Riichi Strategy Seminar

On the day after the Danish Riichi Mahjong Championship 2009, Mahjong Denmark is organizing a riichi mahjong strategy seminar. It will be based on the experience from a two-day riichi strategy seminar organized by Mahjong Denmark in June 2008.

The riichi seminar will be organized by Tina Christensen, president of Mahjong Denmark and Morten Andersen, head referee on the European Riichi Mahjong Championship 2008. It will be held in Copenhagen on Sunday October 4, 2009, 10am-3pm, the day after the Danish Riichi Championship. It will be based on the experience from a two-day riichi strategy seminar organized by Mahjong Denmark in June 2008.

The seminar will cover:

• The efficiency of chow hands
• Optimizing your hand and knowing your wait
• The furiten rule
• Basic defense: reading discards and squeezing
• When to declare riichi

First, offensive strategies will be dealt with. When building your hand, it's important to recognize which elements are most likely to advance your hand. Realizing the efficiency of chow-based hands and the flexibility of concealed hands is significant. It is also crucial to know your wait and realize how to obtain multiple-wait situations. These aspects of optimization of the hand will be illustrated with examples.

Before shifting the attention to defensive strategies, understanding the furiten rule is crucial, so a review will be given to make sure all participants understand it fully, since it's a tricky rule that often confuse players.

Defensive strategies involve the reading of opponents' discards. This enables you to keep the tiles opponents are likely to need (squeezing). The speakers will give examples and introduce exercises.

When the bases of offensive and defensive strategies are known, attention will be turned to that ultimate question: how do you balance between them? When should you play aggressive, and when should you resort to defense? We will illustrate with examples, make exercises, discard quizzes and discussions. A central issue is when to declare riichi. Another is whether to go for a cheap and fast hand or opt for the slower, more valuable hand.

The speakers will adapt a teaching level suitable for the participants present. Intermediate and experienced players should benefit from the seminar as well as fairly inexperienced players. Tina Christensen: "For beginners we advice: we expect the riichi rules and the list of yaku and scoring tables to be familiar to the participants. For very experienced players most issues are likely well-known, but they may still benefit from the discussions, particularly if they don't usually partake in strategy discussions."