Alice in Borderland - Vol. 15 Ch. 51.1 - Side Story 6 - King of Diamonds (1)

[MangaDex]

 

[googoober]

oh he was one of the kings.. i thought he died

 

[Mayhemking]

A bit cocky aren't we now?

 

[Naniii]

Lacking a bit of info here, you get the gist of it but it's still confusing. The concept of the beauty contest is that suppose there is a beauty contest where people vote on who they think is the most attractive, and those who voted with the majority would get a prize (lacking info): An ordinary person would vote for who they think is attractive, a more calculating person would look for who the public would vote for, which can be taken a step further for people to consider who these calculating people think the public would vote for, and so on. This means that they're not considering who they think looks attractive but who the majority would think is attractive, to win the prize. It's similar to equity markets in that people won't price their shares to how much they personally believe the value of the share is, but rather how the public would price it.

 

[Mr_Stizblee]

I still believe that mahjong is just Asian calvinball.

 

[silverhawke]

for people who are reading this now and don't know mahjong here's a (Japanese) mahjong primer:

• a mahjong game lasts one or two rounds, and these rounds are assigned wind directions, starting from East. games typically last two rounds. two-round games are called a "hanchan".
• the last round (East 4 for a one-round game, or South 4 for a two-round game) is also called "all last".
• each player is assigned a seat wind as well; East/South/West/North in order, counterclockwise. the dealer is the East player.
• after each hand, dealership normally passes to the player to the right, i.e. East player becomes North player, South player becomes East player, etc. (there are situations where a player retains dealership)
  • when the dealer wins a hand, they retain dealership. however, if it is all last and the dealer is in first, the game concludes immediately.
• there are three suits for the tiles numbered 1 to 9 (numbers, dots, bamboos), three dragon tiles, and four wind tiles. each tile has four copies. the non-suit tiles are called "honor" tiles.
• players take turn drawing tiles and discarding tiles.
• a player's hand has 13 tiles at all times. a complete mahjong hand typically consists of four melds (a triplet or a sequence) of three tiles and a pair, which totals to 14 tiles -- the 14th tile that completes a hand must be drawn or comes from an opponent's discard.
• you can also call tiles from opponent's discards to form your melds. however, doing this "opens" your hand, which may lower the value of your hand and make you ineligible for some yakus (see next point).
• you score points by satisfying some criterias ("yaku") with your hand. these criterias can overlap, allowing you to stack points for big value hands. the units for scoring is "han" and "fu".
• there is a formula for calculating the value of your hand based on how many han and fu you have. however, with enough han, the formula stops applying and your hand is given value solely depending on how many han you have. they are, in order:
  • mangan (3 han 70+ fu, 4 han 40+ fu, 5 han) worth 8000 points
  • haneman (6 or 7 han) worth 12000 points
  • baiman (8-10 han) worth 18000 points
  • sanbaiman (11, 12 han) worth 24000 points
  • yakuman (13+ han) worth 32000 points
• each hand, a tile (or more, but i wont get into the specifics of this) is designated as "dora". each tile increases your hand by 1 han.
• if you win by your own draw (tsumo) you receive points from everyone. if you win by someone else's discard (ron) that person pays you in full. winning concludes a hand.
• you are not allowed to ron someone if any of the tiles that complete your hand is in your discard pile. this rule is called "furiten". this also means you can read someone's discard pile and predict which tiles are safe to discard and which aren't.
• aside from throwing the first discard in a hand, the dealers hands are worth more points (~1.5x than usual), meaning that a dealer mangan is worth 12000 points instead of 8000. but on the other hand, dealer pays more (~2x than usual) when non-dealers tsumo. these multipliers are not exact and may be rounded off with smaller values, as smallest point denomination is 100.
• regional variations mean that there are house rules on mahjong as well -- the most important one in this chapter is "same round tsumo win disallowed". with the typical ruleset, you can decline to ron someone and tsumo on your next draw anyway.

now on the happenings in the actual chapter...

• J♦️ has 2223456777 of bamboo + WWW hand (W for west wind). in particular, this pattern of 2223456777 is quite well-known as being the only pattern that can take 1~8 of that particular suit to complete the hand:
  • getting 1 means that 22 is the pair, the rest is 123 456 777
  • getting 2 means that 77 is the pair, the rest is 222 234 567
  • getting 3 means that 33 is the pair, the rest is 222 456 777
  • getting 4 means that 22 is the pair, the rest is 234 456 777
  • ...the remaining tiles are symmetrical to these patterns.
• his tiles are all bamboos and honors, so this is a half flush hand. he did not make a tile call, so his hand is closed. this is worth 3 han.
• he has a west wind triplet and he is the west player, so that's another 1 han.
• he declared riichi (this declares to your opponents that your hand is ready to win and also fixes your hand), so that's another 1 han.
• so far his hand totals 5 han, which is worth 8000 since he is not dealer. Chishiya is the dealer, and it is "all last", which means the game would end afterwards.
• J♦️ wants to guarantee the first place, so he decided to aim for a tsumo instead of a ron. a tsumo with a closed hand is worth 1 han, which would bring his hand to a haneman.
• now the important thing with declaring riichi is that, if you win, you reveal the tile under the dora tile (called "uradora"). this tile indicates additional dora tiles that are only available to players who declare riichi.
• J♦️ notes that the uradora is likely not a bamboo tile, which is a reasonable assumption.
• Chishiya then discards the same tile as J♦️, as it is a guaranteed safe discard.
• J♦️ drew a non-bamboo tile, and discards that immediately.
• Chishiya then boldly discards one of J♦️'s winning tiles (also called "atarihai"). J♦️ could have ron'd Chishiya on this, but as mentioned earlier this isn't enough to bring him to first (it isn't 3 or 6 bamboos), and he assumes uradora is not bamboo, so he declined the ron. declining this ron also means that he cannot ron anyone onwards, which is fine by J♦️ since he was looking to tsumo anyway.
  • there's a reason why Chishiya discarded a safe tile at first: winning within a turn of a riichi declaration that is not interrupted by a tile call grants you another yaku (ippatsu) worth 1 han. so discarding an unsafe tile would increase J♦️'s hand to a haneman, which would cause game over for everyone but J♦️.
• J♦️ then draws a "takame" tile -- a tile that results in a bigger hand value compared to other winning tiles. earlier he noted 3 and 6 bamboo, as these tiles would result in the three concealed triplets yaku, worth 2 han. this, plus closed tsumo, would bring his hand to a baiman (8 han). however, due to the house rules, he had to discard his winning tile.
• this then repeats until J♦️ draws his last tile from the tile wall... but then north player declares ron on his discarded 1 bamboo tile.
• his hand is kokushi musou (thirteen orphans), which is one of the few yakus that break the four-melds-one-pair rule -- a hand consisting of 1 and 9 of each suit, plus each honor tile, plus a second copy of any of these tiles. this hand is worth a yakuman.
• ultimately, south and north player has already resolved to take down the borderland citizen at the cost of their lives, so north player declared a ron to end the game right then and there.
• turns out the uradora IS a bamboo tile, which means the 7 bamboos the J♦️ had wouldve given him 3 han, which would've make his hand worth a baiman, had he ron'd Chishiya on the 8 bamboo he discarded at first.

jesus fuck the amount of preloaded knowledge you needed to have to understand what exactly happens in this game, and its literally only half of a chapter lmao

 

[ChiefGamer]

I read the entire thingan

for people who are reading this now and don't know mahjong here's a (Japanese) mahjong primer:

• a mahjong game lasts one or two rounds, and these rounds are assigned wind directions, starting from East. games typically last two rounds. two-round games are called a "hanchan".
• the last round (East 4 for a one-round game, or South 4 for a two-round game) is also called "all last".
• each player is assigned a seat wind as well; East/South/West/North in order, counterclockwise. the dealer is the East player.
• after each hand, dealership normally passes to the player to the right, i.e. East player becomes North player, South player becomes East player, etc. (there are situations where a player retains dealership)
  • when the dealer wins a hand, they retain dealership. however, if it is all last and the dealer is in first, the game concludes immediately.
• there are three suits for the tiles numbered 1 to 9 (numbers, dots, bamboos), three dragon tiles, and four wind tiles. each tile has four copies. the non-suit tiles are called "honor" tiles.
• players take turn drawing tiles and discarding tiles.
• a player's hand has 13 tiles at all times. a complete mahjong hand typically consists of four melds (a triplet or a sequence) of three tiles and a pair, which totals to 14 tiles -- the 14th tile that completes a hand must be drawn or comes from an opponent's discard.
• you can also call tiles from opponent's discards to form your melds. however, doing this "opens" your hand, which may lower the value of your hand and make you ineligible for some yakus (see next point).
• you score points by satisfying some criterias ("yaku") with your hand. these criterias can overlap, allowing you to stack points for big value hands. the units for scoring is "han" and "fu".
• there is a formula for calculating the value of your hand based on how many han and fu you have. however, with enough han, the formula stops applying and your hand is given value solely depending on how many han you have. they are, in order:
  • mangan (3 han 70+ fu, 4 han 40+ fu, 5 han) worth 8000 points
  • haneman (6 or 7 han) worth 12000 points
  • baiman (8-10 han) worth 18000 points
  • sanbaiman (11, 12 han) worth 24000 points
  • yakuman (13+ han) worth 32000 points
• each hand, a tile (or more, but i wont get into the specifics of this) is designated as "dora". each tile increases your hand by 1 han.
• if you win by your own draw (tsumo) you receive points from everyone. if you win by someone else's discard (ron) that person pays you in full. winning concludes a hand.
• you are not allowed to ron someone if any of the tiles that complete your hand is in your discard pile. this rule is called "furiten". this also means you can read someone's discard pile and predict which tiles are safe to discard and which aren't.
• aside from throwing the first discard in a hand, the dealers hands are worth more points (~1.5x than usual), meaning that a dealer mangan is worth 12000 points instead of 8000. but on the other hand, dealer pays more (~2x than usual) when non-dealers tsumo. these multipliers are not exact and may be rounded off with smaller values, as smallest point denomination is 100.
• regional variations mean that there are house rules on mahjong as well -- the most important one in this chapter is "same round tsumo win disallowed". with the typical ruleset, you can decline to ron someone and tsumo on your next draw anyway.

now on the happenings in the actual chapter...

• J♦️ has 2223456777 of bamboo + WWW hand (W for west wind). in particular, this pattern of 2223456777 is quite well-known as being the only pattern that can take 1~8 of that particular suit to complete the hand:
  • getting 1 means that 22 is the pair, the rest is 123 456 777
  • getting 2 means that 77 is the pair, the rest is 222 234 567
  • getting 3 means that 33 is the pair, the rest is 222 456 777
  • getting 4 means that 22 is the pair, the rest is 234 456 777
  • ...the remaining tiles are symmetrical to these patterns.
• his tiles are all bamboos and honors, so this is a half flush hand. he did not make a tile call, so his hand is closed. this is worth 3 han.
• he has a west wind triplet and he is the west player, so that's another 1 han.
• he declared riichi (this declares to your opponents that your hand is ready to win and also fixes your hand), so that's another 1 han.
• so far his hand totals 5 han, which is worth 8000 since he is not dealer. Chishiya is the dealer, and it is "all last", which means the game would end afterwards.
• J♦️ wants to guarantee the first place, so he decided to aim for a tsumo instead of a ron. a tsumo with a closed hand is worth 1 han, which would bring his hand to a haneman.
• now the important thing with declaring riichi is that, if you win, you reveal the tile under the dora tile (called "uradora"). this tile indicates additional dora tiles that are only available to players who declare riichi.
• J♦️ notes that the uradora is likely not a bamboo tile, which is a reasonable assumption.
• Chishiya then discards the same tile as J♦️, as it is a guaranteed safe discard.
• J♦️ drew a non-bamboo tile, and discards that immediately.
• Chishiya then boldly discards one of J♦️'s winning tiles (also called "atarihai"). J♦️ could have ron'd Chishiya on this, but as mentioned earlier this isn't enough to bring him to first (it isn't 3 or 6 bamboos), and he assumes uradora is not bamboo, so he declined the ron. declining this ron also means that he cannot ron anyone onwards, which is fine by J♦️ since he was looking to tsumo anyway.
  • there's a reason why Chishiya discarded a safe tile at first: winning within a turn of a riichi declaration that is not interrupted by a tile call grants you another yaku (ippatsu) worth 1 han. so discarding an unsafe tile would increase J♦️'s hand to a haneman, which would cause game over for everyone but J♦️.
• J♦️ then draws a "takame" tile -- a tile that results in a bigger hand value compared to other winning tiles. earlier he noted 3 and 6 bamboo, as these tiles would result in the three concealed triplets yaku, worth 2 han. this, plus closed tsumo, would bring his hand to a baiman (8 han). however, due to the house rules, he had to discard his winning tile.
• this then repeats until J♦️ draws his last tile from the tile wall... but then north player declares ron on his discarded 1 bamboo tile.
• his hand is kokushi musou (thirteen orphans), which is one of the few yakus that break the four-melds-one-pair rule -- a hand consisting of 1 and 9 of each suit, plus each honor tile, plus a second copy of any of these tiles. this hand is worth a yakuman.
• ultimately, south and north player has already resolved to take down the borderland citizen at the cost of their lives, so north player declared a ron to end the game right then and there.
• turns out the uradora IS a bamboo tile, which means the 7 bamboos the J♦️ had wouldve given him 3 han, which would've make his hand worth a baiman, had he ron'd Chishiya on the 8 bamboo he discarded at first.

jesus fuck the amount of preloaded knowledge you needed to have to understand what exactly happens in this game, and its literally only half of a chapter lmao

I read the entire comment and it's amazing. Others should read it to understand mostly what happened (since there is still stuff I didn't understand mainly cause i have no knowledge of mahjong at all)