Hope the advice given here can help you maximize your hand value.
Guide to Win Bigger Hands
Here we’ll be focusing on how to maximize hand value and consequently win bigger hands.
Explanation
Common ways of increasing hand value include declaring riichi, aiming for specific yaku and collecting dora. On the other hand, the most common way to lose hand value is by calling tiles. Many yaku can only be obtained with a concealed hand, and others are worth less when open. Thus, to maximize hand value, you should know exactly when (not) to call.
Call rate varies heavily depending on player playstyle. Still, there are many notable factors that affect whether you should call or not. Ask yourself these questions before calling:
- How much do I benefit from keeping my hand concealed (Or does it have a lot of value already)?
- Do I desperately need more points or do I have a great lead?
- How important and beneficial is it to call this tile?
- Could I instead draw it myself?
- How badly do I need to rush the hand (Being the dealer, opponents are in tenpai (ready), near the end of the round)?
You should not rush cheap hands every round, especially if you’re playing a South game (hanchan). In East games (tonpuusen) you’re sometimes able to get away with quick cheap hands and win, but in the longer South games, players have more comeback opportunities, so more importance is placed on scoring bigger hands.
1 Case
Most high-scoring hands consist of concealed yaku such as Riichi, Pinfu and Tsumo, which you will lose by calling. Think about this: One 4 han 30 fu hand is roughly equivalent to eight 1-han hands. So if you don’t have an acute reason to call, keep your hand concealed for more value. However, if you can, you should still call to secure a hand that already has a lot of value (e.g. three dora or Full Flush).
In the above example, we could call [5p] to advance the hand. However, we will lose value by not being able to gain yaku like Riichi and Pinfu any- more. Due to locking in All Simples upon calling, we also lose [9s] acceptance. It’s very early, the hand has no extra value except one red dora, and it’s also in great shape for Pinfu due to all the 2-sided waits, so it’s better to pass the call.
2 Case
Think before you kan! While kan gives you a new dora indicator, it’s almost never worth opening a concealed hand for this purpose, as you will usually gain much more value from riichi and ura dora. You also risk giving your opponents additional dora!
Here we could call [Green Dragon]. However, our hand is still concealed and has a good shape with open waits, so ideally we want to call riichi. You should absolutely skip calls like these unless your hand is already open and preferably in tenpai (ready).
3 Case
Pursuing yaku is another way to boost hand value. When accumulating many pairs, it’s important to know when you should pursue Seven Pairs vs All Trip- lets:
- Consider Seven Pairs when you have 4+ pairs, the pairs include middle tiles and no valuable honors (Yakuhai), and when you have a lone dora tile that’s unlikely to fit into a set.
- Consider All Triplets when you have 4+ pairs of which one is also (prefera- bly) a triplet, your pairs are easy-to-call edge tiles [11s88m] or Yakuhai, and all your waits are still alive.
Even though we could call [West] from the player on the right here, we shouldn’t. We have too many middle tile pairs, our honor pair is valueless, and the [South] dora would make an excellent Seven Pairs pair wait instead. All Triplets = ~2600pts, Seven Pairs with Riichi + Dora 2 = 8000pts, 12000pts with Tsumo (+Honba).
4 Case
Remember that flush hands can be very valuable even when open, as they can be combined with other yaku, such as Yakuhai and All Triplets. Full Flush in itself is also worth 5 han, or 6 when concealed. Thus, don’t hesi- tate to pursue flush hands when you have at least four groups of valuable honor tiles and/or tiles of the same suit. This is especially important when making early discards.
If you want to be most efficient, cutting [Green Dragon] followed by [8p] here would be the way to go. However, you should anticipate calling both [White Dragon] and [Red Dragon]. In that case, we’re only one set and a pair away from Half Flush + two Yakuhai, and possibly Little Three Dragons. So dedicate yourself to the more valuable hand and cut [4m] instead!
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