Clever Shibori and Painful Nan-nyuu

I noticed something cool in a game with "Snapper" earlier today. I thought nothing of it at the time, but he used a clever little trick that can only be done in internet mahjong!

It was the start of South 2nd round. His first discard was a Hatsu, and since I started with a pair, I had the opportunity to Pon it. However, my hand was a mess and I didn't want to ruin it by opening too early. I was in no hurry to attack, either, since I had a solid lead over the others.



So I just passed it up and went on my way. But what do you think it looked like from his point of view? In internet mahjong, if you deal a tile that someone can Pon, the game pauses while they decide whether to call it and then resumes when they pass. That means he knew someone had at least 2 Hatsu already (if not all 3). Later in the round, he drew another Hatsu, and since no others were discarded, he knew someone was still holding on to a pair.



Since it was late game, it was highly likely that someone would be waiting on the pair. Especially suspicious would be the obvious Hon Itsu at his left. So he held on to that lone Hatsu, at the expense of his quickly progressing hand, and managed to deal safe tiles until the round ended in a draw. Clever Snapper!



Later I decided to play a quick tonpuusen. At least, I thought it would be quick. One guy dealt into two consecutive mangan in the first and second round, leaving him with 5000 points. Then in the third round, he got a baiman tsumo, immediately reversing the damage he had just done!



It brought everyone's scores rather close together, and since the game can't end if someone isn't above 30000 points, we had to continue on into a South round. It was rather painful for me since I had exactly 29900 points.