Four on Friday, October 23, round 24 of the 2026-27 regular season, four winners, and not one of them was leading when the south round started. Asami Maki (Drivens, +61.9) waited out a three-hand run by Takizawa Kazunori. Shimoishi Geki (BEAST X, +59.2) cut a to keep the better shape, then won three big hands and passed Mizuhara Akina. Katsumata Kenji (Furinkazan, +52.8) sat third, 11,600 behind a Suzuki Taro who had already taken 8,000 off Oi Takaharu. Kurosawa Saki (Raiden, +57.4) tsumo'd a on the last hand of the night and went from third to first.
Results at a glance
| Game | Place | Player | Team | pt |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1A | 1st | Asami Maki | Akasaka Drivens | +61.9 |
| 1A | 2nd | Takizawa Kazunori | KONAMI Mahjong Fight Club | +9.1 |
| 1A | 3rd | Nagai Kosuke | EX Furinkazan | -25.1 |
| 1A | 4th | Hinata Aiko | Shibuya ABEMAS | -45.9 |
| 1B | 1st | Shimoishi Geki | BEAST X | +59.2 |
| 1B | 2nd | Mizuhara Akina | U-NEXT Pirates | +15.2 |
| 1B | 3rd | Honda Tomohiro | TEAM RAIDEN | -16.5 |
| 1B | 4th | Takeuchi Genta | Sega Sammy Phoenix | -57.9 |
| 2A | 1st | Katsumata Kenji | EX Furinkazan | +52.8 |
| 2A | 2nd | Takamiya Mari | KONAMI Mahjong Fight Club | +10.1 |
| 2A | 3rd | Suzuki Taro | Akasaka Drivens | -11.7 |
| 2A | 4th | Oi Takaharu | Shibuya ABEMAS | -51.2 |
| 2B | 1st | Kurosawa Saki | TEAM RAIDEN | +57.4 |
| 2B | 2nd | Kayamori Sayaka | Sega Sammy Phoenix | +8.7 |
| 2B | 3rd | Suzuki Yu | U-NEXT Pirates | -19.0 |
| 2B | 4th | Tojyo Rio | BEAST X | -47.1 |
Table A, game 1: Asami waits out Takizawa's run
Takizawa Kazunori (KONAMI Mahjong Fight Club) won the first three hands. A 3,900 and a 2,000 off Nagai Kosuke (EX Furinkazan), then 2,600 off Asami Maki (Akasaka Drivens). After three hands he had 35,500 and nobody else had won a thing.
Asami won east 4: , tsumo, , and an ura dora, 2,000/4,000. In south 2 she drew a with a red five after riichi, another 2,000/4,000, and took the lead. Then her dealer turn in south 3: riichi, and a dora, 7,700 from Nagai, and 45,100 on the board. She finished on 41,900 for +61.9. A French press crew was covering the night, kinmaweb says, so she closed her winner's interview in French: "GAGNONS DE SOIR!", this season's "Win tonight" slogan. The kinmaweb match report made it the headline.
The hand that mattered most for the standings was the smallest one. Before the last hand Nagai had 12,900 and Hinata Aiko (Shibuya ABEMAS) 14,600, and Hinata was on with dora. Nagai drew his own 500/1,000, and a dora. 14,900 to 14,100. Had the game ended with him fourth on 12,900, Furinkazan would have booked -47.1 instead of -25.1, a 22-point swing.
Table B, game 1: Shimoishi cuts the dora
In east 1, Mizuhara Akina (U-NEXT Pirates) declared riichi on a tanyao pinfu hand holding three red fives. Takeuchi Genta (Sega Sammy Phoenix), chasing with a 2p riichi, dealt her the red 5s. 12,000.
Two hands later she did it again. Three players held the 3m, so her 3-6m wait had one side left. She drew the 6m off the last tile of the wall, and riichi, tsumo, west, , a red five and an ura dora made it . At 47,900 she had nearly half the points on the table.
Shimoishi Geki (BEAST X) got it back in east 4. His choice was between a pair of dora 7p and a pair of 8s. Cutting an 8s kept both dora at the price of a bad shape. One 8s was already out, so the pair had little future as a triplet. He cut a 7p instead, the kinmaweb match report's "straight discard", and gave up one dora for a cleaner hand. The 7s he drew next filled his , and he declared riichi on a 5-8p . Mizuhara's read, as the kinmaweb report tells it: a player who cuts 4p early and then 7p isn't holding 5-8p, so the red 5p looked safe. She pushed it as her riichi tile on a 3m-9m and paid riichi, tanyao, dora, red five and three ura dora. Haneman, 12,000.
He started the south round behind Mizuhara. South 2: Shimoishi riichi'd first, Honda Tomohiro (TEAM RAIDEN) chased and dealt in for riichi, tanyao, pinfu, dora and red five, 8,000. South 3: riichi, tsumo, pinfu, red five and an ura dora, 2,000/4,000, and 47,200 on the board. In the he was 12,000 clear and drew a red 5p for a tenpai. He pushed a 6p into Honda's riichi and paid 8,000. Still first, 39,200, +59.2, his second win in a row after +65.2 on Tuesday. His line in the post-game interview, as kinmaweb printed it: "I'm glad it wasn't two ura."
Takeuchi didn't win a hand, dealt in three times and ended on 2,100. -57.9.
Table A, game 2: Oi pays three mangan in four hands
Oi Takaharu (Shibuya ABEMAS) dealt into three 8,000 hands before the east round was over. East 1: he chased a riichi from Suzuki Taro (Akasaka Drivens) and paid riichi, dora, red five and two ura dora. East 2: Katsumata Kenji (EX Furinkazan) sat on chiitoitsu, Oi thought for a long time and cut the 2m. East 3, one : Takamiya Mari (KONAMI Mahjong Fight Club), and three dora, 8,300. After four hands Oi stood at minus 300 points. M-League has no bust rule, so he played on.
Katsumata was third at that point, 11,600 behind Suzuki. He took the lead in south 1 with riichi, dora and an ura dora off Suzuki, 5,500 with the , added 2,600 off Oi in south 2, and stayed first to the end. 32,800, +52.8. The kinmaweb match report calls it a too-perfect hanchan: a dama wait on a tile that was safe for the player who would cut it, and in east 3 a on 2s to settle the hand cheaply while giving nothing away.
Oi climbed back to 13,700 with a 4,000-all tsumo on hatsu and three dora, then dealt in twice more. 8,800 and -51.2. Takamiya's riichi off him in the final hand moved her past Suzuki into second: +10.1 against -11.7.
Table B, game 2: Kurosawa's last tile
A quiet game, nothing above 5,200, until the last hand. Kurosawa Saki (TEAM RAIDEN) took 2,000 and then 5,200 off Tojyo Rio (BEAST X), Kayamori Sayaka (Sega Sammy Phoenix) led from east 3 on, and Suzuki Yu (U-NEXT Pirates) kept his dealer seat for one more deal with a tenpai draw.
Before the final hand: Kayamori 31,900, Suzuki 27,200, Kurosawa 23,800, Tojyo 16,100, with two honba and Suzuki's riichi stick on the table.
Kurosawa declared riichi and drew the 5s. Riichi, tsumo, pinfu, dora, red five and two ura dora. Haneman, 3,200/6,200 with the honba. She ended on 37,400, first, +57.4.
Three deal-ins left Tojyo on 12,900 and -47.1.
Standings after round 24
| # | Team | pt | Games |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | KADOKAWA Sakura Knights | +377.6 | 34 |
| 2 | KONAMI Mahjong Fight Club | +308.4 | 36 |
| 3 | TEAM RAIDEN | +98.7 | 34 |
| 4 | BEAST X | +73.6 | 36 |
| 5 | U-NEXT Pirates | +12.6 | 36 |
| 6 | Akasaka Drivens | -24.6 | 36 |
| 7 | Sega Sammy Phoenix | -51.4 | 36 |
| 8 | EX Furinkazan | -126.8 | 36 |
| 9 | Shibuya ABEMAS | -255.9 | 34 |
| 10 | EARTH JETS | -412.2 | 34 |
Team totals for the night: Drivens +50.2, Raiden +40.9, Furinkazan +27.7, Fight Club +19.2, BEAST X +12.1, Pirates -3.8, Phoenix -49.2, ABEMAS -97.1. Sakura Knights and EARTH JETS had the night off. Drivens hold the sixth and last semifinal place at -24.6, 26.8 ahead of Phoenix, and less than a third of the season is played. Setokuma Naoki (Raiden) leads the individual table at +429.5 from eight games, with an average place of 1.38.
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Three things to take to your own table
Count the sticks before you count the hand. Kurosawa was third, 8,100 behind Kayamori. Two honba and two riichi sticks turned that into a 1,300/2,600 problem. Before the last hand, write the conditions out instead of reaching for the biggest hand you can see.
The dora is one . The shape is the hand. Shimoishi threw a dora away to keep his hand clean, with Mizuhara on 49,200 going into east 4, and the riichi it bought him came back with three ura. A good wait with a 5-han hand beats a bad wait with a 6-han hand. You also keep the riichi stick more often.
In a placement system, the cheapest hand can be the biggest. Nagai's 500/1,000 was worth 22 points to his team. It swapped third for fourth, and in the middle of a game most are worth less. If you play ranked online, you already know the feeling. The all-last hand that dodges fourth is the one that pays.
Sources
Results and pt from the official M-League schedule page. Hand-by-hand from kinmaweb's text reports for table A, game 1, table B, game 1, table A, game 2 and table B, game 2, and its match reports on Asami, Shimoishi and Katsumata. Standings from kinmaweb's ranking page, updated October 23.
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