Game #11
EX Furinkazan
U-Next Pirates
Kadokawa
Sakura Knights
Akasaka
Drivens
Taro Time
May 14, Game 1, E2-0
In E2-0, Taro is in a 2nd place tie and 2,500 behind 1st place dealer Nakabayashi.
Taro starts out with a 3-shanten hand with two ryanmens. The first row lets him draw a 6m dora to fill in one ryanmen and pairs up the 8p to convert another pair into a ryanmen. Before the row is over, Taro has a perfect iishanten with a chance at a tanyao. When he draws his 7th tile, he gets the 1p, breaking tanyao but puts him tenpai for pinfu. He calls riichi and waits with a 47p ryanmen. Two turns later, Okada discards the 7p and deals into Taro. Flipping one uradora, Taro wins the hand with Riichi/Pinfu/Dora 1/Ura 1 for 8,000.
Yellow Card
May 14, Game 1, S1-0
Video: https://abema.tv/video/episode/444-1_s60_p3026
As S1-0 was starting up, Taro’s hand exploded. As he tried to flip his tiles up, tiles in his hand crashed into his wall and knocked down some tiles. All the players stopped and the referee Kajimoto chimed in. The games was paused while the rulebook and the replay was checked to figure what happened and which tiles were Taro’s.
The break was longer than usual, presumably to avoid another controversial decision like the one that happened two weeks ago with Nakabayashi’s cancelled riichi. After more than 13 minutes of stalling by our commentators, Kajimoto finally had a decision. Since Taro had revealed 6 tiles (which is greater than the 2 tiles required for a penalty), Taro was given a yellow card and the game continued.
A yellow card is a warning for certain fouls committed by a player. Attaining two yellow cards in a day will result in a red card, which is the equivalent of a chombo penalty of -20.0 after uma.
Beautiful
May 14, Game 1, S3-0
Video: https://abema.tv/video/episode/444-1_s5_p3072
In S3-0, Okada is the dealer in 3rd place, 4,800 behind 2nd place Taro and 12,900 behind 1st place Nakabayashi.
At the start, Okada is 3-shanten with two ryanmens and a loosely connected dora 8p. The first row only gets her to 2-shanten with the 8p and the two ryanmens relatively untouched. To her left, Nakabayashi has already called twice and sitting at iishanten. As much as Okada wants to speed up her hand, her 123m sequence won’t let her. In the second row, Taro is the one to make good progress. After a call in the middle of the row, Taro is the first to tenpai and waits on a 4p/2s shanpon.
Within a turn, Okada gets to tenpai and calls riichi on a beautiful 258s three-sided wait. She had given up on the 8p, but it gave her the wide wait with the red 5s. At the end of the row, Taro throws the one-chance 2s and deals into Okada. Okada wins the hand with Riichi/Pinfu/Aka 1/Ura 1 for 12,000, a big direct hit on a rival and putting her in 2nd place, just a few hundred points away from 1st.
Taro Returns
May 14, Game 1
In S4-0, Taro is in 3rd place, 13,700 behind 2nd place Nakabayashi and 21,300 behind 1st place Okada. Being the last dealer, he has the ability to keep the game going so long as he doesn’t lose the hand.
From the very start, Taro is 3-shanten for both chiitoi and a standard hand. More importantly, he already has a pair of 4m dora. His shapes aren’t quite good enough to call, but they are flexible. By the end of the first row he has a strong iishanten hand with a triplet of 4s and two ryanmens. On turn 7, he gets to tenpai and calls riichi on a 25p ryanmen. At the start of the third row, Taro draws the 5p and wins the hand. Taro wins with Riichi/Tsumo/Dora 2 for 4,000 all, moving into 2nd place.
Video: https://abema.tv/video/episode/444-1_s5_p2065
After pushing the dealership over the next three hand, Taro continues the dealership in S4-4 with a 4,400 lead.
Taro starts out with a strong 2-shanten hand with a 147p three-sided wait, needing a 1p to get ittsuu. In just four turns, Taro is able to form a sequence in souzu and put him tenpai. He calls riichi and sits back, wishing for that 1p for mangan minimum. To his left is 2nd place Okada, holding a pair of 9s dora. On turn 6, Okada discards the 1p trying to hedge a 234 sanshoku and deals into Taro. Taro wins the hand with Riichi/Pinfu/Ittsuu/Aka 1 for 12,000+1,200, putting Taro above 50,000.
Final Scores
Video: https://abema.tv/video/episode/444-1_s60_p257
Twitter: https://twitter.com/m_league_jikkyo/status/1790358106905731243
Standings
With Taro’s win, the Akasaka Drivens move up two spot, going from 4th to 2nd. However, with Nakabayashi’s solid 2nd place, the U-Next Pirates’ lead actually increases to 309.1pts. The 2nd place also puts them above 400.0pts for the first time in these finals. Unfortunately for the EX Furinkazan, Katsumata’s 4th place ends up taking the team down to 4th place. But, the scores are still close with 5 more games left.
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