Friday 13th April: The Night of Horsa

Jaime sent in this report from the frontline:

Once Noda-san and David had departed, both modestly in the black, Kenyon, Hide and Jaime remained to play a further 3 more games before and ever-impatient mama shooed them out.


For the second successive week, one man bore the brunt of the assault, and like his compatriot last week he was to end the night peering from the bottom of a very big hole.
The night’s brilliance was to come from Jaime, who in one game (in the space of 4 hands) managed 2 kokoushimasou, one from each of the other 2 players. On the first occasion only 7 discards were in evidence before he swooped to extinguish Hide’s oya with a ron of the White Dragon.

Now there is an old saying about lightening not striking twice in the same place. Kenyon, oblivious to both Jaime’s wait and Anglo-Saxon mythology*, deeming the White Dragon redundant was penalised by exactly the same Kokoushimasou wait as before. The penultimate game of the night also saw Jaime victorious and Hide climb a ledge or two from the pit’s bottom, but its most memorial feature was the chombo committed by Kenyon. He had managed to muster 14 tiles, which is great when you declare tsumo, but not so useful when your in the middle of a hand. Although to be fair, I don’t think anyone has yet to match Jaime’s feat of gathering 15 tiles at one time…. As is always the way, the final game resulted in Jaime slipping from his lofty heights and getting a bit burnt as Kenyon went on a bit of a last game charge. Hide finished not only down for the night, but had also managed to replace his brother as the poor man of the Hiroshima Cock-Eyed MJ Table (sponsored by e.on)! Jaime continued his inevitable short-lived lead at the top, whilst the others also moved upwards. Kenyon claims his MJ participation will be curtailed by such bothersome annoyances as his job (and living in Mihara, which if you have seen the movie “Deliverance”, then you’ll get my drift…). We shall see if he hath spoke the truth.

The final score after eight games was:

Jaime +1, -49, +28,* -16, +41, +96, +27, -59 = +69
Kenyon -44, -5, +58, -11, -15, -14, -37,** +101 = +33
Noda +6, +62, -37, --, --, --, --, -- = +31
David +37, -8, -49, +31, --, --, --, -- = +11
===
Hide --, --, --, -4, -26, -82, +10, -42 = -144

* Two Kokushimusou hands in one game.
** Fourteen tile Chombo.

The result sees Noda move two places off the bottom of the table and strengthens the position of all the foreigners.


*In English chronicles the Anglos-Saxons, led by the brothers Horsa and Hengest brought the symbol of the White Dragon to Briton. Over time, this pure white dragon has become representative of England. Jaime is from England. He achieved 2 Kokoushimasou’s with the White Dragon. You see the obvious connection! Oh alright then, I was just trying to show of my Middle-School History education!

Jaime
13blue.blogspot.com



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