Mind the discard after call

07-10-2025

Today's post will be about something basic, but since this post is for general audience, it makes sense to make some discussion about the thinking process after someone call a tile. When we hear someone in the live saying: "this tile is now very dangerous", what are they really talking about?

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WWYD

South game: E1, Seat North, Dora South, Toimen pon red dragon discarded north, chi discarded 4s

Let’s see what we have on the board now.

Starting with our own hand: it’s 1-shanten (1 away from tenpai) if we discard 2m or 2s. No tanyao (all simples) chance so far; a small sanshoku chance if we draw the 6p. No dora in hand at the moment. So if we reach tenpai, it’s either a 7–9p wait on 8p, or a 5p/9m shanpon. That means, if we proceed to 1-shanten by discarding 2m or 2s, there are 2 copies of 9m, 2 copies of 5p, and 4 copies of 8p that can get us to tenpai, and the tenpai value is just a riichi-nomi (reach only).

Upgrade-wise, if we toss 2m, we’ll have a 2s left, and if we draw 3s, that’s the most preferable upgrade among all the draws (for 3s side) — with 3 copies of 3s left, 3 copies of 1s left, and 2 copies of 4s left unseen. On the other hand, if we toss 2s, we have the 2m, with 4 copies of 3m, 3 copies of 1m, and 4 copies of 4m left unseen. If we manage to get a good ryanmen, we can even set up a 5p cut suji trap for an 8p wait; or, if the pinzu side gets filled first, we add pinfu to the hand.

Judging by the pure tile count, 2m seems to be the better choice to keep for another turn.

However, I think it’s better to discard the 2m here first, because of the very suspicious discard from toimen.

If you see the caption on the screenshot, I mentioned that the 4s was cut after a 1–2 chi. Let’s start from this information and trace back.

What kind of tiles could toimen have held before the chi? → [1–2–4s xxx xxx x 777z] (note: 7z is red dragon)

If the 1–2–4s was the only souzu block they had, why did they keep the 1s but discard the 7m one round earlier?

If they had 1–2–4s in their hand, why would they choose to use 1–2s to chi instead of 2–4s? → Is there a 1–2–3 sanshoku chance? → It seems like 1–2p are very dead, and they already discarded 1–2m and 3p themselves. → Is there a chanta chance? → Not likely, for reasons mentioned earlier.

It only makes sense to infer that they have other tiles around lower souzu, and the 4s is somehow related to the mysterious, unknown block in their hand.

I think my takeaway from these recent plays is: even in the early game, avoiding dealing into an obviously suspicious hand can save you a lot of points (in MJS ladder).

Feel free to drop in any discussions! I would love to hear from you! All the opinions made here in the WWYD section is just personal opinion + personal play style.

And I will see you tomorrow!

Note: grammar is polished by ChatGPT.

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