How to improve your Mahjong skills: Calling techniques (for beginners)

In a previous article, I wrote that the following points are important for becoming a better mahjong player.

- Deciding whether to push or pull
Ori's technology
• Techniques for making noises
(• Tile efficiency)
This time, I'd like to write about the techniques behind this vocalization.
And it's also the area where I feel the least confident.
(Suitable for beginners)

Advantages and disadvantages of vocalizations

First, let's understand what effect making noise has.

merit

・My hands are moving forward
This is probably the biggest advantage.
By calling "Pon" or "Chi," you can incorporate tiles that you didn't draw yourself into your melds.
Since anyone can call "Pon," it's three times easier to call than "Chi."

- Make the opponent wary
While calling once might be acceptable, calling twice after the 10th turn makes other players think you're close to a winning hand, making it difficult for them to play freely.
This is a bluff that you'll see more often as you move up the ranks.

- Eliminate one shot
It may seem unassuming, but it's a technique you'll need when you're at the top.
If you have enough safe options, go for it aggressively.
By making a sound, you eliminate the possibility of a single hit and lower the expected value of your score.

Disadvantages

• Scores often decrease
In many cases, speed comes at the cost of lower scores, such as being unable to declare "reach" (no one-shot wins or bonus tiles), lower points, or certain winning hands becoming invalid.
If you can make a winning hand by calling tiles, such as by calling a tile for a scoring tile or a dora tile, you can cover the points.

- Defense power decreases
By calling tiles to secure a set, you leave no room to hold onto extra tiles.
Therefore, when your opponent declares a reach, it becomes difficult to play defensively or even fold completely.

- The number of accepted items will decrease.
When a set of tiles becomes fixed, other tiles are less likely to stick to that set, reducing the number of tiles that can be accepted.
For example, if you have 222, when you add 1, 3, or 4, it will form a polyhedron with a pair. (If you have 2223, the number of possible pairs will increase to 1, 3, 4, and so on.)
However, if you have 222, even if you draw a 1, 3, or 4, they won't stick together and won't be accepted.

- Giving information to other families
If you call a tile that will result in a non-formable hand, you give away a lot of information to your opponents.
For example, if you call a character tile or a 1 or 9 tile that doesn't contribute to a winning hand, it's confirmed that you won't have a Tanyao hand at that point.
If you do that, the player to your left might not let you call the tiles you want, so you need to be careful.

Judging a cry

The decision of whether or not to call out essentially boils down to "Is it advantageous to call out?"
For example, if you have a pair of honor tiles in your starting hand, should you call (discard the third tile)?
At what point should I transition to being a dyer?
There are many situations where you might be unsure of the right timing, such as when to go from Chiitoitsu to Toitoi.

If you could go for a ready hand and declare "reach," how many points would that be worth?

One criterion is this.
This also relates to whether or not you call a pair of honor tiles early in the game.
If it looks like you'll end up with only a reach, calling a tile is probably the right move.

Will it be possible to finish it in time?

You can't really compete unless you get to a ready hand (tenpai) before the other players.
Therefore, even if it's expensive, it's also important whether they have the time to leisurely prepare their hand in front of you.
As a guideline, being two steps away from a winning hand by the end of the sixth turn is considered slow.

So, what's the deciding factor in whether they start singing?

Roughly speaking, if you have 3900 points after calling, it's okay to start calling from around the 4th to 6th turn.
If there are many acceptances and the points are doubled, it's okay to delay it by two or three rounds.
Around the 10th turn, it's generally okay to call any tile as long as it helps your hand progress.

Offense and defense after calling out

After crying, you might think that the only thing to do is to charge ahead, but that's not always the case.
If it's clearly not a contest, then it's fine to fold, and there's absolutely nothing to be ashamed of about folding after calling a tile.
Even after the call, you can fold using the same push-or-pull judgment as usual.

However, if your opponent has declared "reach," the 1000 points from the reach stick often makes it easier to push forward.
However, just because you can't get off completely doesn't mean you have to force yourself to push.

Also, to increase your score after calling a tile, it's generally not a good idea to take detours that increase the number of tiles needed to complete a hand.
It's important to move your hand in a way that increases the point of contact, but deliberately breaking up your hand after you've started calling is a big waste of time.

I've discussed several techniques related to bird calls.
This article is for beginners, so it's enough to just keep in mind that vocalizations have these kinds of meanings and effects.