Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Friday 3rd November: Japanese Players Down on Both Tables...

Ray, Kenyon and David welcomed Jaime back to Hiroshima with a couple of drinks at Kemby's.

Today was a national holiday dedicated to "Bunka" or "Culture" so what better way to mark it than by playing Mahjong? Mama opened the mahjong parlour especially for us and Noda came to fish us out of Kemby's as Mama was worried that we weren't going to play because David had forgotten to confirm our intentions the previous day.

It was a lively evening of play. Ray returned to the table after a lengthy absence determined to move up above Tim in the Grand Accumulated Results Table.

Hide and Yuri joined us later in the evening so we were able to play two tables for the first time for several months.

The first game of the evening was played by Noda, Kenyon and Ray while David and Jaime ploughed through their dinner at Kemby's and joined them for the second. Ray had established a lead of +31 and remained in the black for the rest of his evening, finishing top and thereby achieving his aim of moving above Tim!

Noda, who had been on the sauce, came bottom in the first game and went on to lose every game he played in the evening and finished bottom of the pile, shedding 84 points. He is still way ahead of the pack in the table but, we wonder, could this be another year end downturn for Noda? Has he shot his bolt?

David was the only winner of the second game, despite bamboozling Kenyon with his unpredictable approach to discarding tiles. Kenyon re-entered the fray for the third game and despite from time to time attempting to emulate what he had learnt at the seat of David, he finished on +86 while Ray managed to stay in the black on +9.

Thus, when we brought a second table into play the scores stood at:

Kenyon +83
Ray +33
===
David -2
Noda -32
Jaime -82

Ray, David and Noda stayed on the first table while Kenyon and Jaime joined Hide (and Yuri) on the second table.

On the first table play went off smoothly and quietly and with Noda at bay and uninspired Ray and David shared the points between themselves and were only robbed of a higher score when Noda woke up at the end to finish of the fifth game with Tsumo to keep his score below minus one hundred.

Meanwhile, the other table was abuzz and the word "Chombo" was heard three times in the space of about ten minutes along with a few utterances of "freakin'" and "lucky" and variations on the plural of "ball".

The first table broke up around midnight and Noda and David headed off for a taxi so I leave it to Jaime who reports from the heat of the battle with what follows.

"We ended up playing 5 games and finished around 3am. Hide mostly played on his own, but allowed his girlfriend to play a few expensive hands in the 1st game and more successfully in the final game. Kenyon was only up in the first game as the only winner and I ended up being the 'top dog', but stupidly agreed to play 'just one more game' when I was falling asleep and of course it cost me!

"It was an entertaining night though with quite a lot of action, Hide had Yakitori in game 2. Hide chombo'ed (is it possible to turn into a verb..?) by taking too quickly before I had time to ron Kenyon (or even before kenyon had thrown his tile out). You know the Old Noda/Japanese trick, although I was perhaps fortunate to get away with a chombo myself, but then again I think more than half a second should be allowed before the other player throws his tile....Then in the same game Kenyon made chombo by a riichi and then realising that if he looked at his discard pile.... There were two double ron in successive hands - kenyon giving away and then me responding in kind.

"The best comments of the night were from Hide's girlfriend responding to various "freaks" and "fucks" she said that Kenyon said a lot of rude "f words". I of course responded by saying than as an English gentleman I would never use such language around a lady, and then proceeded to teach her "bollocks" which she quite enjoyed. She tried to think of a translation into Japanese, quite an entertaining evening!

"I did particularly enjoy one hand that ensured I was top and relegated Hide to Yakitori when I went tsumo on a pitifully small hand (1 / 500) and Kenyon lamented the unfairness of life.

"So despite actually finishing down overall and continuing to expand the record deficit score, I had a rather jolly time, not too sure what was more entertaining; Kenyon's sudden losing streak, Hide's continued refusal to let his girlfriend play and her bitching comments, the sight of certain mammary extrusions flopping out, or the classic 'This tile has to be safe!' from Kenyon followed by a ron from me and a payment of 28,000pts."


Ray +31, -7, +9, -18, +33, --, --, -- = +48
David --, +25, -27, +56, -19, --, --, -- = +35
Kenyon -3, --, +86, +18*, -26, -33, +19, -27 = +34
===
Jaime --, -14, -68, -6, +87, +47, -2, -48 = -4
Hide --, --, --, -12*, -61**, -14, -17, +75 = -29
Noda -28, -4, --, -38, -14, --, --, -- = -84


*Kenyon managed two Chombo in one game
*Hide drew a tile and threw it before Kenyon - thus preventing Jaime from declaring Ron on Kenyon's discard...
**Hide got stuck with his Yakitori.

David Hurley
japanese-mahjong.com
japanese-games-shop.com
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