I personally wouldn’t prioritize saving the head over completing a 3 block because I’ve won plenty of games where I was tenpai waiting for the head and I’m able to adjust what I’m waiting on to something others are more likely to discard. Of course I wouldn’t intentionally aim for tenpai waiting for the head but if it plays out like that at least I can mess with people by waiting on a tile in a riichied player’s discard.
Edit: JPML’s play like a pro episode 3 explicitly teaches against committing to a head instead of just completing the block. Episode 5 further expands the idea by not even having a pair at tenpai in their second example.
Thanks I didn’t know about this video series, very interesting! Now that I think about it Riichi Book 1 also mentions a rule of having optimally no more than 2 pairs, and even without any, that there’s no need to worry too much about securing a pair.
Apparently favoring the shuntsu over the pair is so obvious that in the below example Chiba doesn’t even consider discarding the 5pin holy shit…
I personally wouldn’t prioritize saving the head over completing a 3 block because I’ve won plenty of games where I was tenpai waiting for the head and I’m able to adjust what I’m waiting on to something others are more likely to discard. Of course I wouldn’t intentionally aim for tenpai waiting for the head but if it plays out like that at least I can mess with people by waiting on a tile in a riichied player’s discard.
Edit: JPML’s play like a pro episode 3 explicitly teaches against committing to a head instead of just completing the block. Episode 5 further expands the idea by not even having a pair at tenpai in their second example.
Thanks I didn’t know about this video series, very interesting! Now that I think about it Riichi Book 1 also mentions a rule of having optimally no more than 2 pairs, and even without any, that there’s no need to worry too much about securing a pair.
Apparently favoring the shuntsu over the pair is so obvious that in the below example Chiba doesn’t even consider discarding the 5pin holy shit…