The game says this hand is 1 tile away from tenpai but I just don't see it.
Discard 8pin now, draw 7sou and discard 5pin, you're tenpai waiting on 5sou
this post was submitted on 02 Jan 2024
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Holy shit you're right. Now I see it, thanks. Was it easy for you to see? Let me know if you have tips. I always look for 5 blocks, but here those that I saw were 333pin, 566pin, 23sou, 44sou and 668sou...
Idk I also just applied 5 block method but came to a different conclusion than you. 333pin, 5668pin (expecting 2), 234sou, 4668sou (expecting 2). I gave the solution that reduces 5668pin group to one block because that's what the game is suggesting, but you can do the same with the sous instead by discarding 8sou now, draw 7pin and discard 4sou, now tenpai waiting on 4/7pin
I don't see why you split 234sou because that's literally already complete, I wouldn't even consider using 4sou as the head unless I draw another 4sou or I draw 1sou, even then I'd discard 1sou to preserve tanyao especially when there are other head candidates in the hand already
Edit: another thing to keep in mind, open waits are strong but they're not as strong as you think if you already have 2 of the tiles you need in hand. 6 tile acceptance is still better than 4 of edge/closed waits, but in this specific case, if you actually wanted to go for tanyao then it's actually 2 tile acceptance, and if you discard 1sou at any point to preserve tanyao you would be in furiten
Thanks to your explanation I see my issue now. To find my 5 blocks I prioritize open waits, so I tend to see those kinds of 4 tiles shapes as 1 block + 1 useless tile. But if in the process I had to split a completed block into 1 open wait + 1 pair, my shanten goes back...
Splitting a completed block this way is very useful when I don't have a pair yet, because the pair itself is a completed block so I essentially get a free open wait. But in this case I already had plenty of pairs so I just split a completed block into 2 uncompleted blocks, which I should do only when my hand doesn't even have 5 blocks to begin with
I personally wouldn’t prioritize saving the head over completing a 3 block because I’ve won plenty of games where I was tenpai waiting for the head and I’m able to adjust what I’m waiting on to something others are more likely to discard. Of course I wouldn’t intentionally aim for tenpai waiting for the head but if it plays out like that at least I can mess with people by waiting on a tile in a riichied player’s discard.
Edit: JPML's play like a pro episode 3 explicitly teaches against committing to a head instead of just completing the block. Episode 5 further expands the idea by not even having a pair at tenpai in their second example.
Thanks I didn't know about this video series, very interesting! Now that I think about it Riichi Book 1 also mentions a rule of having optimally no more than 2 pairs, and even without any, that there's no need to worry too much about securing a pair.
Apparently favoring the shuntsu over the pair is so obvious that in the below example Chiba doesn't even consider discarding the 5pin holy shit...
