COPENHAGEN - Dutch player Harry Kal was amongst those who participated in the Open Danish riichi mahjong  championship 2009 and also, the next day, in the Riichi Seminar which was organized by Mahjong Denmark. At the request of MahjongNews.Com, he wrote down his impressions of the seminar, which was conducted by Tina Christensen, president of Mahjong DK, and Morten Andersen, the new Danish riichi champion and a referee at the first European Riichi Mahjong Championship 2008.

“The program started with a session to determine the winning tile in a tenpai (waiting) game. You sometimes tend to be fixed on just one tile. Not until after you rearrange your tiles, you sometimes will remark that you have two, or three, more tiles to win the game with.

Next item was: how to read your opponents’ tiles. E.g., when someone discards a 7: chances are great that this player has neither a 5 or 6 of the same series nor the 8 or 9, but he may very well have the 3 and the 4 - since the # 7 tile is 3 steps from the 4. All depends of course on how far the game has progressed.

When each player has discarded about one row of tiles (six tiles), usually at least one of them has a waiting game. This does not go for the ‘beginners’, e.g. Dutch players, who need two or three rows before they are waiting. (see: players profiles)

If someone has exposed two sets of the same color, he usually is going for a pure or semi-pure hand, so he may have a pon of dragons or seat winds in his hand.
There also was much attention for the rule of furiten. Basically, the rule is rather simple:

• It is forbidden to make ron on a tile that you have discarded before
• You are temporary furiten if you can claim mahjong on a tile but you don’t; in that case, you will have to wait until it is your turn again, or until someone else pons, chis or kongs a tile.
• You are furiten if, after a ready declaration, you fail to claim ron on a discarded tile you could have gone out with.
• In all these cases, you also cannot claim ron with any other tile.

The question ‘when to declare riichi’ is not so easy to answer. It depends on your position in that particular game (am I winning or losing this table?) or perhaps on your position in the general ranking of the tournament.

Morton Andersen claimed that it is not wise to declare riichi for just one yaku. According to him, riichi gets really interesting in case of more yaku, preferably with some dora tiles.

Riichi can also be used to frighten the other players and to force them to break off their hands. On the other hand, not declaring riichi may be a good way to let sleeping dogs lie.

When do you try to play your hand or break it off, hoping for better tiles in the next game? If you have a hand with no connected tiles at all, best thing to do may be to break off the hand, trying not to discard winning tiles. Usually it will take too long to turn this hand into a winning situation.

It is advised to discard honor tiles as soon as possible, and to try and go for chi-hands, which are much more flexible.

When do you kan a tile - and do you have to kan at all? Morton Andersen claimed he hardly ever kans a tile. Others do it when they hope they can go out with the extra tile you get after a kan. But a kan is quite dangerous, since it means extra kan dora and ura kan dora tiles for those who already have declared riichi.

The conclusion: much depends on your position in the game, and whether or not you already have declared riichi.

Players profiles

The Danes distinguish four types of payers. It may be useful to determine what kind of player you are.

• defensive players, who break off their hands as soon as they suspect that someone has a chance to go out with a lot of points
• offensive players, who always try to play their hand
• limit players, who always hope for a yakuman hand in order to win the tournament.
• beginners, who can be recognized by

• pon hands (toi toi)
• semi pure hands (honitsu)
• pure hands (chinitsu)

The Dutch players are notorious for the latter way of playing. Although they are easy opponents, they can be dangerous opponents since, if they win, they usually have a lot of points.

It is advised not always to sort your tiles in the same way, e.g., always putting your dragons or winds on the extreme right side. If you chi a tile and, after taking out the two remaining tiles of that series from your wall, leaving two tiles at the right, it is easy to guess that these are valuable honor tiles. It is better to vary the way you sort your tiles or, even better, not to sort them at all.”