Week 1 - Eyes open, Amber!

I've now been training under Dasuke's guidance for a week. I've been given several drills and warm-up exercises, as well as requirements to fulfill in-game, and my results have been surprising.

Before I get into the actual post, I'm going to change the order I gave in my first post. Mostly reversing it, in fact. The "What have I been working on?" sections will come first, to be maximally useful to people. No scrolling required! Nice. Also, these are aimed at intermediate players, so if you don't have a good understanding of Riichi Book I, reading that instead will likely be more helpful. Now, let's get into it.

I'll start by going over the "warm-ups." They're more like isolated drills, but they do get me into the Mahjong mindset before playing. I currently have three to complete before playing each day, and they are as follows:

1. Efficiency Trainer Shanten + Ukeire Counting - In the Mahjong Efficiency Trainer, go step by step through a hand. Before making each discard, calculate the hand's shanten as well as the ukeire of the best discard in your head. To pass this warm-up, make the best discard each time, count the ukeire correctly each time, and calculate the shanten correctly each time. No mistakes allowed! (I swear he actually said to do this, I'm not just advertising. Also I don't count it if there are only one or two discards I have to make.)
2. Scoring App - Without using a scoring table as a reference, play through the Maru-Jan Score Trainer. To pass this warm-up, get six answers correct in a row. If you clear the warm-up in the first set of 15 for that session, increase the requirement by one, up to 15. If you don't know the score table at all, I have a guide here. (The six was based on where I was, so you might want to lower or raise the starting number based on your level.)
3. HMS Hand Speed Estimations - Using Hitori Mahjong Simulator, step through one complete hand choice by choice. From the 3rd shanten down, guess how many turns it would take the hand to have a 25% chance at tenpai, as well as a 50% chance. Check your answer with the table in the extended calculations. To pass this warm-up, just complete a hand.

The purpose of each should be fairly obvious. The HMS training gives you a better understanding of how fast your hand can be, the Efficiency Trainer helps you to reach that speed, and the scoring lets you know how valuable it is and ties into push/pull decision making. This is mostly laying the groundwork for future skills.

You can do them in any order. I have guides written for the ones that are in Japanese, and have linked them in the paragraphs. The warm-ups aren't too bad! Yet...

Once you finish the warm-ups, you can hop on Tenhou and start playing. But, the training doesn't end! While in game...

1. Give your full focus to the game! Set Tenhou to be full-screen. Don't alt-tab to Discord. Mute it if you need to, or turn your other monitor(s) off. You should be paying total attention to the game in front of you. Here's an article written by Dasuke that mentions this and more.
2. Gather information! At the start of each round, read out what round it is, what your seat wind is, and what the dora is. Every time an opponent discards a tile, say the name of that tile, out loud. You should get used to watching every discard. If that gets too easy for you, say how many of that tile are remaining. "Third 8-man. First 2-sou. Fourth nan." Your eyes will surely get a workout. Again, this is laying the groundwork. If you aren't paying attention to the discards, you can't glean information from them!
3. Take notes! Have a notepad open near you while you're playing, with some manner of writing utensil. When you have a point in the hand you're not sure about, write it down. After the game, you can go back to those points and review. Ask yourself what your thought process was that led to the decision you made. Then, identify the best decision, and if different, try to find a way you can change your though process so that you reach the best decision next time.

Of course, your notes don't have to be as eloquent and intelligent as mine.

They're relatively small things. But, they do make a big difference. I used to get into my own head a lot, staring at my hand and thinking of the different yaku paths I could take, and how I could call. A lot of the times I would overthink it. But, I don't have time for overthinking now. Counting the discarded tiles takes up all that energy.

Similarly, any tilty thoughts can't take root when my mind is full of tiles and numbers. You'd think spending all that mental energy would make your gameplay worse, but I found it actually solidified it, and returned me to a more fundamental playstyle.

Since starting to do these, I've gone from 3dan 255/1200 to 3dan 615/120. That's 360 points in a week. Not bad. At the start of the month, I was 1+3+4+6=14. (Firsts + Seconds + Thirds + Fourths = Total Games) Since starting the training, I've gone 10+4+4+4=22. A drastic improvement, though it could be unrelated.

I can also count my score now, most of the time! I usually only get one or two wrong in the score trainer. A new era, to be sure.

Can you guess where the training started?

I suppose now it's time for some replay review. Here's the replay for this week: https://tenhou.net/0/?log=2019051506gm-0089-0000-6d99b799&tw=3

At this point in this hand, what would you discard? I decided to discard the 5p pair, to chase honitsu. It worked out, and I tsumo'd a baiman. However, I totally missed the possibility of chiitoitsu. This hand is currently iishanten for chiitoitsu. A chiitoitsu with two dora is close to an open honitsu with one dora and chun. It would be better to discard the east here to leave that option open. Chiitoitsu is one of those yaku I don't think about too often, but I should really consider all the possibilities.

This isn't as much a mistake as it is something to think about. Would you riichi with 8m here? I chose to stay dama, and later, when I drew 0s, folded and meandered my way to a chiitoitsu tenpai. The lack of souzu on the board made the 0s seem pretty spooky to me. Dasuke says it's fine to just protect the lead.

But, then we get to this hand! Dealer is in riichi and toimen is pushing. If I folded in the previous image, why wouldn't I fold here? Crazy. I can just discard the 2s and retreat. There's no need to give my opponents the chance to come back at this point. I think this is part of push-pull decision making, which I haven't been working on yet. But, someday!

Well, that's what's been happening this week. Dasuke has been hinting at there being some pretty cruel training coming my way in the near future. I wonder what that will be...? I guess you can find out next week!

Oh yeah, if you were wondering about that smiley face in my notes...

:)