia unless the shipping is mentioned up-front. At least then, you can make a rational decision as to purchase it or not. Extra tip: never assume that you're getting a Japanese set made in Japan. Almost none exist anymore. Most Japanese mahjong sets are made in China, and have the red fives made accordingly.

Also, the more of a novelty item something is, the more chances it will either suffer from a defect or that as soon as something happens to a single tile, the rest is rendered useless. (Chips, scratches, marks, color fades, paint loss). It's not even a question of being cool or not (because you're not) if you have a Saki, Yankees or a Hello Kitty mahjong set, that's one of the worst ways of losing your money.

This also leads to two other issues: tile sizes and partially transparent sets.

For the former, remember that Japan has been playing with small tiles for quite some time, 25mm as a maximum dimension is the norm, although they may get bigger in the future given the amount of elderly people playing mahjong in Japan, don't expect it to change overnight though. If you got used to playing with "China Green"-sized tiles, playing with smaller tiles becomes less fun to play with. Also, novelty sets may also be of non-standard sizes in order to make the product smaller, and the profit bigger, which leads to the latter point:

Partially transparent sets. (Washizu-style) Some people have the urge to go buy sets that are 3/4 transparent to mimic the protagonist of some comic character. Fine, it's your choice. But some of these sets are still small, 25mm, 28mm as a maximum dimension. There was a company called Ace of Heartz operating out of Vancouver that had single-tone white opaque tiles but that were 34mm large tiles at a decent price. Their website is under construction though, I hope they come back someday. I wouldn't recommend a 25mm transparent set to anyone, and much less translucid ones that add more colour crap into the tile while keeping the see-through effect.

Comclusion and quick summary: If you're paying more than 40$, you're not getting the best deal out there. Do not under any circumstance spend over 60$. (unless it's for the Ace of Heartz semi-transparent set)

The new seed has been established. Group C has one pair of players seeing each other again. Lists were generated pseudo-randomly as before. I also took into account the preferred session, the only people who have crossed over are people who said they were really OK with switching to either (me, eirei, and xKime... osamu and XshinjiX are at the same as last time). I also have to talk to Trantez if he wants in on a more regular basis or if I have to hire a stunt double from the crowd.

6 21 18 7 3 11 4 20 17 2 8 15 14 9 13 19 23 1 24 12 16 10 22 5

ron^5 ; Speedwagon ; _ ; HatHair ; tyblazitar ; _ ; _ ; Wortex ; STS ; puppi ; Humour ; Pabli ; _ ; _ ; bzzzra
_ ; Harlaown ; _ ; nezeru ; Hasu ; VgameT ; _ ; TRA ; Trantez ; mTerek ; levvy ; WWdeMM ; _ ; _

July 16 @ 2100 GMT
Group A : ron^5 ; xKime ; HatHair ; tyblazitar
Group B : Speedwagon ; osamu ; STS ; Humour
Group C : Wortex ; puppi ; Pabli ; bzzzra (*)

July 16 @ 2400 GMT / July 17 @ 0000 GMT
Group D : Harlaown ; Senechal ; nezeru ; Hasu
Group E : VgameT ; TRA ; Trantez ; mTerek
Group F : levvy ; WWdeMM ; XshinjiX ; eirei

Next session - July 30! Please warn me if you can or can't switch sessions for people who have said they "probably can". I'm only able to respect your choice if you confirm it to me.

To be honest, the team was rather hesitant to go on and publish the thing back then, because of... well, you can read it and form your own opinions. The whole reason we did this was to provide sorely-lacking info about this new arrival on the online mahjong scene that everyone had been talking about. But after the deed was done, I read and reread the whole thing, and no matter in which light I read it, I felt royally owned. And this is after a revision email begging for more answers. The first draft was even better/worse. It was like meeting the CEO of a certain clothing retailer, known for his personal guarantees, in person.

Now that Mahjonglogic has been pushed out for some time, we at osamuko.com are sure that you will have formed your own views on their software, community and quality of gaming in general. I felt it was safe to haul it out of the dusty draft pile and just leave this here. This is not because we haven't updated in weeks. Noooo. Assuredly not.

First, congratulations on getting your gaming license approved. Please give us a bit of background on yourself and MahjongLogic.
I have been involved in internet gaming for almost 12 years managing casinos and other outlets online. I came across the game Mahjong about 4 years ago and soon realized the enormous potential of the game online. The next massive game after poker without doubt + it caters to the largest market in the world, Asia.

We started out small with only a few developers but this soon grew into a much larger operation. Currently we have our development and operations team in Sweden, gaming license and personnel in the isle of Man and an office in Hong Kong.

We are very dedicated to make Mahjong Logic the place for Mahjong enthusiast all over the world. We currently have 7 signed licensees and are in contact with many others that we anticipate will join our network in the coming months.

Has the EMA contacted MahjongLogic about the possibility of adopting your client as their official online tournament platform, and are there plans to collaborate with the EMA to promote and develop the European mahjong scene in the future? (Ed: Apparently I was psychic and actually called this long ago)
We have been in contact with EMA and will follow up with them shortly to discuss different opportunities in the coming months. We will work with several associations and partners worldwide and our licensees will also sponsor tournaments and competitions around the globe, in addition to other forms of marketing that will generate great awareness not only in Europe but throughout the rest of the world as well.

We understand you are aiming to launch a wave of promotions in the near future. Could you give us an idea of what your plans are?
Mahjong Logic does not operate its own brand however we will promote Mahjong Logic at shows (next one in Macao Feb 23-25), conferences, seminars, magazines, worldwide press and online in order to sign up as many licensees as possible, in turn providing great liquidity to our mahjong network.

Normally, online gaming companies rely heavily on the use of affiliates to market their site. However, there is a lack of online coverage and discussion about mahjong - I can only name a few websites to do with mahjong in English. Are you going to use a different marketing strategy?
Our partners will use affiliates as well as regular online/offline marketing to promote their sites. I think it is a great opportunity for all affiliates to market something new instead of the regular games such as poker, casino and bingo where everyone is chasing the same players. Mahjong will present a new way for all affiliates to make money, and will be a great addition for cross marketing as well. Furthermore, the game is currently available in English, simplified and traditional Chinese and Japanese. We offer 3 rule sets today but will add more rules and languages in the coming months.

As you know, online gaming has developed so far that many people around the world make a living from playing poker online professionally. Do you think it will be possible to do so on MahjongLogic?
Definitely. We will offer a range of tables and game options to cater to both novice and professional players.

To make MahjongLogic a success, you will probably have to convince many people who have never deposited money on a gaming site before to do so. Do you have a strategy to attract them to risk real money for the first time?
Players in Asia are custom to playing mahjong for money, in this area of the world I think it is more about finding the appropriate payment solution and game setting for our players. In Europe and the Americas people are used to playing for money online and accustomed to all the many payment options available. In these markets I think it is more about presenting them with a new game and opportunity to play for fun or money online.

People who are playing for real money may be concerned about the threat of collusion between other players, as well as the general safety of their funds. How strong are the security measures implemented?
We are licensed in the Isle of Man and the game and RNG is approved by eCogra. All player funds are secured by the Isle of Man government, we as the license holder always have to keep a balance of the total player funds in a trust account monitored by the government as security. The system have many controls and settings to detect and avoid collusion, this along with our experienced team who monitor players and the system 24/7. No other Mahjong network is licensed and approved by a reputable gaming jurisdiction, hence giving us a lot more credibility and security for our players than anyone else can offer.

What do you think of the online mahjong scene in Japan? Are you planning to attract Japanese and Chinese players to your client as well?
We will cater to all markets. We are currently working with 2 Japanese groups who are evaluating our rule sets, game settings and presentation of the game. We will receive their full report in the next few weeks and adjust our system accordingly in order to cater fully to the Japanese market. We also have several partners lined up in Japan and will launch online tournaments, leagues and online qualifiers together with them during Q1.

What is your favorite board game, and what do you like about it?
Backgammon, it’s a great game involving both skill and luck. I have played since my days in college and never seem to get tired of it. Then of course Mahjong, although I don’t hold the same skill level here.

Your favorite hand in mahjong?
Seven Pairs (Chii Toitsu), mainly because I was playing at a $5 table at one of our partners game clients, received this hand and of course won the entire pot.

Do you have any personal goals for 2010, for yourself and Mahjong Logic?
We will work hard to establish the Mahjong Logic Network as the place to play Mahjong online, against players from any part of the world. We are already signing international partnership deals and have agreed to sponsor major events in order to facilitate growth and acceptance. We have also a wide range of features and improvements to be release in the coming months that will cater to a vast global audience.

End of interview.

I think it's pretty obvious this isn't an ad or anything. We don't carry ads on the site. We don't even have an affiliate link to any mahjong sites, and not for the lack of offers. It's just that making infinitesimal bits of money here and there off some clicks and rake and whatnot was never our goal when we started up the blag, and you can be sure we haven't changed a bit. The only costs we (well, Osamu) have ever had to cover are for the domain and server, and delicious tacos.

Indeed the first time Osamu got the server we didn't know what we could do with it. For some reason it just sat there until it occurred to us to run a private Ragnarok Online server off it. Later on it would be used by Alvin for something involving tenhou logs and statistical analysis that I am unable to explain. After a year it expired and we are now serverless. I am not even clear about our current hosting situation but if you know any nice deals it would be nice to let us know.

To pad out this article here are some of the things we did on mahjongRO. A good time was had by all on the server, with the exception of Osamu who made a knight and died a lot. Even Plate was seen killing roda frogs near Geffen.

Phreeoni with Speedwagon the Soul Linker.

Amon Ra with Speedwagon the Sniper.

Doppelganger with Speedwagon the Paladin

No point doing things the easy way. Speedwagon is not playing the Baphomet Jr.

Just thought I'd blag about it so it doesn't get lost somewhere. It's been installed 60+ times at the time of this writing, and the thread isn't even dead yet.

Here are the links for anyone late to the party:

Tiles:
http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/block/mahjong_tiles/utf8test.htm

Script:
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/76782

or

http://omploader.org/iNGJxYw

赤 is red and 右 is to indicate a rotated called tile, or, well, just to have all your mahjong tiles displayed sideways.

Other somewhat interesting posts:

Cheer up old chap, it's not that bad.
As long as they don't struggle too much.
I hope I don't find myself having to quit mahjong in the near future, it sounds rather torturous.

Actually the current 3p leader is none other than yours truly. Please stop reminding me I have no skill, sometimes all we need is a game of pretend ;_;

I am 9级 and what is this? Somehow I doubt he could find his own bottom with both hands.

It's extremely often I read about discussions of various mahjong clients/software, and someone will come out of nowhere and say "but it doesn't have ________!"

As a normal player who has never even considered programming a mahjong client or software in my life, I am as harsh a critic as any, perhaps even more so than the various people still playing single hand rounds for money on mahjongtime. But people whining because the client of your choice does not allow you to open riichi/ron on concealed kan for kokushi/insert annoying variant here never fails to annoy me.

When something is all well and good, nobody will ever say one word, and yet a little mistake here and there will get people falling over each other to point it out. There seems to be a vocal minority on the internet who favour a mahjong client being a complete simulation of a real life mahjong game. By this I mean they want the freedom to do anything, unfettered by normal constraints of reason and logic. Riichi without being in tenpai? Random chombos? Access to every single ruleset ever played in the history of mankind? A button to flip the table over in a drunken rage? This can be a good thing. It can also be a very, very bad thing.

I believe that willfully allowing people to make mistakes - and here I mean complete howlers - is not the way to go for a mahjong client. Why do I say so? Simple -

It is not fun.

Believe it or not, people play games for fun. There are many ways of defining 'fun', but I doubt a single one of them involves making an accidental error that may cost you real money on some online gaming clients. Making stupid mistakes is not an enjoyable experience, for both the person doing it and the other players involved in the game. Therefore, when you remove this possibility, people will have a better chance of enjoying their mahjong experience.

Last year, feeling burned out after grinding a little on tenhou, I wrote up a mahjong variant for my friends to try. The premise was simple, and elegant. Basically you play to be the first to win X (a recommended default is 3) games. When you win a game, you roll a 20-sided die, and a random penalty is applied to you according to the number you rolled. Penalties were more or less of equal severity and included ones like:

- for the first 3 turns you must discard the tile you drew (tsumokiri)
- you cannot ron on anyone except the point leader (or anyone if you are leading)
- ryanhan shibari (ron or tsumo on a 2han+ hand only)
- no yakuhai allowed in your hand

The design was easy to implement, elegant and simple. It was not difficult, unfair, imbalanced (in fact it was extremely balanced due to the reverse slippery slope effect) and it looked very interesting for something cooked up in minutes.

We only ever played it once.

It was not fun.

Discarding the first 3 tiles I drew was not fun. Being in furiten later because of that was even more frustrating. Not being able to call some tiles or to grab a win was not enjoyable. In a game where trying to control your hand normally is like trying to drive a truck with your teeth, having more and more options taken away was like having them pulled out one by one by a 7-year-old with rusty pliers. Even the schadenfreude aspect of it all wasn't enough to make the game palatable. I believe that on a scale from bingo to go, mahjong is probably at the very edge of the playable range on the random side of things. I do think this is the reason Wizards removed mana burn in MTG as well.

The reason I am recalling this uninteresting anecdote is because I can sort of visualize some semblance of a link here with the issue at hand. If you can't, you haven't had enough to drink. People play games for fun. Being told "too bad, you made a mistake, you can't win" is never fun. Also I don't mind laughing openly at anyone who protests with any argument related to "skill".

On another unrelated note, our top secret discussion group always struggles with definitions for certain game concepts. At the moment we are trying to define "luck" in mahjong. Perhaps we're thinking too much, but it's harder than you might think.

Show wall

Various tile colours (In wall view mode. blue = dora indicator, green = tiles you will draw and         orange = dangerous tiles)

You can view only view the walls from games that were played after 8am on 03/02

I've played on a lot of mahjong clients and the only other client I've seen with the ability to look at the wall in replays was Marujan but that client just isn't worth the enormous price it costs to actually play there.

I just noticed Tsuno has added some shuugi test play games but they seem to be windows client only at the moment.