Week 7 - Silver Queen

My despair from the previous week has passed. I've patched up some large holes in my play, and have renewed confidence. But, I'm still not where I'd like to be.

Before we get into my progress, you may notice some new tags in the sidebar. I made posts for each exercise that I've described in these posts, so you don't have to dig through the diary entries to find them. We're gonna be doing this for quite a while, so some more organization will help!

Notably, the "Information Gathering" exercise now has the levels outlined. Check that out if you're curious where it's headed.

Additionally, in the last post, I mentioned making an Anki deck for shapes. I've made a post in "Resources" with a link to that deck. Hopefully it can help you! Here's all the shapes that are contained within. If you have to think for any of them, consider using the deck:

I can see these shapes easier now, particularly the common ones like 5557p. Sometimes I focus too hard on keeping those shapes, even when I shouldn't. So, the next step is figuring out when those shapes are bad! This was touched on briefly in the replay review Dasuke did earlier

One last thing. I put out an update for the efficiency trainer that includes an All Last trainer to help you speed up your calculations at the start of South 4. I'm not using it in my exercises yet, but I'm sure I will eventually. Dasuke is, after all.

Now, onto how I'm doing. Something interesting is occurring. I'm getting seconds a LOT. On my Erzzy account, I had a 17.5% second rate. On my Ambrosia account, I have a 32.1% second rate. It's good that I'm getting less fourths, but I'm also getting less firsts. Perhaps I've become more consistent? That's likely a good thing. It means I just need to improve.

Ambrosia stats. .214 / .321 / .321 / .142

It's hard to improve on a lot of things at a time, so let's start focusing these replay reviews on one singular aspect of my game. Today, we'll be looking at hand-opening decisions. I feel like I was playing poorly today, so it's a perfect time to look at replays. The replay we'll be watching is here: https://tenhou.net/0/?log=2019062805gm-0089-0000-9a673360&tw=3

Here, this chii gets rid of a bad wait, and brings us to 2-shanten with 2 han and a bad wait. As for safety, we can keep the red dragon around for a while as an honor to discard if someone riichis. The 7m pair is also suji vs both kamicha and toimen. All-in-all, this was an acceptable call, with shory (7d) calling it "okay."

For toitoi dash, we need four pairs before turn 6, with three of them being easy to call, as well as at least one han other than toitoi. We have four pairs, two of them are easy to call, and we have an additional han. I think with the 7p removing one of those "hard to call" pairs, it becomes acceptable. The option for a normal hand isn't entirely gone, either. However, shory is unsure about this call. At my current level, I'll consider him being unsure a sign that it was an okay call!

This call was certainly not good. It gets us to iishanten, yes, but we have no pair. Of the 7 tiles that improve the hand, 3 result in a tanki wait, and 2 result in a kanchan. We also have no value outside of the hatsu, and we can only defend against shimocha. This hand would have been better served simply waiting for riichi, or at least a second pair before calling.

Calling chii on the 9s locks in the chanta iishanten. With hatsu being dora, we have value, and the chun is also callable. Even though the resulting wait is bad, chanta chun dora 2 is already mangan. If we draw well, we have the possibility for shousangen or daisangen as well. We're also in third in South 3, so speeding towards value is perfectly fine. Good call!

This situation is exceptional, since it's South 4. Kamicha has a guaranteed mangan. No matter how he wins, or if he's the only one tenpai at a draw, we get third. Dealing into the mangan won't make us fourth, so we push. The only question is whether to cut 3p or 7p. I took the early 2p cut as a sign that he didn't have anything near the 2p, but I don't watch tedashi. Maybe 7p would be safer.

So, that's two good calls, two okay calls, and one bad call. Simply reviewing them like this will already help reinforce them in my mind. I just have to make sure to be consciously thinking during the game. My call rate is still lower than Houou players, so maybe next time we'll look at times I could have reasonably opened my hand, but didn't.