Push/Fold Fundamentals
Mahjong is not a game where you can post good results just by attacking every hand.
At the same time, if you never attack, your score will never go up.
Every mahjong player has to decide whether to push or to fold.
That is what push/fold judgment is.
Push/fold decisions often seem to depend on feel.
For example, if there were a gamble where you pay 1000 yen and only get 2000 yen back once out of every three tries,
anyone could tell that it is a losing bet.
In mahjong, however, your opponents' hands are hidden.
You do not know their waits, and you do not know their point value.
The chance that your own hand will win, and the chance that cutting a dangerous tile will deal in, are both vague.
In a game full of uncertainty like this, how do you judge whether pushing is more profitable or folding is more profitable?
Before talking about push/fold technique itself, I want to begin with the most important thing of all:
the fundamental way of thinking that push/fold judgment rests on.
Do Not Judge by Results
Many beginners think that if they won, the choice was "correct," and if they lost, the choice was "wrong."
That is a serious mistake.
For example, suppose the dealer has already declared riichi, and your hand is:
Draw 
Dora 
On the very first turn after riichi, the player aggressively throws the non-suji 
.
After that, they keep the hand at one-shanten, then pon the 
and reach tenpai.
Immediately afterward, the dealer draws 
, and this hand slips past the riichi for only 1000 points.
You often see scenes like this in lower-level games.
So was this player's decision correct?
The answer is no.
"The win had value because it stopped the dealer from winning" is nothing more than result-based thinking.
It could just as easily have become a 12000-point deal-in.
To call it "correct" only because it happened to work this time is far too shallow.
Worse still, some people start thinking: "That called good luck in."
I am willing to stake every hour I have spent on mahjong on this statement:
Winning a hand does not magically bring good fortune your way.
People have long said that if you "play straight," the flow will improve.
I do not know why that kind of superstition survives, but I used to believe it myself for a while.
Then I kept playing mahjong, kept getting betrayed by that idea, and kept ending up with the same powerless frustration.
Who knows how many computer mice were sacrificed along the way.
Putting that aside, one thing is extremely important:
do not judge mahjong by the result alone.
Even if the result turns out badly,
if the choice itself was correct, then keep making that choice.
Do not let short-term outcomes trick you into making losing decisions.
Play With a Clear Purpose
If you only want to enjoy mahjong, then maybe it is enough just to know how to win a hand.
In that case, you do not need to think about push/fold at all. You can just keep pushing.
But if you are reading this page, then you probably have goals like the ones mentioned at the start:
"I want to improve my results in mahjong, or at least lose less."
"I want to reach a higher title in a mahjong game."
If you do have a goal, then choose the strategy that best serves that goal.
If you play under a rule set with a heavy bonus-chip ratio and your purpose is to raise your long-term profit,
then your push/fold decisions should naturally be adjusted to fit that rule set.
Or if you are trying to reach seventh dan or above in a system like Tenhou, where a lower last-place rate is especially valuable,
then the fastest path may be to specialize more heavily in defense.
What exactly do you want from mahjong?
If that sense of purpose is vague, then your push/fold judgment will become vague as well.
Different players will naturally differ, so this guide has to speak in general terms,
but both the rule set and the player's purpose are major elements of push/fold judgment.
Set Standards of Your Own
"That riichi came early, so it is probably a bad wait."
"I am running cold today, so I should fold."
Very few strong players make push/fold decisions based on that kind of wishful thinking.
If your judgment is built on guesses with no basis, good results are not likely to follow.
Because mahjong is a game of hidden information,
people naturally drift toward making choices based on vague impressions.
The way to reduce that vagueness is to rely on what you can actually see,
create standards of your own, and play while following those standards.
Then, by continuing to play and adjusting those standards based on the results,
your push/fold judgment becomes more refined.
In the past, unless you wrote results down in a notebook, it was hard to look back at your own mahjong objectively.
Now there are many convenient mahjong games that make it easy to record your results.
If your deal-in rate is too high, for example, it becomes much easier to notice that and adjust toward a more defensive style.
That said, if your initial standards are poor, improvement may still come slowly.
So from here on, I will present a set of basic standards for push/fold judgment.
After that, you can keep playing, and make small adjustments to fit your own rules and your own goals.
Just as you would look for clothes that suit you,
find a push/fold balance that feels right to you.
This guide is simply a small piece of advice to help you do that.
If you hold on to the fundamentals,
then even if you push a little too much or defend a little too much, your results should not become truly terrible.
Original Japanese page: http://beginners.biz/osihiki/osihiki01.html