Friday 7th September: Human Computer Upgrade?

It was a relatively quiet session tonight. The first game seemed to last an eternity with nobody above the bar by the end of the second South round (where the Japanese game usually ends), so we played on through a West round, though Noda, for some reason best known to himself, seemed to think that the game reverted to East even though it has always gone on to West, as Noda taught us all those years ago...

David made the first breakthrough in the West round and thought he was coasting home on +67,000 when Noda suddenly took back 24,000 on David's 9-Coin discard. That result put Noda in the lead. Then Kenyon added insult to injury by claiming a further large sum from David on the next hand, and then took some off Noda too to claim the top spot.

He promptly relinquished his hold on the lead in the second game. David won it, but Noda's second "second and in the black" result gave him the lead as David had merely cut back his deficit and was still stuck on the bottom of a rather modest looking pile.

Kenyon struck back in the third, but David managed to find some good cover while Noda stuck his head above the parapet and received some shrapnel wounds. So Kenyon now took the lead and Noda and David trailed on -21,000 each.

The senior players were fading even as the Cola King was bucking up. The second and third games had gone quite swiftly so we agreed to play a fourth game, but inevitably, it dragged out to seemingly interminable length. David stuck fast to his cover, but Noda couldn't resist sticking his neck out and having a gorp and in consequence he got his block knocked off.

The result sends Noda into the red and gets Kenyon off the bottom of the Grand Accumulated Results Table.

So now we are wondering whether Noda has lost the plot again and whether the Human Computer has had a new operating system installed? Apart from a few bugs and glitches, it - er, I mean "he" - seems to be running well again on a DC** energy flow after suffering a series of power surges and crashes earlier in the year.

Kenyon +36, -42, +48, +45 = +87
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David -49, +31, -3, -2 = -23
Noda +13, +11, -45, -43 = -64


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** Discount Cola

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