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!

Kan Keep

With everyone busy making pon palaces and chii castles, one might think the noble Kan is being neglected. Fear not! We shall make 175 Kans.

Rest assured, we'll keep on kanning as long as our tables can support the weight.

Tenhou's Jansou Mode

For at least a year, Tenhou have been in development of a Jansou Mode. Its completion date is unknown, but a mistake in a recent Windows client update gave players access to the jansou tab.

This was short-lived because the inclusion of jansou mode in that update was an accident. They had to remove it later, since jansou mode is still in development.

Fan the Flames

There are times when the progress of Japanese mahjong in the West seems to stagnate. Players may "burn out", lose interest in the game, or become unwilling to help others. Does the mahjong world need change? We all need to FAN THE MAHJONG FIRE to keep interest in mahjong going strong. Luckily, this place isn't totally devoid of activity.

An L7447 regular, 3xbreak, helped to host this year's mahjong panel at Otakon last week. Unfortunately there are no materials or pictures available from the panel, but there is a followup telling people to visit osamuko to learn more. (‾ε‾;)

McMasters coded mahjong into an online game called Billy vs. SNAKEMAN, and offered some words of encouragement: "You guys should really keep up the MJ strat talk, a lot of people I know hang on your every word."

Osamuko chief editor TACOS noted, "There is an endless list of things that could improve the current situation. This is great because anything anyone does will fill some niche somewhere." In terms of niche content, Kicchiri recently devoted his entire blog to digital mahjong. I'm sure the more scientific mahjong fans are duly impressed with this endeavor.

Cheating on Tenhou

A player named mittens appeared on Tenhou's ranking overnight, attaining an impossibly high rating and becoming the first player to reach the ultimate rank, tenhou-i (天鳳位). Many assumed a hacker had compromised Tenhou's security, but it turned out to be a collusion program designed to emulate a similar feat performed by "Katze" some time ago.

The incident was a popular topic on 2ch, a haven of condensed wisdom and intellectual discussion. Some other bloggers were mildly displeased with the "cheating"; one wrote, "To put it plainly, this was unfair, and there has never been anyone as terrible as this awful person."

Tenhou had to receive 2 hours of maintenance while Tsuno cleaned up the ranking server from this incident. Fortunately, the program had been isolated so that no human players were affected by its presence.

Tournaments

Another Kindai Mahjong tournament is being held today on Tenhou. One of the past kinma tournaments stated that top players would be able to make an appearance in an upcoming issue, but I don't know if this applies to the latest one.

Hakopara's next MahMusume cup will be next Saturday. This is a popular event because it features an all-female team of pro players and you can choose one to send you an autograph if you win.

The European championship is over and there aren't a whole lot of tournament reports. Start bugging ron⁵ if you don't see one from him soon, he's lazy and has a hazy memory. :V

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)

Matchups are done! Hasu, if you can read this, tell me you're alive...

The usual draw number thingy.
6 17 16 12 20 14 2 8 5 18 1 19 13 11 15 4 9 7 10 3
Early: bzzzra, osamu, pabli, tyblazitar, STS, HatHair, ron^5, puppi, xKime,  WorteX, Speedwagon, Humour
Late: XshinjiX, eirei, VgameT, mTerek, Hasu, Mamo, TRA, Senechal

I'm splitting puppi, Pabli and bzzzra, because I know one pair in there already played each other twice, I just don't want to do it three times.

Group A: bzzzra, osamu, tyblazitar, STS
Group B: pabli, HatHair, ron^5, puppi
Group C: xKime, WorteX, Speedwagon, Humour

Group D: XshinjiX, eirei, VgameT, mTerek
Group E: Hasu, MaMo, TRA, Senechal

I screwed up with something big, so Group E might be short because of my fault. I'll probably have to headhunt for a spare.

* These items won't always be "news" as you might have known about them for a while now.

* These updates aren't guaranteed to be on a weekly basis.

Mahjong Underwater... and In Space

Tired of building pon palaces and chi castles? Just try building a Space Shuttle!

And if you ever happen to be playing Mahjong underwater, try your hand at the elusive Temple of Poseidon.

What Would You Discard?

Some EXPERT STRATEGY right here.

South 4th round, turn 18.

Tsumo:

95 out of 100 people would choose 2m. Would you?

Tenhou on Tenhou

A Tenhou L7447 regular, 11218, made a Tenhou in 3P. Some people tend to discredit 3P yakuman as they are a lot more frequent, but a Tenhou occurring is always an amusing curiosity.

Replay: http://tenhou.net/0/?log=2010070823gm-0051-7447-3ac0260b&tw=1&ts=2

"Glamorous Celebrity Life" Not So Accurate

A Japanese player recently shared some insight into the "pro" scene in Japan, and it's not as glorious and epic as some media would make it seem. Apparently, being a "pro" in Japan is usually not so impressive, and if you learn too much about the real situation of pros, you stop thinking they're cool.

"You need people to post silly things like 'real pros can read your hand if you organize it'," he says. "If the mystery is gone, it's harder to get new players." Consider it posted!

We at Osamuko are hoping that if more research is done on this topic, you aren't going to get depressed and quit Mahjong over it.

Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Jan

Tenhou have announced a premium event for July 31 in celebration of the release of the Higurashi mahjong comic.

The top 3 players can win a signed print from the series creators. Or they can choose a 2-month Tenhou premium ticket instead, but who ever does that?

Flavour of the Month

Our latest FotM (aka "What we do when not playing mahjong") seems to be Alien Swarm. It's a third person shooter with an endless stream of aliens pouring in from all sides. Essentially, it's the same gameplay as the old classic, Robotron.

You can tell Valve knows how to draw a crowd when the majority of your Steam buddies are all playing Alien Swarm. At least we aren't playing something like FFXI, or you'd never hear from us again. Oh wait...

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.