After all the excitement in the preceding few weeks, it seems as if the streak of high-scoring hands was continuing, as there were two big wins in the 25th August session. Still, there were no major changes to the rankings, as everyone remains firmly in their positions. While JT obtained 6 table points from two games to advance her position, EP also took 6 table points to stay tantalisingly ahead!
| EP | 41 | +1585 | 16 |
| JT | 36.5 | +1451 | 15 |
| AJ | 15 | -699 | 12 |
| WJ | 14 | -1179 | 12 |
| KP | 9 | -8 | 5 |
| AW | 3.5 | -580 | 5 |
| EL | 0 | -570 | 3 |
Session Report for 25 August 2007
The first game was full of interesting starting hands. For EP, these most unlikely hands turned into winning ones. From many unpromising-looking hands, he managed to fashion several winning hands to win the first game. AJ was most unfortunate, for not only did she almost not win any hand, she discarded the winning tiles six times, four of which went to EP, letting EP amass so many contest points!
One of the more interesting hands won by EP happened early in Game 1. He was basically attempting to make an All Fives hand, but it seemed that hand was going to end in a draw. On the very last tile, WJ discarded a 2d (2 Dot) which appeared to be a safe discard, especially since it was the last 2d. EP took one look and quickly claimed it for a Last Tile Claim win coupled to a Last Tile. Together with a few other fan, it turned out to be a sizeable 19-point hand! No All Fives, but still a good win!
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The lesson: the last tile discard is always a potential winning tile for ready hands, since the Last Tile Claim fan has enough points for any ready hand to win, whatever the composition of that hand. So, it would be best to scrutinise the discards to see which tile is really safe. In this case, 2d was not truly safe. Although there were three 2d tiles already discarded, the tiles adjacent to 2d were not all discarded, meaning that there were players still holding onto nearby dot tiles (most probably as sequences). EP did and indeed won with the 2d, which completed a sequence of 2d-3d-4d.
Besides interesting starting hands, the kinds of hands won were also interesting to observe. For example, there was a string of Lower Four hands won by three different players. There was also a string of Pure Straight hands, but this is not as surprising as the players are all rather oriented towards chow-based hands.
The second game started out well for WJ, who won three of the first five hands. The sixth hand, South 2, was a turning-point, for JT. JT had received a very good starting hand.
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The fan was obvious: go for Triple Pung of the nines, and All Terminals and Honours was also possible. However, the hand was very drawn-out. JT managed to draw a GD, and melded that when one was discarded. Almost to the end of the hand, she had not managed to meld any other sets, but she was actually ready. On JT's right was WJ, striving to make a Melded Hand. She had come to a point when she was ready, with a single concealed tile, with the rest melded on the table. When she had to discard one of the two tiles after drawing, she decided to discard the 9d as she figured she had more chance of winning with the other tile. 9d had not been discarded at all, so she figured someone else was keeping all the others (which was true). JT melded the 9d for a melded kong, then drew a replacement tile, which turned out to be a winning tile for her. The results: All Terminals and Honours, Triple Pung, Out with Replacement Tile and a few others for a total of 64 points. It was heavy damage, considering this was a self-drawn win. With this, JT overtook everyone else comfortably by collecting 216 points, and she maintained the lead all the way to the end of the game.
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For this hand, WJ's Melded Hand basically left her with little defensive alternatives. As JT's hand was mainly concealed, it was hard to predict the dangerous tiles to discard, although the lack of discards of the nines was a good clue. Discarding a terminal tile so late in the hand was therefore very dangerous! WJ admitted she did not read the discards carefully, and it was a painful lesson for her, since she was in the lead initially. If JT had directly won with the 9d discard, she still would not have made such a big gain, but it turned out to be an Out with Replacement Tile win instead.
As a consolation, WJ managed to win with a hand including an All Terminals and Honours fan, worth a total of 38 points, in the very last hand (North 4), but was not able to get enough points to get 2nd place. WJ at least managed to take back 2 table points for this session, while AJ had none at all!
| EP | 4 | +331 | 9 (2) | 2 |
| JT | 2 | +109 | 4 (2) | 1 |
| WJ | 1 | -153 | 2 (0) | 3 |
| AJ | 0 | -287 | 1 (0) | 6 |
| JT | 4 | +191 | 4 (2) | 4 |
| EP | 2 | +68 | 5 (1) | 2 |
| WJ | 1 | -67 | 5 (0) | 4 |
| AJ | 0 | -192 | 2 (0) | 3 |
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