Back from RNO

Yicheng Z.
Jul 30, 2025
2 min read

Let's start with numbers: 133 ( My rank out of 202 participants)

More numbers:

-54.1 - The final score I got.
35 - The table number that I got on the most time (4 times)
4133243142 - The number I put in the calculator app on my phone to track my standings.

This is my first Riichi Nomi Open (RNO), and I had great fun, met a whole lot of strong and interesting players and this deserves the title of the biggest IRL Riichi tournament in the year in the US.

It's hard to reflect about gameplay after an IRL tournament, but I was thinking about some decision making moments on my way home. Regarding the tournament I have several thoughts, and I'm going to list them here.

Thoughts after RNO

Basengo

This is my first encounter with Basengo (1500 points each honba instead of 300), this rule strongly shifted the game dynamic, but in a way that the variance of outcome becomes bigger. In a timed format, such rule that encourages winning a hand might actually balance the disadvantage of starting as the north player and not able to be the dealer for the second time. Almost all my games, except for one, finished at South 4. (Comparing with other tournaments that I played in that use normal rule and timed format.) I didn't expect my impression of Basengo to be like that, to be honest.

Tournament Playstyle

This is not my first time reflecting about my playstyle. I keep floating around the average line for most of the tournaments that I played in. (I think that statistically makes sense.) But if I want to have the chance of getting an out-standing rank in a tournament, I should not be afraid to tank the damage even if it's going to put me in the 200th place.

Other things

Well I am resting these days to recover from the long drive. Thank you for all your supports because now I'm really trying to squeeze things out of my head, and they are not polished, but it's something.