Playing With Rank Awareness
Why is the score situation so important?
Because mahjong has two kinds of placement points: uma and oka.
Uma
Uma means the points paid out according to final placement at the end of a hanchan.
Most rules use one of these three patterns:
5-10("go-to": 4th pays10000to 1st, and 3rd pays5000to 2nd)10-20("one-two": the same idea, but20000and10000)10-30("one-three": the same idea, but30000and10000)
Oka
Oka is the placement bonus awarded to the first-place finisher of each game.
Mahjong has an original point value of 30000, but games are commonly started from 25000 instead.
That missing 5000 from each player all goes to first place.
In other words, taking first means gaining 5000 × 4 = 20000 points.
So the result looks like this:
That is the basic idea.
Under modern rules, what matters more for your final result is often not the raw points during the game itself, but rather the points added and subtracted according to final placement.
That is why you must always keep all four players' scores in mind during the game.
Once you enter South round and meaningful score gaps appear,
you should constantly ask yourself:
"What place should I be aiming for in this game?"
In particular, the placement value for first place is huge.
It is treated so favorably that it can almost feel as if everything except first is worthless.
As much as possible, play with first place in mind.
Rating systems in online mahjong are also basically placement-based.
That means your result is judged by final rank alone.
Never forget that mahjong is a placement game.
Choose your plays according to the situation in front of you.
There is a way to play when you are in first, and there is a different way to play when you are in last.
Original Japanese page: http://beginners.biz/joukyou/joukyou02.html