In this article, we’ll discuss some of the fundamentals of tile efficiency and the best way to form your hands to achieve an ideal shape as fast as is possible in mahjong game.
BASIC TILE EFFICIENCY and MAHJONG FUNDAMENTALS
The first thing to do is define the terms:
Shanten & Ukeire
Shanten and UKEIRE There are two main concepts to consider when it comes to tile efficiency in mahjong.
A term like shanten is a reference to how far away from winning, and specifically how many steps that your hands are the tenpai (only needing to win one tile for winning). Hands that are X+ shanten requires X more tiles to get to the level of tenpai which means the two-shanten hand will require two tiles to reach reach tenpai (and three tiles for winning). In general, when we make our mahjong hands we try to decrease our number of shanten number, and then move to the winning shape.
The word “ukeire” is a reference to the amount of tiles that will move the hand forwards and decrease the Shanten total by one. It is a common practice in English this is usually described as “tile acceptance”. In mahjong, it is common to maximize the hands’ ukeire which increases the possibilities of tiles we could draw, which will enhance the hand.
Settings
- Tiles Allowed – This permits you to remove specific suits from the wall. The more suits you have are present, the more difficult the right place to throw them away will typically be.
- Three-player rules – This eliminates the 2-8 people from the walls. It also stops you from using an North Wind as the seat breeze like when you played three players..
- Red Fives This adds the number of fives in red onto the wall. They are added to the order dots, then characters and bamboo. If you’ve got one removed from your suit then the red fives on the suit will be taken away and not substituted, therefore setting the red fives to 3 and bamboo off can result into 2 red fives.
- Verbose tile names – When activated tiles will be displayed in the form of “(number) of (suit)” as in “one of bamboo”. If they are disabled, they can be called in the shorthand “(number)(character representing suit)” similar to “1s”. “m” is for characters (manzu), “s” is for bamboo (souzu)”p” is for circles (pinzu), and “p” is for circles (pinzu).
- Short history Strips down the output of history into something that reads “Discard: 1p (36 tiles). Best: 9m, with 38 tiles. Draw: 5s.” The language isn’t as clear for novice players however, it’s simpler to read.
- Display what the most effective option was. If it is activated If enabled, the Hand History will name what the best tile was. Since this is likely to be the best tile for the next draw, it may help the drill go more smoothly and more precise.
- Shuffle the tiles you have thrown away back to the wall once you have started with a fresh hand. If you are disabled, your hand is added to the pile of discards when creating a new hand. Your new hand is likely to emerge from the tiles that remain on the wall. This makes the process difficult, since there’s more details to take into consideration.
- Simulate other players throwing tiles. If this is enabled when you are able to, each time you dispose of the tile, three additional tiles will be taken off the wall. This provides more information to think about. Be aware that ghost players do not have hands.
- Be aware of exception hands and allow the calculation of shanten to take into account Kokushi Chiitoitsu and Kokushi. Chiitoitsu is a unique hand comprised of seven pairs. Kokushi is a hand that is special comprised of one terminal and honor , with a two of each. They are slow to develop, and this feature lets you avoid them without having to be told that you’re not efficient.
- Sort hand – Select whether or not to show the hand that has been sorted. Check this option to try reading hands that aren’t sorted.
Loading A Hand
For loading a hand create a text representation for the hand. Enter all the numbers of the tiles within the suit, and then enter an appropriate letter for the suit. Repeat the process for each suit.
- To make character tiles, you can make use of the letters “m” for man, “w” for wan, or “c” for characters/cracks.
- For bamboo tiles, you can utilize the letters “s” for sou, or “b” for bamboo.
- For Circle tiles you can use”p” “p” for pin.
- For Honor tiles, use “z” or “h” for honors.
- Honor tiles are ordered. Honor tiles are arranged starting from 1 to 7. East, South, West, North, White, Green, Red.
- Fives in red are represented by an zero. A zero within the Honor suit is ineligible.
- To indicate your drawn dora or drawing sign Enter a number in between 0 to 37, where 09 represent characters, 1019 are circles, 2029 is bamboo, and 3137 are the honours.
- This number should be followed by “t” for the drawn tile (tsumo).
- Then, follow this number by adding “d” for the dora indicator.
- To indicate the seat and round winds, type in a number that is between one and four and then “j” for the seat wind (jikaze) or “r” or “b” for the round wind (bakaze).
For instance for example, For example, 340m778s236677p55z. The suit order is irrelevant as you can use as little or as many as you like. Any non-valid characters will be discarded, therefore you could use a string such as “345 man 778 sou 236677 pin 55 honor” could also (coincidentally) be a good idea, since the additional letters don’t indicate suits. If you offer an incomplete hand, i.e. less than 14 tiles the tiles are added randomly to complete the. Any hand that has greater than 14 tiles would result only in the final 14 tiles appearing. A hand that has more than 4 tiles will only contain 4 of the tile.