Friday 6th October: Hide's First Win Secures an All Japanese Victory

Noda had once again been dominating play by the time Hide arrived for the second game. Jaime staged a second game recovery to bring him within 3 points of parity and David staged a recovery in the third.

However, in the last game of the evening Hide suddenly emerged from relative obscurity to storm into first place.

With Hide as Oya, about six or seven discards into the game, David threw a tile and Hide went out without having declared Riichi. The common term we use for that situation is "traffic accident". Unfortunately for David, he suffered three consecutive traffic accidents in a row at the hands of Hide, each one more expensive than the other as the accumulating Hyaku Tenbo were making each loss more expensive...

The last Oya of the evening was David, who was by now reeling, ruffled, tired and drunk! Still in with a chance of a recovery, he began to claim any open Pon that came his way. Alas for him however Hide was doing likewise and looking far more threatening. Hide's first open Pon claimed a discarded 5-Coins. The Dora indicator just happened to be a 4-Coins, so there were three Dora points plus a fourth for the Red Five on show already. Then Hide picked up a fourth 5-Coins (the other red one) and went Kan so he now had FIVE Dora points showing - but worse was follow when he turned over ANOTHER 4-Coins to give him TEN DORA.

By then David's Toitoi hopes were in tatters as he was not even Tenpai despite having only four hidden tiles left - and not one of them was a remotely safe discard. Jaime was also holding some dangerous tiles but had most of his hand available to him and steered clear of trouble. By now David was resigned to a big pay out and with a fatalistic air tossed the East tile, and pretty much as he'd expected, the inevitable cry of "RON!" was heard from Hide's side of the table.

Hide --, -17, +7, +113 = +103
Noda +68, +13, -16, -28 = +37
===
Jaime -49, +46, -29, -17 = -49
David -19, -42, +38, -68 = -91

So Hide and David exchange positions on the Grand Accumulated Results Table while Noda extends his lead and Jaime sinks to a new all time low!

David Hurley
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