Saturday, April 14, 2007

Friday 6th March: Gialliorossi Noda - by Jaime

"An epic MJ night started at 7pm and finished at 2:45am after some amazing games... Noda as Oya went out on Kokushimusou from Jaime's discard, winning 51,000 points off him in the 1st game.

"The third game of the night lasted for 2hrs 16mins and Noda finished totally out, not wining for 21 hands in succession...

"Both Ray and Jaime just had unbelievable runs as Oya, although Kenyon's late run almost snatched top spot... "

Thus spake the early reports of last Friday's mahjong game, played by Noda, Jaime, Ray and Kenyon... It was clear that Noda had been routed and rumours that Noda had hit the bottom of the Grand Accumulated Results Table proved to be not unfounded, as the score sheet attested when it landed in my inbox:

Jaime -69, +31, +72, +30, +4, +81, +2 = +151
Ray +53, +6, +35, -1, -26, -51, +22 = +38
===
Ken --, --, +42 , -29, +22, -30, -24 = -19
Noda +16, -37, -149, --, --, --, -- = -170

I suspect that the full report was delayed by the devotions of the writer to a certain
English football team which pulled off a remarkable 7-1 victory over Roma in the Champions League on Tuesday.

One of the goals was scored by Alan Smith, born and bred in Leeds and formerly a Leeds United player. He has recently recovered his place in the other team after breaking his leg in February 2006. Here are a couple of pics of Alan Smith. The one on the left shows him shortly after breaking into Leeds United's first team at the age of seventeen in 1998.


The one on the right shows one of the reasons why the mahjong report got delayed!




Jaime's Post-Match Report

"Those of us who worship at the altar of Old Trafford had a good week, a rather good week. For one particular United devotee it began with a Roma like crushing of Noda-san at Kodama’s Mahjong Coliseum.

"To be fair, it really didn’t start very well; indeed Jaime couldn’t have had any worse starts, a ron by the oya (Noda!) for Kokoushimasou on a carelessly discarded 9 of coins. So, just like United in Rome a week ago, when Scholes was sent off and United went behind, all in the 1st half, a recovery was needed. To end up -69 after just the 1st game of the night was sobering stuff, but unlike the Roman police baton charging was not on hand.

"From somber beginnings the night unraveled that lead to a sumptuous victory that caused bewilderment and cries of mercy to be whimpered from one player’s seat. Noda’s night that had almost reached out and touched the stars in the 1st game descended to an anguished and destructive defeat. The old Emperor departed the mahjong table like the French retreat at Agincourt, the Austrians at Karansebes and the Romans from Old Trafford.

"Noda’s final act before leaving was to unfolded 5 crisp 1000yen notes, placed them unsteadily on the table and shaking his head in incredulity, wearily left the jansou. The scene was to be repeated not more than four days later when Totti (“The Camel”) wore the same disbelieving expression as the roars of the Faithful boomed in his ears and the scoreboard mocked his pre-game prediction. United, like Jaime had triumphed unbelievably, majestically and deservedly… well Jaime owed his more to luck, United’s didn’t.

"The 3rd game of the night was the real battle royal; Noda at one point owed Ray 70,000 pts, Kenyon 30,000 pts and was also sporting an empty tray! -149. Jaime racked up 8 tenbo’s as Oya and then immediately Ray followed on by piling up 5 more. Noda really did take the brunt of brutal attacks, achieving no luck whatsoever and managing at will to locate the most dangerous tile and receive expensive punishment.

"If Jaime was the big winner of the night, Ray also left with some money jangling in his pocket. A more topsy-turvy night’s play was highlighted by his strong start in the opening 3 games which left him +93. A few knocks in the following games left him on a respectable +38 for the evening.

"Kenyon enjoyed a similar evening to Ray, one in which wins and losses cancelled themselves out. His highlight was most likely sitting out when Jaime went on his Oya charge and peeking at Noda’s hand while time and again the executioners hand thundered down to ron Noda.

"A fascinating and enjoyable night (well for the gaijins) ended with many enjoyable moments, but probably none more than the incredible 21 consecutive hands that Noda managed without a single victory. AS Roma can empathise."

Jaime
13blue.blogspot.com


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

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1 Comments:

At 11:43 pm, April 14, 2007, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Sir, the shockingly poor literary quality of some portions of this post are most reprehensible. Is the editor asleep at the wheel? The infinite number of monkeys with typewriters are still as far away as ever from Shakespeare, it seems...

 

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