Each week, I’ll be going through the replays of a different Tenhoui, looking at key positions and trying to understand the thought process behind their decision making. The Tenhoui I’ll be examining for this week is the CLS, a Houou veteran who has played almost 10000 games in the room. He’s characterized by his extremely defensive playstyle (even by Tenhou standards), folding early and avoiding unnecessary risks unless the situation absolutely calls for it.

Player: CLS, the 17th Tenhoui
Twitter: https://twitter.com/cls10327299_cls

Previous Week’s Analysis (yoteru)

Replay: https://tenhou.net/4/?log=2020080400gm-00a9-0000-8afd67c7&tw=3

East 1-0

Instinct: Call 2s, drop 2p. We don’t see any dora, so it’s likely that the opposing players have some pretty large hands that we’d like to disarm. Given how early it is, we should be able to win this hand uncontested, and if not we’ll have a safe tile in the Pei. If we slow down and wait for closed riichi, we’ll likely have to butt heads with some pretty large hands, which would be unpleasant. And while we can always draw into improvements, going for closed riichi with three gukei for tanyao nomi is a little too risky.

CLS: Pass. No reason to go for a 1k hand in East 1 that shorterns our hand and could potentially put us at risk of dealing in, especially if we commit to calling twice for tenpai. We have potential to draw into all the aka-dora, which would boost the value of our hand and improve the shapes, transforming our hand into a strong fighting hand. If not, we can always fold and let the other players duke it out. Let’s be patient and assess the situation properly before commiting to any rash calls like this.

Takeaway: Don’t be overly trigger happy with calls; like pushing a pawn in chess, once you call you can never take it back. There’s no reason to go out of you way to disarm your opponent’s hands, especially when the remaining shapes after you call are bad. Your hand will almost always have better value potential and safety when played menzen.

Instinct: Chi aka 5m, drop 8m. It’s an aka dora that also improves the shape of our hand; how can we pass this up?

CLS: Pass. Kamicha has opened up with a ryanmen chi on 9m, and cut an aka taatsu (35m). Simocha has opened up with the double-east. There’s no way we’ll ever have enough value or good enough shapes to fight into either of these hands, so the only choice left is to fold.

Takeaway: Resist the urge to instantly call; assess the situation first and make try to judge the distance of your hand from your opponents. Again, the same wisdom rings true – there’s no point in fighting with aryanshanten hand if your opponents look like the have a strong iishanaten / tenpai. Mid-game dora drops are especially telling that your opponents are iishanten / tenpai.

East 3-0

Instinct: Cut 2p. We really don’t want to feed 4th place simocha any manzu tiles, as it’s pretty clear they’re going for manzu honiitsu, and it also happens the dora suit. We should only really push this hand if it has some sort of value, and the easiest way to generate that value is via 456 sanshoku or aka draws. In either case, 2p is the only tile that doesn’t facilitate any sort of value, so we cut it here.

CLS: Cut 9m. Simocha’s honiitsu looks pretty far given their discards, and so it’s still early enough that we can afford to cut manzu. 9m is also probably the least likely manzu tile to get called. Reason being, since we see 2 9m, it’s unlikely that they have a pair. So the only way they can use it is with 78m, which is a strong shape they’d like to preserve and fill up themselves without calling. We should aim for 456 sanshoku, but we can also generate value via aka draws / 3m draw, which would give us a mangan out with riichi + tsumo + dora + ura, and enough reason to keep the strong 246p shape.

Takeaway: Don’t be overly intimidated by far honiitsu calls. Especially in aka-ari, we can still draw into our value outs, and if we play closed there’s always the chance of ura to bump us up.

Instinct: Cut 1m. Still too early to say what kamicha’s hand is; given the discards, it’s unclear whether or not the hand has any value. Simocha might just be trying to pass the round given their 1st place. Regardless, we don’t want to drop the dora into kamicha, and so the only way we really push into them is if we draw a dora pair. As such, we cut the 1m which kamicha passed up calling here and keep our strong ryanmen shapes in case we do draw into that dora.

CLS: Your instincts are right. Tsumogiri 1m.

Takeaway: While you should treat calls with respect, you should also play for the lines that you’ll push. In this case, since we have a value out in the dora pair and we don’t want to miss pushing if we draw into that out, we cut the relatively safe 1m. It’s also important to consider the rationale behind a call, instead of always assuming honiitsu / value because there’s a yakuhai + expensive suit called.

Summary

• Don’t be overly ambitious when trying to disarm your opponents’ hands, and make sure to be cognizant of the tradeoffs. Sacrificing both safety and the potential value in your hand by calling for 1k is often not worth it, especially in flat situations.
• Don’t auto-call dora / aka-dora; assess the situation and try to judge your opponents’ hands. If they did drop the dora in the mid-game, they must have a good reason for doing so, and it’s likely that their hand is threatening enough to justify dropping the dora.
• Don’t be overly intimiated by far of honiitsu calls, and sakigiri hard to call tiles (terminals) into them if you have enough value potential in your hand to justify doing so.
• Make sure to consider each player’s goals when trying to suss out the makeup of their hand, instead of always making worst case assumptions.