Introduction and review of the mahjong strategy book "Mahjong Winning System" (author: Takahiro Yamakoshi)

About the author

I purchased the book "Mahjong Winning System," part of the Modern Mahjong Tactics series, which was released by Takeshobo in November 2019.
I was unaware of this due to my lack of knowledge, but it seems that the author, Takahiro Yamakoshi, is a highly regarded amateur player.

Since the author reached the 10th dan rank in Tenhou (an online mahjong platform) in record time, I think this book will be helpful for anyone who wants to improve their skills in Tenhou.
Looking at the results posted on the Mahjong Saikyosen website for achieving the 10th dan rank, the results were as follows:

As you can see, these are phenomenal results.
As someone who hasn't even reached the 7th dan, let alone the 10th dan, I bought this strategy book because I thought there must be something I can learn from it.
A notable feature of Mr. Yamakoshi's performance is his high rate of declaring Riichi.
However, the rate of open tiles is not low, suggesting that the game is not heavily skewed towards closed hands.
You might be able to grasp the author's perspective on how to differentiate between these uses by reading this book.

This book introduces tactics that consider "Riichi" (declaring a ready hand) to be an extremely powerful weapon.
The other day I introducedMahjong strategy book "The Mahjong Mechanism of the Master Mahjong Player" (Author: Naoki Takiguchi)In particular, the Riichi hand was described as being so powerful that it was called a "broken hand."
I don't think many people underestimate the power of Riichi, but after reading this book, I've come to appreciate the strength of this hand even more.

About the contents of this book

This book features one system per page.
The system is presented in the heading, and a concise explanation of it is written below.
It doesn't contain anything too complicated, so it's written in an intuitive and easy-to-understand way, focusing on content that can be immediately applied in practice.
While it's easy to understand, those who want more detailed data and supporting evidence might find it a little lacking.

It contains a total of 122 systems and 19 columns.
The table of contents includes the following:

thoughts

The book was very easy to read and understand, as it presented one tactic per page.
I feel this book contains information that almost every player aiming to reach the Phoenix Table and conquering the Special Table should understand.
If you're already playing in the Phoenix League, you might not need to read this.

As mentioned earlier, this is a tactical guide that prioritizes clarity and ease of use over detailed data backing.
Therefore, it is suitable for people who want to understand things intuitively, but it may be difficult for people who want to know detailed supporting data to accept it at face value.

Since Mr. Yamakoshi doesn't primarily focus on Tenhou (an online mahjong platform), I felt that the content was applicable not only to Tenhou but also to real-life mahjong.
Chapter 2, in particular, on the mental system, contains extremely important information.
Mahjong is a game that really shakes your mental state.
In order to achieve good results, you need not only technical skills but also mental strength, so I felt that this would help me develop that mental fortitude.

Reading the columns interspersed throughout the book, you can really feel Mr. Yamakoshi's passion for mahjong.
I also enjoy mahjong, and I play with a fair amount of passion, but I think I'm still nowhere near as passionate as Mr. Yamakoshi.

麻雀 勝ち確システム (近代麻雀戦術シリーズ)（Amazon）

麻雀 勝ち確システム(近代麻雀戦術シリーズ)（楽天市場）