Anyway, I managed to make it to EP’s for our regular session and surprised myself with a second placing at the table, considering how I was feeling. It was a close fight with AJ for a while, but a few good wins managed to pull me through. However, I was unable to bridge the gap between myself and EP. But I was feeling generous in view of his zero-win game last week with KP and AW, so I didn’t whine (not too much, anyway).
We had a new player SJ, so play was slightly slower at times when she was playing since she was picking up the game. But we are just happy to welcome a new player into our MCR pool. The day when EP has to consider getting another mahjong table will be another milestone in our MCR journey.
There was nothing really special going on during today’s session, except that we made a lot more fully melded hands than usual and almost all of them were winning hands.
I do want to continue the discussion on the making of big hands since my last post though. Very often, we face dilemmas where we have to choose between getting ready/winning faster and discarding ready hands to make more valuable hands. One good example which I always run into is having a ready hand with a single suit and a pair of honours. To discard the honours and go for full flush, or to win with a much smaller half flush hand?
Last week, KP had an all terminals and honours hand which nearly made it to Little Four Winds, provided that he gave up a ready hand rather far into the game. While I didn’t have anything as dramatic today, I had a few hands where I was struggling which way to go. Cheaper and faster; or more expensive but slower to get ready?
Hand #1
This was my starting deal. I was West, and it was the South round.
It was an obvious half flush hand, maybe including all pungs as well. But I was thinking whether it could be anything more – maybe a terminals and honours, or even all honours? I thought to see how the tiles went before I decided one way or the other. If I was able to draw some terminals or more honours, it might be possible to make an ATH or AH, maybe Little/Big Four Winds if I was REALLY lucky.
I konged the North Wind and then someone threw a 6D. It was very early in the game. Should I make the pung? This would decide which way the hand went.
I was too flustered to think properly. The fear of missing a pung lies crucial in my mind, so I punged the 6D. In short succession, I also punged the West Wind. Then I drew a South Wind.
ATH was history with the pung of the 6D. At this stage, most people would just throw away the South Wind and wait for 6D or 9D to go out.
I am not sure why I did what I did, but I kept the South Wind, and threw the 8D out. I think I was still fixated on not being able to make the ATH. Immediately after that, WJ threw a 9D. Arrrrgh! Lesson learnt – Missed opportunity? Move on!
During the hand analysis with EP, he commented that he would have refrained from the pung of 6D. Indeed, if going for half flush hand, the pung of the 6D would not have been critical. I could have kept my options open for ATH until a much later stage. That was my first mistake if I had wanted to keep the hand open for alternatives. My second mistake was probably to have kept the South Wind and thrown away a ready hand, after ATH or AH was no longer an alternative.
Anyway, this hand had a happy ending. I drew an East Wind and threw out the remaining 7D, then managed to pung the Red Dragon. Between the South and East Wind, both of which were fresh, I chose to keep the East and went out on another’s player discard. Not ATH, but at 22 points, I couldn’t complain.
To be continued….
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