Topic: Open Riichi

I'm interested to hear people's opinions about the inclusion of open riichi in the USPML rules. It's not included in any other offical rule set, although it's existence is known to just about every riichi player in Japan. I'll hold off writing my own opinions until I see what other people have to say.

I guess the short answer is that "I saw it on TV". In Akagi, they play with Open Riichi and it seems so fun and exciting and dramatic in the show.
So we ended up playing with Open Riichi allowed, because knowing you could do it is still fun in real life, even if you seldom do it since it's usually a bad idea.

We included it in the Interim Summary sheet because that's the way we usually play, but it might not really deserve a spot in our official rules.

I feel mostly neutral about Open Riichi.
On the one hand, I think Open Riichi does add some fun, at least in speculating about it, without hurting the game much since players rarely actually do it.
On the other hand, if no one ever does it, why bother with it, especially if it's somewhat non-standard.

Myself, I do kind of like it. But I definitely don't think it's necessary, and I wouldn't be upset if it's not included in official rules.

Maybe it would be good for special events.

Are you using the "yakuman" rule with open riichi? (i.e. if you declare open riichi and win by ron, it is an automatic yakuman)

I learned at the event that the "deal in = yakuman" rule does not apply.  

Open riichi seems to be more about showmanship / psyching out than anything else.

Having never seen one performed in a real game, I have to fall back on the anime here. It is interesting that in "Akagi" when an open riichi is announced, the entire hand is displayed. Contrarily, in "Legendary Gambler Tetsuya" when an open riichi is declared, players seem to only expose the set, run or pair they are waiting to be complete. I tend to favor this presentation because it maintains a bit of suspense, especially for players who have already declared riichi.

Minus the yakuman rule, open riichi is a fun thing, albeit not one that I think should be used with any regularity.

I personally like open riichi, though not as a Yakuman deal-in. I was also introduced to it via Akagi.

We have spoken about it being used in pretty much one very specific situation: when 2 other players are already in riichi, and consequently, only one player has a choice as to what they are throwing out. This gets even stronger if you play with any variation that doesn't have a mulligan on 4 players in riichi. That 4th guy / gal would definitely go into open riichi, I'd imagine.

I would vote to include it, for the fun / intimidation / shock value, though I like the version that Mozz911 described from Legendary Gambler, where only the set-in-waiting is shown. This would, indeed, maintain suspense, with the other players not knowing if they might potentially deal into a nasty flush (cue toilet jokes) or even a Yakuman hand (though not by default).

I have played hands with an open riichi before, usually only being where I have a great wait early, or I'm positive that others are far from tenpai and that my outs are still out there (or if picked up wouldn't be thrown anyways due to smart defense, like a dragon).

I also play that if all players riichi, and the last tile thrown for the riichi isn't ron, then yes, the hand is null, all riichi sen-bon are collected and the hand is shuffled and redealt.

Also, it's only worth 2 yaku in the rule set I play with.

I enjoy the two-yaku Open Riichi, without the deal-in yakuman rule.  I mean, why not?  It's certainly obscure, and not something that would happen often… but what's the downside of including it in our rule set?

The problem with including rules or not have many dimensions:

1- where is this rule found?
2- how standard is it?
2b- what kind of variations of this rule exist…
3- does it serve a purpose in-game?
4- does it benefit the group as a whole?

The problem with 1 is that everyone is citing Akagi. It's a comic book, not gospel. There are other places that talk about or use OR but they're not on people's radar.

The idea behind 2 is that most riichi players know this could exist as a rule, but everyone is bringing up the "lol yakuman" variation. Again, citing more Akagi when it's been discounted in the show itself. (One mention of LGT, which is better than nothing) "Open riichi, 2 han" is all that needs to be described, and we can move on.

3 is a tricky point because some people would only use it as a late trick. Others think of using it early but maybe it's because we're on a forum, but I can't feel anyone genuinely thinking OR is a good idea if x-y-z occurs, or if you're in u-v-w situation.

4 asks if it serves a real purpose. Rarity isn't an issue if we compare it to some yakuman hands but pertinence is fairly important. Does OR have value in play that is not tangentially related to playing like a cartoon character?

In any case, before my conclusions, I'd like to remind people that I'm as much an outsider as Ben is to your club. OR is something I don't think should be introduced to a group of people of various skill levels including beginners (a few people) and people who can't count points (a lot amongst non-asian players). For an experienced player to do it to novices, there is no game impact, just a free han for "smart people" (note: not really).

When everyone is beyond a certain level, then OR can be both used offensively and defensively. "A good wait" isn't compelling enough a reason. There are reasons for any kind of wait, but they have to be explained thoroughly. More importantly, in a friendly gaming environment, there's nothing to really gain or lose by showing your wait, or by flipping a random tile mid-game. Now if there was a tournament setting, I'd be inclined to say there's more to the game but just a regular sunday afternoon, not really.

Otherwise, if it's there for the sake of being there, or by popular demand from the crowd, you're going to end up with people gospeling and idolizing comics when the point of a mahjong group is to play a game. You'll end up with people making PDFs titled "Mahjong Rules according to Saki" or people quoting comic pages that "you're doing it wrong according to Volume 14 page 142, 3rd bubble".

Given all this, whether you keep the rule or not, this serves as an occasion to evaluate the club's direction. Attempt to attract more anime fans, or present a solid game? The solid game is already difficult enough to explain and teach, if you can't be sure of the benefits of optional rules, they shouldn't be in the mix IMO.

Senechal said

The problem with including rules or not have many dimensions:

1- where is this rule found?
2- how standard is it?
2b- what kind of variations of this rule exist…
3- does it serve a purpose in-game?
4- does it benefit the group as a whole?

The problem with 1 is that everyone is citing Akagi. It's a comic book, not gospel. There are other places that talk about or use OR but they're not on people's radar.

The idea behind 2 is that most riichi players know this could exist as a rule, but everyone is bringing up the "lol yakuman" variation. Again, citing more Akagi when it's been discounted in the show itself. (One mention of LGT, which is better than nothing) "Open riichi, 2 han" is all that needs to be described, and we can move on.

3 is a tricky point because some people would only use it as a late trick. Others think of using it early but maybe it's because we're on a forum, but I can't feel anyone genuinely thinking OR is a good idea if x-y-z occurs, or if you're in u-v-w situation.

4 asks if it serves a real purpose. Rarity isn't an issue if we compare it to some yakuman hands but pertinence is fairly important. Does OR have value in play that is not tangentially related to playing like a cartoon character?

In any case, before my conclusions, I'd like to remind people that I'm as much an outsider as Ben is to your club. OR is something I don't think should be introduced to a group of people of various skill levels including beginners (a few people) and people who can't count points (a lot amongst non-asian players). For an experienced player to do it to novices, there is no game impact, just a free han for "smart people" (note: not really).

When everyone is beyond a certain level, then OR can be both used offensively and defensively. "A good wait" isn't compelling enough a reason. There are reasons for any kind of wait, but they have to be explained thoroughly. More importantly, in a friendly gaming environment, there's nothing to really gain or lose by showing your wait, or by flipping a random tile mid-game. Now if there was a tournament setting, I'd be inclined to say there's more to the game but just a regular sunday afternoon, not really.

Otherwise, if it's there for the sake of being there, or by popular demand from the crowd, you're going to end up with people gospeling and idolizing comics when the point of a mahjong group is to play a game. You'll end up with people making PDFs titled "Mahjong Rules according to Saki" or people quoting comic pages that "you're doing it wrong according to Volume 14 page 142, 3rd bubble".

Given all this, whether you keep the rule or not, this serves as an occasion to evaluate the club's direction. Attempt to attract more anime fans, or present a solid game? The solid game is already difficult enough to explain and teach, if you can't be sure of the benefits of optional rules, they shouldn't be in the mix IMO.

Wow that's a massive quote, probably should have truncated that a bit. Oh well…

We've established that the majority of people are aware of open riichi through Akagi, Legendary Gambler Tetsuya, etc… Flashy mahjong anime that do everything they can to make mahjong more theatrical.  We've also established that having it as a "ZOMG easy yakuman" rule is pretty silly and I think others have made a fairly good case for it adding value / enjoyment to the game.

A league's rule set, any league, tries to be as practical and streamlined as possible. Obviously it would be bad if you entered a tournament and said "We play with twenty-three tiles…what is this fourteen tile bullshit?". That being said, I think that every individual league should have aspects of its rules that make them unique.  Charlyn's Reachmahjong.com column several weeks back went into specifics about why certain rules were included and excluded and these explanations were all quite sensible. It goes without saying that this ruleset only truly applies to USPML events. Obviously when a league enters a tournament they must abide by the set tournament rules. Similarly, if the USPML were to hold a tournament, the rule set defined here would be in place.

Sure, pretty much everyone on these forums has seen Akagi. I think that's inevitable considering the lack of available mahjong media in English. This does not mean that you will be greeted with the sight of people hooked up to blood transfusion equipment and chopping off one another's fingers upon walking into a USPML meetup…The inclusion of open riichi does, however, reflect the fact that many of the league's founders discovered this wonderful little game through anime. Perhaps you could say that this rule's inclusion reflects the league's roots in some way.

On a more personal note, open riichi was cemented  for me when it was included as an option in Nintendo's Mario-themed mahjong game "Yakuman DS". I don't think you can get anymore mainstream than that.

Mozz911 said

On a more personal note, open riichi was cemented for me when it was included as an option in Nintendo's Mario-themed mahjong game "Yakuman DS". I don't think you can get anymore mainstream than that.

…perhaps if Rina Sakurai came out with a song about it which you could sing with her in Yakuza 3…

Seriously, though, I'm all for including Open Riichi. I agree, there are good points all around. Indeed, there would be strategic nuances that are more accessible to advanced players as opposed to novices, but since we are a new group, why not all 'grow up together'? We can include it from the start, make it well-known so that there's no confusion and continue on from there, explaining our strategic views on the subject to any and all interested players.

I do like the thought of Open Riichi as an homage to our roots. I don't think that we'll take ourselves in a bad direction by attracting anime fans. If anything, we'll add to our already interesting mix of characters. If some outspoken fellow or lady decides to counter one of our rule executions arguing something from the anime aether, so be it. I believe that we can handle it, presenting our (soon-to-be) definitive-for-this-organization rule sheet, perhaps debating the merits of either side and maybe finally enriching our rules with his or her views. Please don't fear, we won't allow ourselves to simply be suddenly overrun by a certain set of rules or ideas.

Senechal said

Given all this, whether you keep the rule or not, this serves as an occasion to evaluate the club's direction. Attempt to attract more anime fans, or present a solid game?

First off, I'd like to remind everybody that the rulesheet available currently is temporary.  The official ruleset is still in development and we are considering questions like the one being discussed here as we do that.  We included a wide variety of things on the interim rulesheet to ensure we had a comprehensive reference to provide our players, however at this point it's a little premature to presume that things on the sheet will or won't be included - a lot of options are still on the table, and we're still working out the specifics.

As for direction, I'll address that…well…directly.  The USPML is not an anime club, and I don't think anybody has been confused on that point.  We're an organization for Mahjong fans, plain and simple.  However, that being said, the fact of the matter is that most of the people in the US right now who have any knowledge about Riichi Mahjong gained said knowledge from encountering one of the more popular Mahjong-themed anime series (Akagi, Saki, etc.).  While we are working to develop our official rules document and teaching curriculum, we are only running events for people who already know the game; therefore it's only natural that the majority of our players will come from this background.  So clearly, at this point in time, these things will be brought up in many rules discussions.  I agree that people shouldn't be pointing at anime/manga and insisting "You must do it this way!" but at the same time, I don't think anyone has been saying or doing anything of the sort.

Our goal with our official rules is to attempt to approach what could be considered the "best game," no more, no less.  Of course, everyone will have opinions as to what makes for the best game, and I think it's great to have vigorous discussions about these things - I'm always very interested to hear what everyone thinks!

Okay. I want to have fun, so I want open riichi just for fun.

A few (very few) Japanese arcade mahjong games use open riichi.

Let's face it: mahjong is about the most fun four heterosexual men can have together.

Ok, then.

I'm going to have to step in and declare Robert the winner of this thread…and everything else.

         

My biggest issue with Open Riichi is that it allows players to 'spoil' games.

Even without the Yakuman rule, if Players 1 and 2 are secretly working together, all they have to do is once deal into the other's hyper-obvious full flush, for example, and that winning player becomes even harder to beat.

MJ is rarely a 1v1 game, even with teams. in games with more than 2 players, if one sacrifices themselves to prop up another, the competitive spirit is ruined.

With the Open Riichi, it makes it allowable without cheating (signaling, etc).

Our group out here in Portland, OR has always looked upon open Riichi as a sort of a house rule. If everyone at the table agrees to it before the game starts, then that's fine. However, we never use it for any tournament, ranked, or money games. In those situations, you want as little room for players working together as possible. As McMasters points out, open Riichi not only opens the door to purposely helping out another player, it knocks it off its damn hinges.

Not too familiar with the arcade MahJong machines out there but, many of the Riichi video games on consoles and handhelds include it as an option.

This is one of the great things about being involved with the start of a new organization. Don't let the fact that no other organizations recognize it as an "official" rule sway your opinions… If you guys like it, use it. These are your rules, you get to make them. If you're not sure, play test the crak out of it until you are.

Personally, I wouldn't want it in the "official" USPML rules. However, if it's not a ranked match, EVERYONE agrees, or the yen isn't on the table, go for it ..